Outriders’ demo is just about here and the release date, April 1, is rapidly approaching. Since its initial announcement and first playable demo, comparisons were made to popular live-service games like Destiny 2. Although, from a gameplay perspective, the comparison is apt, the release plan couldn’t be any more different.
While Destiny 2, and other similar games like The Division 2, were designed to be expanded on over time via paid and free add-ons, Outriders has not been designed that way. The devs have continued to remain firm on the idea of releasing a finished game; a complete package.
Twinfinite recently participated in a group Q&A with two members of the Outriders team, Bartek Kmita (Creative Director) and Piotr Nowakowski (Lead Game Designer), and we were able to glean some insight on how this philosophy of releasing a complete game permeates into everything they were willing to discuss ahead of the demo releasing tomorrow, Feb. 25.
The Delays
Outriders has been delayed a few times now, from December 2020 to February 2021, and now to April 1. According to the developers, the Covid-19 outbreak, while a factor, wasn’t a big reason for the delay as they were already prepared for remote work [Credit: Inside the Game].
Instead, the delay happened mostly because the team needed more time to finish polishing up small, but crucial, things that would have added up and jeopardized the quality of the release.
The team did not want to have to fix these problems after launch and wanted to ensure they were releasing a game that was as close to a finished product as possible, hence the delay.
Releasing a Cross-gen Game
While some games, such as Cyberpunk 2077, struggled with ensuring that last-gen consoles would keep up with PC and current/next-gen, the Outriders team didn’t experience problems at that level.
The team, obviously, weren’t able to speak to what happened specifically with Cyberpunk 2077 but their own experience on developing a cross-generational game appears to have gone well, them telling Twinfinite: “it just works on consoles; previous-gen, current-gen.”
Post-Launch Support
When asked about post-launch support [Credit: Wccftech], they reiterated that their goal is to deliver a complete game at launch.
The Outriders experience doesn’t have to conclude at the story’s end, though. We’ve known for a while now that the campaign will last about 20-30 hours, depending on how much exploring you do. However, Expeditions are the game’s main post-campaign content and will push the playtime longer if players choose to engage with it.
Expeditions are designed to be the ultimate challenge for hardcore players that want to push their character builds and skills to their limits. There are no firm plans at the moment for anything else to be added to the game post-launch.
There will be no microtransactions, even for cosmetic items, and no DLC content has been announced. Everything that is currently announced and planned will be in the game and included in the price of admission.
That said, when Twinfinite asked about smaller-scale post-launch content, the team acknowledged that the door isn’t completely closed to the idea. Giving the impression that if Outriders is successful and fans are vocal about wanting more, there could be things added later in the future.
Regardless of that, though, the developers will be monitoring Outriders after launch and making tweaks as necessary to ensure nothing is broken, that the meta is stable, and that nothing is upsetting the balance of the game.
Outriders will release on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC and Google Stadia on April 1.
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