Outriders Dev on Lack of Microtransactions: “We Wanted to Take the Old-School Approach”

Public opinion on People Can Fly’s upcoming RPG shooter Outriders has really turned around of late. Though initially met with skepticism as yet another contender in the looter shooter space, Outriders has managed to win a lot of fans with its recent meaty demo, for which reception has been solid all around. One of the things that has been popular with fans is People Can Fly’s insistence that Outriders is a full-featured game at launch, not a live service title, and especially not one that will release in an incomplete state.

Something else that goes hand-in-hand with that is the game’s complete and total lack of microtransactions. Recently, GamingBolt sat in on a group interview with People Can Fly’s Bartek Kmita and Piotr Nowakowski, who are creative director and lead game designer on Outriders respectively. When asked about the reasoning behind the decision to not have any microtransactions or battle passes in the game whatsoever, the developers reiterated that their sole focus was on delivering a complete game.

“We decided to go the old school approach, where we are just finishing the game and giving it to the players, not thinking about the microtransactions, game passes, and things like that,” they said. “At some point, it was easier for us to think about the game that way, just delivering the whole product. We believe players will like that proposal, that they’re just buying something.”

They went on to say that though there is a chance that People Can Fly adds battle passes (or something similar) to the game down the road, that will still be tied with “bigger components” for players who want to experience more of the game, rather than revolving around smaller microtransactions.

“Of course, it doesn’t close for us the option in the future to just add a battle pass or other similar content, but not like microtransactions, it would be more like the bigger components that can help those players who want to go deeper into our world, play in that world,” they said. “But until then, we will have what we have created, and that is enough. Do we want to build on our world and mechanics? Sure, but not in the form of microtransactions.”

Outriders launches on April 1 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia. It will also launch on Xbox Game Pass (for consoles) on day 1. If you’re planning on playing the game on PC, you can check out its system requirements through here.

We’ll be going live with the full interview with the Outriders devs soon, so stay tuned for that.