Cyberpunk 2077’s botched launch has been a wake-up call for others in the industry, with the RPG’s poor launch on PS4 and Xbox One in particular highlighting the pitfalls that cross-gen optimization (especially for games developed on a tight timeline) can face. Of course, most major games coming out right now are cross-gen, so the question of whether or not we’re going to have another similar situation on our hands is being asked often. One developer who’s confident that it won’t run into similar problems is People Can Fly, the studio behind the upcoming RPG shooter Outriders.
GamingBolt recently sat in on a group interview with Outriders game director Bartek Kmita and lead game designer Piotr Nowakowski. When asked about the Cyberpunk situation and about whether Outriders’ development faced similar issues, the developer said that they had to contend with their own set of problems during development, Outriders isn’t in the same situation, and runs fine on consoles.
“I don’t know exactly what challenges [CD Projekt RED] had with their game,” they said. “We see the results, and they were not as expected, but [we are not aware] about the exact things. It’s hard to say, that’s the first thing.
“Second, of course, we have our own problems that we need to overcome. And looking at the game as it plays on the consoles right now, I don’t think we have similar challenges to overcome, and the game just works on consoles. [Whether] on the previous gen, on the current one, we are covered. So yeah, I don’t expect as having similar issues like other developers.”
How true that is is something we will only know when the game launches, of course, but if Outriders’ demo is any indication, it shouldn’t face any crippling issues on last-gen consoles. Though the game obviously isn’t going to run as well or look as good on PS4 and Xbox One as it will on their next-gen counterparts, it at least seems to be hitting the acceptable standard.
In the same interview, the developers also spoke about their post-launch plans for Outriders, and the game’s complete lack of microtransactions. Be sure to read about both through the links.
Outriders launches on April 1 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia. On Xbox, it’ll also be available via Game Pass on day 1.