It looks like based on a cryptic tweet from Microsoft Game Pass that Outriders may be headed there

I'm not personally convinced this is for sure since it just references a "signal" and there are lots of games with something like that (for example Alan Wake) but the number of sites that have reported on it makes me think there may be some insider confirmation off the record (or not, it could just be a big rumor.)

While personally I would be happy to play the game on Game Pass even though I played the demo on PS5 and would have to go through it again, I think that if it launches day and date they should at least confirm this with enough time before launch for people to cancel their Xbox/PC pre-orders before it launches. It would be super sucky to pay for a game only to have it simultaneously launch on a subscription service without prior notification.

On the other hand, if it's going to be a few months until it goes to Game Pass then it's a little strange that Square Enix let Microsoft hint at this now rather than waiting for purchases to go through before announcing it a few months down the line (which I don't think would annoy too many people because everyone knows that the game they buy today may be discounted or come to Game Pass in a few months.)

In any case these rumors assure that I won't be buying the game at full price (which I wasn't planning to anyway) and will instead wait for the game pass release or a deep sale.

I think it does raise interesting questions about how Game Pass can cannibalize retail sales and the best way for Microsoft and publishers to deal with promotion around that. If they have a deal and they announce in the next few days that it's coming that's fine, but this hinting stuff seems like it could backfire.

And if Outriders isn't coming to Game Pass and this is about some other game then it's going to disappoint people who saw this hint.

Does this kind of hinting promotion build hype or just create disappointment because of the wrong conclusions people draw?

I mean the tweet is so vague it could be anything.

Outriders would be ideal for Game Pass though. The price seems quite high for a title without a lot of buzz the demo was quite flawed as well.

GP would privide good word of mouth, if the game any good that is.

Well I think the entire reason this is coming to Gamepass is that it probably isn't looking so hot sales or interest wise. If you get this into that subscription service you can breathe life into a multiplayer game that way and get a userbase vs your game being basically DOA.

Its always going to be a grey area thing. For me, I would continue my mantra of "dont buy games right at release if you really care about the price and value" and say that is getting more true day by day. And also Gamepass is a great value, even for the occasional sub.

Gamepass isn’t good for the long term health of gaming. For me, at my age, it’s been perfect to catch up on almost every game I’ve heard the bomb/beast cast mention over the last 10 years. It’s great but I’m on a unique position where I’m more interested in playing Bloodrayne 2 on my PS2 than anything announced, unannounced, or imagined for the next gen so far. A Max Payne 1, 2, and 3 hitting backwards compatibility (please god with achievements) is way more ‘important’ to me than a Max Payne 4 announcement and what they absolutely means in 2021 in regards to backend monetization features. Gamepass, Fortnite, PsPlus, and Rainbow Six type games are erroding what new releases even mean. The wait and see attitude is going to push the microtransactions or shadow drops to they can get the 15 seconds of Twitter fame. But for me. Even worse is the game behind the gamepass pay wall or ps plus pay wall when $60/$70 is a dream for what it costs to play resident evil 8 10 years from now. It’s only the price of a cup of coffee a day. That’s how they get you

It has been confirmed that Outriders will be on Game Pass day one on Xbox.

I didn't play through the demo, but watched several playthroughs. I think this is a game that is incredibly rough around the edges, but could do well if it released at half the price and had active developers who spent time tweaking the game.

Putting this on Game Pass would be great for fostering and immediate community.

Edit: This is no longer a rumor. They confirmed it. https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2021/03/15/outriders-coming-to-xbox-game-pass/

Gamepass isn’t good for the long term health of gaming. For me, at my age, it’s been perfect to catch up on almost every game I’ve heard the bomb/beast cast mentioned over the last 10 years. It’s great but I’m on a unique position where I’m more interested in playing Bloodrayne 2 on my PS2 than anything announced, unannounced, or imagined for the next gen so far. A Max Payne 1, 2, and 3 hitting backwards compatibility (please god with achievements) is way more ‘important’ to me than a Max Payne 4 announcement and what that absolutely means in 2021 in regards to backend monetization features. Gamepass, Fortnite, PsPlus, and Rainbow Six type games are erroding what new releases even mean. The audience is being trained to have a wait and see attitude which is going to push the microtransactions or shadow drops of games to capitalize on 15 seconds of Twitter fame and pay what you’re paying Ninja to say about your game works (like Apex legends which is titanfall 2 for poor people). But for me. Even worse is the inevitable future of exclusive game behind the gamepass pay wall or ps plus pay wall when $60/$70 is a dream for what it costs to play resident evil 8 10 years from now. It’s only the price of a cup of coffee a day. That’s how they get you. That’s what’s going to happen with the next Fallout or Starfield. The online only games of the Division are training us for the Single player not mmo but pay like you’re playing an mmo, experience.

