While the looter-shooter genre is a crowded space as is, developer People Can Fly threw its hat into the ring with its newest game, Outriders. Games like Destiny 2, Warframe, Borderlands 3, and The Division 2 have dominated the space for several years now, and it was fair to question if Outriders would be able to find a space for itself. It appears the game has on Xbox, despite the game being available for free on Game Pass.
Outriders follows the last remnants of humanity attempting to colonize the distant planet Enoch after Earth becomes uninhabitable and the first colonizing efforts all but fail. Players take the role of the titular Outrider, an elite soldier imbued with powers because of Enoch's mysterious Anomaly, who awakens from cryo-sleep years after the first failed colonization effort. It is now up to the player to protect the surviving colonists as they try to establish themselves on Enoch and fight off various threats.
The NPD Group Executive Director and Video Game Advisor Mat Piscatella took to Twitter to share the promising news about Outriders' first month of sales. The game is proving to be a financial hit, becoming the third-best-selling game of March 2021, behind Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War and Monster Hunter Rise. It's proving especially popular on Xbox, as it hit number 3 for the top-selling games of March.
It's also sitting at number 10 in the top 10 selling games for 2021 year-to-date, though exact sales numbers have not been released.
The strong sales are likely a sign of relief for People Can Fly and publisher Square Enix entering the crowded genre. Despite the initial technical problems, it offers an experience players appear to gravitate to by melding third-person style combat akin to Gears of War with a similar loot system to Destiny to encouraging grinding and replaying until landing that elusive god roll weapon or piece of gear.
It does not have the online requirements looter-shooters like Destiny and The Division 2 have, either, making it more accessible to a wider potential audience. That said, anyone who does enjoy the online experience can play with two other people.
It's also a good sign for the game's popularity on Xbox, despite being available to download for free via Xbox Game Pass. But this is still beneficial to anyone trying Outriders because, thanks to Game Pass, they will always have an easy route to get the game again should something happen to their purchased copy.
Outriders is currently available on PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Stadia, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S.