Square Enix's Forgotten Loot-Shooter Was Years Ahead Of Its Time

Released on April 1, 2021, the cooperative loot-shooter Outriders established a structural framework that strongly parallels major 2026 multiplayer titles, including Marathon and Arc Raiders. Developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix, Outriders sent players on runs from a safe hub into dangerous zones to fight enemies, gather loot, and fine-tune character builds. While it lacked player-versus-player modes and featured lower stakes than modern extraction shooters, its core gameplay cycle closely mirrors the loops driving present-day hits.

Narratively, Outriders centers on a 22nd-century human expedition fleeing Earth to settle a star system 12 light-years away. Upon arrival, the colonizers face hostile native alien lifeforms and an exoplanet environment that grants them cosmic superpowers. The overarching sci-fi plot incorporates classic tropes such as cryosleep, planetary anomalies, and civil conflict to build its setting.

The title struggled as a solo experience, but its team-oriented mechanics excelled in cooperative play. Players could choose from four distinct classes: the Trickster, capable of manipulating time; the Technomancer, utilizing turrets and mines; the Devastator, serving as a heavily shielded tank; and the Pyromancer, wielding fire abilities. While players could brute-force early content alone, later encounters required strategic class synergies. The gunplay benefited from People Can Fly's previous experience developing action games like Bulletstorm and Gears of War: Judgment.

Outriders also introduced a distinct difficulty structure known as World Tiers, offering 15 dynamic challenge levels alongside standard character leveling. Players could select any previously unlocked tier before starting a mission, with higher tiers yielding both tougher enemies and superior loot. To reduce inventory management friction common in loot-based games, the title enabled players to configure settings to automatically gather items based on chosen rarity tiers.

The game suffered a difficult launch characterized by severe server failures and balance issues. People Can Fly eventually stabilized the experience and later poked fun at the initial troubles with an in-game emote. Despite the launch problems, the title reached over 3 million players during its first month, aided significantly by its inclusion in the Xbox Game Pass catalog at release. Following this initial surge, Square Enix publicly projected that Outriders was positioned to become its next major franchise.

That trajectory ultimately stalled. The game's 2022 expansion, Worldslayer, failed to capture a wider audience or bring back a significant portion of the original player base according to metrics from SteamDB. Years later, People Can Fly experienced three separate rounds of staff reductions across 2024 and 2025, alongside the suspension of two internal projects—one of which was reportedly an Outriders sequel. While a follow-up appears unlikely, the original game's servers remain operational.