People Can Fly delayed Outriders’ release to April 1, but softened that blow by announcing a rather large demo for fans to check out starting on February 25. That’s just a few days away, so the developer took to Twitter (first spotted by Eurogamer) to give excited players the rundown on what to expect from the upcoming trial.
First off, People Can Fly hammers home that this will be a free demo and not a beta. It’ll be available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. The install size for PC requires a minimum of 24GB. On consoles, you’ll need at least 22GB. The dev teams notes that the size for both could increase after decompression. You will not be able to pre-install the demo beforehand.
The demo includes the game’s prologue and opening chapter. It runs up until the confrontation with Grauss, the first big boss fight, after which side quests will open up and players can return to the open world to explore. Character levels cap at 7 and players can try all four classes and keep six character slots, meaning you can save builds of every character without deleting any. People Can Fly says that by level 7, players will have their 4th class ability, giving them enough powers to mess around with.
Players can progress to world tier 5, which scales the dynamic difficulty high enough to allow rare gear drops. Crafting resources will be capped at a certain point to retain balance, and while crafting itself won’t be enabled until the full game, players can save resources collected in the demo until then.
All progress transfers over the main game, provided you play it on the same platform account that you played the demo with. You can’t earn achievements/trophies in the demo, but in-game awards carry over. The demo will feature crossplay, but must be manually enabled as it's still in beta form. There’s no time limit on the demo, and it will remain accessible even after Outriders launches.
Finally, the studio also published a release schedule for every available territory:
Outriders is launching April 1 to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia, and PC. Will you be checking out the demo? Let us know in the comments!
[Source: People Can Fly via Eurogamer]
Bungie, the legendary studio behind the classic Halo trilogy and the popular live-service Destiny franchise, is taking measures to “prepare for the company’s expected and rapid future growth.” In an emailed press release, Bungie has affirmed plans to expand the studio, add key personnel to help create more nuanced IPs, and build upon the already extensive universe of Destiny.
Last month, Bungie made definitive moves to secure a detailed expansion and redesign for its headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. The large-scale operation is slated to be finished in Fall 2022 and will increase the HQ’s 84,000 sq. ft. space to more than 208, 000 sq. ft. To put that into perspective, that’s just below the size of four American football fields combined. This new, enlarged space will house multiple development teams in addition to the experts tasked with working on the Destiny games. Additionally, Bungie will be opening its first international studio in Amsterdam at some point next year.
The Bungie Leadership Team is also facing positive changes. Mark Noseworthy (Vice President, Destiny Universe) and Luke Smith (Executive Creative Director, Destiny Universe) are set to oversee the brand’s foray into other forms of media (yes, this is vague but very exciting at the same time for any Destiny diehards out there!). Justin Truman (General Manager, Destiny 2) will step into the central role of leading the future development plans of Destiny 2.
“In addition to building state-of-the-art facilities to support the growth and development of their talented employees, “ the press release reads, “One of the primary drivers of Bungie’s expansion is to increase the commitment to the long-term development of Destiny 2, tell new stories in the Destiny Universe, and create entirely new worlds in to-be-announced IPs.”
What do you think this means for Destiny moving forward? Will the franchise live on in potential movies or spin-off television shows? Or will we be seeing new Destiny games in the near future? Share your thoughts below! Be sure to check out some of our previous impressions of Destiny 2's content here and here.