Well they confirmed it in time for pre-orders to be cancelled, so I give them credit for that. If the hint was just meant to build buzz for a day or so that's fine, and makes sense.

I guess I'm playing this on Xbox then. I think it's a smart move for a game that didn't seem to have a ton of momentum behind it. Microsoft probably paid a big chunk of the development costs, and if the player base gets big they could make money off DLC and the like, and there could be good word of mouth etc...

From Microsoft's perspective launching a biggish game like this day and date adds real value to the service.

I was thinking about switching classes anyway after the demo. Now I guess I will since I'll be on Xbox.

I feel like this has to be the sort of thing Microsoft discusses with publishers beforehand. Considering making a tweet like this would have a major impact on the sales of any game it could be (especially in cases like these where it's a game that's not out yet and will be coming to Game Pass day one), it seems like the sort of thing that would start pissing publishers off quick if Microsoft did it entirely of their own volition. If I had to guess, I'd say the other people in this thread theorizing that Outriders isn't doing looking too hot sales wise probably aren't far off.

That said, I think the openness of the Game Pass approach (both to hyping upcoming titles and to getting games day one) is starting to feel a little bit reckless. I wouldn't be surprised if there are already people who hold off buying mid-tier titles on the assumption they'll come to Game Pass soon after launch. Add to that the fact that this tweet (as ambiguous as it can read) is one of the more specific ones, I can't help but feel like they're intentionally leaning just a bit into that aspect of "everyone guesses, and even if their guess is wrong they'll still get excited."

This vague bullshit is a fucking garbage way to "announce" something.

I'm guessing Square Enix didn't see a healthy number of preorders on Xbox. Or they are forecasting low sales on that platform.

Well, this does make me more tempted to give it a go at release, instead of spending 60€ on the PC or PS5 version. I hope this deal brought People Can Fly some money too, cause I'm not sure if thing's going to be much of a hit, based on the demo reception.

Yah this is the perfect place for this game. A middling cover shooter in the middle of a release wasteland is probably going to do fairly well if it's bundled into Game Pass. Otherwise that demo didn't really do it any favors. As part of Game Pass which I already have I'm willing to give it a few more hours of my time.

@bladeofcreation: What? They did a tease on Friday and announce in full on Monday.

@humanity: funny thing is, it's not a cover shooter. If you're in cover much you're going to die. Once you get your powers/mods setup it's meant to almost entirely be you out of cover. Such a bad tutorial for how the game actually plays.

@permanentsigh: or Microsoft just paid them a bunch of money up front.

@senorsucks2suck: I think you have it a bit backward. Huge online forever games are the last thing they want on game pass. They want a crap ton of single-player experiences and variety. Sure there will be some service games, but those eat up all your time and make a subscription kinda pointless. The main point of game pass is to give single-player games an outlet that doesn't require massive sales. Studios like Arkhane get to make games now that aren't focused on sales, which is good because their games are awesome and don't sell well.

@doncabesa: I mean you still take cover at times. At least as a pyro I found it nearly impossible to play 100% aggressive and still needed to take strategic cover because you get overwhelmed otherwise.

@doncabesa: Thats not quiet true. You just want people to continue to sub, short singleplayer content won't work unless you can provide a lot consistently which is much harder than something like Sea of Theives with regular updates.

Games with long term engagement are a much better fit, and cheaper. Paradox CEO literally said their games are perfect for game pass for that very reason.

Apple Arcade started out with variety and singleplayer content, but shifted to games with longer term engagement to the dismay of quite a few developers.

Nice.

