Outriders Will Launch Day One On Xbox Game Pass

Microsoft has announced that Outriders will be available on Xbox Game Pass when it releases on April 1. This only applies for players on console (or mobile via xCloud), as the game is not going to be part of Game Pass on PC.

Outriders coming to the service was teased last week in a Twitter post on the Xbox Game Pass account. Fans speculated that the post’s reference to a “mysterious signal” and distant “anomaly” could be a hint that the game would be launching on the service, so today’s confirmation is validation for those people.

Outriders launching on Game Pass is a big deal for the game. The third-person RPG-shooter from Square Enix recently had a demo that gave players plenty to do for their first taste of the game. While there has been some positive reception to the demo, the game is still not that high on people’s radar.

There’s also the challenge of having to differentiate itself from similar games such as Destiny and competing for attention with other big name games. With those factors taken into account, it’s great for Outriders to be released on Game Pass for a large number of people to play without having to spend money.

This is also the first big third-party AAA game to be launched on Game Pass. Moves like this are ones that Microsoft is going to want to continue pushing for from other publishers as they try and make their Netflix-for-games subscription service more appealing and valuable to non-subscribers.

Securing Outriders in this way is the latest big win for Microsoft. Just last week the company finalized their acquisition of ZeniMax Media and Bethesda Softworks. Bethesda now joins Xbox Game Studios and brings with them a number of high profile games and studios that will be exclusive to Xbox and platforms that support Game Pass. And ever since last Friday, 20 of Bethesda’s titles have been added to Game Pass. If you aren’t a Game Pass subscriber yet, now’s as good a time as any to sign up.