Outriders has been a major topic of discussion in the gaming community since its release on April 1, and recent hours-played totals prove why it's made such an impact this month. Right now Outriders is one of the top three most-played Xbox games in the world, and that's not including everyone else exploring the world of Enoch on PlayStation, PC, and Stadia. The most obvious contributor to its success on Xbox might be Outriders' day one release on Game Pass, but the looter-shooter has more to offer than just another AAA experience for the Xbox crowd.
When developer People Can Fly released the Outriders demo back in February, it came with the promise that any progress players made could be carried over to the full game. This was one of several factors that gave interested players incentive to try out the game, and this was over two weeks before the Xbox Game Pass announcement. Players on all platforms jumped into the experience, and the Outriders demo passed 2 million downloads in its first week. Although both the Outriders demo and the full game have struggled with bugs and server issues, there are still many players logging on every day, and Xbox players lead the pack.
According to the latest totals from Xbox, Outriders sits at the third most-played Xbox game in most global markets. Outriders is behind two battle royale games, Call of Duty: Warzone and Fortnite, in the US, UK, France, and Brazil, and it actually ranks second in Australia. Each of these games is essentially free-to-play on Xbox besides the cost of a Game Pass subscription or purchasing cosmetics/items in Warzone or Fortnite, which speaks volumes of the popularity of a free-to-play experience in today's market.
Outriders' success should also continue to boost Microsoft's confidence in Xbox Game Pass. The service regularly has over 100 released games available for gamers to choose from, but day one releases of new games keep things interesting. Organizations behind other games have taken notice of the reach Xbox Game Pass games have, and recently it was revealed that first-party PlayStation game MLB The Show 21 will be the next game to launch on Xbox Game Pass. The decision to put MLB The Show 21 on Game Pass wasn't Sony's, but rather a play by publisher MLB to reach a larger player base, something that Xbox Game Pass is certainly capable of.
Outriders has a big update scheduled for next week that will hopefully fix all of its major issues and bring back players sitting out on the experience due to launch week troubles. The rest of April will be a critical time for People Can Fly to work to keep a captive audience so Outriders can hold its position high on Xbox's most played list and continue to entertain gamers on other platforms as well.
Outriders is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.