@topcyclist: I just prefer the dry erase board of game creation of 2021 to mimic what they looked like during the ps1 and ps2 era. Everything now is flip a switch if outcome A happens. Crank up the grind like Avengers if outcome B happens. Games are no longer released into the wild and gamepass is influencing/forcing developers hands in the same way the micro transactions first, always online 2nd, and cellphones are doing. I will never download a free-to-play game on my phone. I won’t allow myself to enjoy a mobile game for fear of what comes next. Read that again. Shame.

@thepanzini: that's why they have 23 first party studios and 40+ teams. constant content with a mix of sp, mp, co-op, all the genres they can etc.

@doncabesa: Given game pass is very much in the growth phase their grabbing every piece of content they can.

When subs platou they definitely be using some sort metric to gauge success weather its new subs, recurring or engagement it'll likely be the latter which they talk about a lot during their earnings call etc and it will certainly shape future content.

All of MS studios are also very new with content piplines already planned out, anything greenlit from MS would be years away.

I never made the assertion their would be no singleplayer content, only that subs do favour titles that provide long term engagement. Skyrim is that kind of game people dump hundreds of hours into it and it still has 20k concurrent players a decade later. That one game will alone keep you subbed for months if not years.

Think of it this way fewer Hellblades more timesinks or games with regular content updates, which tbh most of MS content already is.

Outriders is a 30hr game with endless replayability its the biggest third party GP release on console, and Crusader Kings 3 was likewise for PC both fit the mo. The games MS spends real money on will be like this more often than not.

There's a Doom-Ancient God's trailer that I'm seeing for the first time. As long as Microsoft can dangle DLC, story, and modes behind Gamepass they can modify and tailor price based on the individual. This isn't Oprah's you get a car. This is more research your data and see you haven't finished Skyrim and offer you another month for a dollar once you're lapsed. Tailored ads.. don't take an arrow to the knee.. finish skyrim for $1 or $1.50 during the inevitable price hike. Put gamepass on every TV they can get with just Peggle 2's of the world when it makes sense and Gears 5 type games whenever possible. Get onto the other consoles with a sweetheart deal and then take over. It's like accessing gmail on my iPhone. Google probably hates that. But Sony is probably in one of their worst positions in any of their console launches (1. no must have newish disc media 2. Unavailable stock 3. Near parity with Xbox 4. No mobile/cellphone game income 5. Theatrical Releases what they are 6. twelfth/last place in the streaming space aka non-existent). *Michael Jackson popcorn gif*

@senorsucks2suck: I mean Sony Music has the must lucrative mobile game of 2019, Fate/Grand Order makes a stupid amount of money.

Mark me down in the category of people that wouldn't have even looked at this, but will because it's going to be on Gamepass.

@takayamasama:

I mean..I still have 0 interest in this game. But Gamepass should be renamed to GOATpass

@bladeofcreation:

Hey. You could be shitty Remedy and announce your gsme is gonna be on ps plus AFTER you took people's money and the last gen version was out. At least people can easily cancel their pre-orders.

Game went from a "Won't even notice it drops" to a "OK might seriously play a few hours of this"

@haz_kaj: Yeah exactly. I have no idea what this game actually is, just heard people talk about it over the past few weeks. I'll give it a try just solely on it being a new addition to Gamepass, as I've been trying a ton of things I normally wouldn't. Sometimes even finding some real gems!

When a 3rd party game launches on Game Pass on day one that means the publisher has zero confidence on it and is taking whatever deal gets offered to them. Maybe I'm blinded by privilege but I already own so many games that I don't need to play a mediocre game just because it's free (assuming you already subscribe). And I think if someone is really going to play this game for 100+ hours it will be more cost-efficient for them to buy it once rather than rent it for a year.

@apewins: This is obviously false for indie games and smaller titles, and also ports of games from other systems (for example the Xbox ports of the Yakuza games launched on Game Pass, and those are fantastic games.)

It is sometimes true of bigger third party games but not always (Outer Worlds was technically a third party game, though by a Microsoft acquired studio, and it launched on Game Pass).

But there is still value in games like The Medium and some of the other games that launch on the service even if they're not huge AAA GOTY contenders.

