In a completely surprise announcement, Polish game developer People Can Fly announced a new release date, and a new demo, for their upcoming online co-ip shooter, Outriders. The free demo releases next month, to give players plenty of time to break into the world of Outriders, learning the game’s mechanics and unique world. With the announcement of a demo, the release date has been changed to April 1st, which the developer insists is not an April Fools joke.
The news comes from the developer via a tweet released earlier today. The tweet accompanied a brief message, detailing the nature of the demo and the new release date. In the message, the Outriders team boldly states that their philosophy is for players to experience a brand new Ip in video games before it releases. With this philosophy, the team will release a free demo that will incorporate the first few hours of the game and can be played in both single-player and co-op, with all four classes available. The demo is not timed and can be downloaded as long as it is available. When Outriders launches, all progress made in the demo can be transferred over to the final game. The message also confirms that a new release date has been announced, April 1st 2021. This new release date will allow the developers to better refine and adjust Outriders for the best possible launch.
An important update regarding Outriders. pic.twitter.com/HHZrq5GIik
— Outriders (@Outriders) January 6, 2021
For those unfamiliar with Outriders, the game was announced early in 2020. Outriders is a sci-fi shooter that can be entirely played in single-player or co-op multiplayer. Taking place within a deep sci-fi fantasy, Outriders puts players in the role of a warrior, known as an Outrider. In the hostile world of Enoch, players fight vicious alien monstrosities to ascertain the truth of a mysterious signal. Players will encounter many hundreds of hours worth of missions and activities, as Outriders sports a deep RPG system and gear mechanic.
This announcement from People Can Fly is most unexpected, but it is great to see the studio try something new with Outriders and become more consumer-friendly. People Can Fly had already declared that Outriders would contain a large amount of content, including post-campaign content, which is an unusual choice, given the nature of the game. The news of the demo makes Outriders widely accessible to all players. Additionally, this surprise announcement feels in direct response to the calamitous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, which delivered well below the promises set in pre-release trailers and screenshots. It appears that in lieu of such a disastrous launch, the Outriders team is putting themselves in a position to be better and set an example to further improve the expectations of prospective players and restore faith in weary consumers.
Outriders launches on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox One Series X, and PC on April 1st, 2021, both physically and digitally.
