‘Outriders’ release date: Day one launch on Google Stadia is confirmed for Square Enix’s upcoming third-person shooter

“Outriders” is one of the new IPs under the Square Enix library that will launch in the coming months, and gamers will not need high-end PC setups and consoles to play it on day one. The upcoming third-person shooter is confirmed to launch on Google Stadia simultaneously with other gaming platforms.

‘Outriders’ release date, gameplay: What to expect

Square Enix confirmed Tuesday that “Outriders” is having a same-day release on Stadia along with its PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S launch on April 1. A pre-order page for the game has also been opened through the Stadia website.

“Outriders” has been mainly advertised as a co-op third-person shooter, but developer People Can Fly also said it will be narrative-driven with single-player and role-playing gameplay. It will let players customize their characters and choose from four classes: Trickster that can control time, Pyromancer that can navigate fire, Devastator that can summon earthquake-like attacks, and Technomancer.

Adding Google Stadia to the platforms where “Outriders” will be launched on day one is a piece of good news to players without high-end PCs and gaming consoles. Through the cloud gaming service, players will only need a stable internet connection with at least 10MB/second speed to access the game on their everyday laptops, smart TVs, and mobile devices.

Why the ‘Outriders’ day-one launch on Stadia is important for Google’s gaming business

The same-day release of “Outriders” on Stadia is also good news for Google and its video games business. The company had recently dissolved its in-house game development team SG&E.

A new report from Kotaku now reveals that the shutdown of SG&E was more tumultuous from the inside. Sources said Google Stadia vice president and general manager Phil Harrison sent a Jan. 27 email to the in-house developers saying they have achieved “great progress.” The team was built so Google can offer first-party games to boost Stadia’s popularity. However, Harrison’s message was very different from what transpired less than a week later. The Google exec announced in a Feb. 1 blog post that they are shutting down SG&E and that the company is abandoning plans to develop its own video games.

In the same blog post, Harrison emphasized that Google will continue working on Stadia as a platform. But with no first-party games in the pipeline, many were left wondering what’s in store for the cloud gaming service. Having day-one launches like with the “Outriders” could be viewed as Google continuing its efforts to increase the number of active users on Stadia.

Gaming services like Google Stadia are a good solution for the increasing costs of building a decent gaming PC and new-gen consoles. The only downside is Google has yet to offer the cloud gaming platform to many countries as it is only currently available in the United States, Canada, and several European countries.