Developer People Can Fly's co-op-focussed looter-shooter Outriders received a bit of a mixed critical reception at launch, but publisher Square Enix seems pretty happy with the public response, saying the game is "poised to be the company's next big franchise" after 3.5m unique players flocked to the experience in its first month.
Things didn't exactly start off smoothly for Outriders when it launched on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC at the start of April, of course, with server woes leaving many players unable to access the game for almost three days. Despite those early wobbles, Square now says Outriders has seen over 3.5 million unique players since launch, amassing an "average play times of over 30 hours" and "extremely high engagement for co-operative play".
At least some of its success can probably be attributed to its day-one launch on Xbox Game Pass, but regardless, Square says Outriders is now on track to become the company's "next major franchise", suggesting more instalments could eventually be on the way - not bad for a game many had written off after some early, rather underwhelming reveals.