Based on its demo Outriders isn't anything great or groundbreaking but it's a competently made shooter and people should get some fun out of it, especially when there's nothing else big releasing at the same time.

Also it obviously doesn't make sense to subscribe to Game Pass for one game you're going to play over the course of a year, but, that's not how the service is supposed to work. You subscribe for everything. So if you subscribe from April 2021-March-2022 you can play Outriders for 100 hours but also play all of Microsoft's first party games, a lot of indies, some older AAA games, everything on EA Access etc...

If you're just going to play Outriders and nothing else then of course you should buy the game instead. Though even then if you subscribe for a month or two you may actually come out ahead because this game's price is going to drop quickly so you might be able to pick it up for $40 or whatever by the end of the month.

Having played the demo of Outriders, and being a GP subscriber, this is still not enough to make me install this game. There are much better co-op shooters on GP: Destiny and Gears of War come to mind.

Additionally, I think you can get the Division 2 (also a better game) for around $9 US on the MS store.

@wardcleaver: It's a bad demo because the fun part of the game is going to be the higher level areas with more powers/build variety.

@doncabesa: One would hope so but... we really don't know

Similarly, how much of the game is spent in the "bad start" and how long between having a good setup and "endgame" (of which a selling point is that there won't be a lot of...).

For example: Been years, but I would say Borderlands 1 and 2 "open up" around the time you get your first gun slot (so 3/4?) because, by then, you have access to Scooter terminals, are consistently getting "fun" gun drops, and have enough variety that you can start flexing. Plus, you probably have enough ranks to have unlocked your ultimate and maybe a bit of flavor for it. Talking out of my ass, let's say that is around hour 3 or 4 of a 12-16 hour game.

What if you don't really get anything "fun" until hour 12 or 13? We just don't know

Fortunately, there are these things called "reviews" that will drop shortly before/after release that can do a good job of letting us know

@gundato: Obviously reviews are useful here, but I'd say that given that the game lets you pick up after the demo without losing progress, and given that it's going to be free for Game Pass subscribers, there's not much risk in finding out for yourself if it opens up later (if you played the demo.)

Obviously money isn't the only important thing, and time has value, but you can just play until you decide you don't want to anymore and there's no guilt or buyer's remorse because there's no investment of money.

Also most games are fun with friends, even if they aren't great games, and while in a game like this it can be hard to find other friends who also have it...game pass makes that much easier too. There will be a big multiplayer population and it will be easy to find people.

This game fits very well into Game Pass, and while if it reviews super badly it might not even be worth a couple more hours of checking out, I think it's the kind of game that could be worth playing even as like a 6, just to see if it clicks with you.

I've found a lot of games that are widely viewed as mediocre or bad (or even are objectively mediocre or bad) were worth playing for me because of some aspect.

@bigsocrates: I dunno. There are so many good F2P games (ESPECIALLY in the shlooter genre) that "it is free and might be fun with friends" just isn't enough for me. Like, kudos if it is for you but I already got other F2P shlooters that I know are good.

@gundato: It's new content. Whether it's good enough to play through (vs just mess around with) or not is undecided, but there are lots of games that don't review well but are worth playing and if the price is free then it's worth checking out until it becomes boring or unpleasant.

I guess if you're the type of person who likes running through the same content over and over and over then sure, it's unlikely to be as good as the best in the genre, but as I found out during the original Destiny playing the same stuff over and over will make me go from kind of liking a game to hating it so intensely that I won't even check out the sequel when THAT goes F2P because I have an aversion to the entire franchise from the repetitiveness.

Wish it was on the pc version as well. I like the demo alot but it's buggy as hell and crashes constantly for me, also stutters like crazy.

Gamepass' strength is giving life to the B tier of games again. I'd never pay $60 for this but I'd 100% play this on Gamepass. Game isn't too bad to play (I'm guessing from what little I know of Warframe, this game is one of those games) but man is the story + dialouge abysmal.

I played the demo today, and I gotta say, I'm really not amped about playing a cover shooter. Even if it does encourage you to play more active and less defensive with how the health and shield regen. The story and dialog seemed generic and like they were trying too hard to be "edgy" with the writing. Gamepass would maybe encourage me to play a bit more of it, but there's no way I would purchase it.