Outriders is finally out today for all of the things (save for the Switch). But some players have reportedly found themselves unable to play, seemingly stuck on an infinite loading screen. Pro tip: Just stay in line. They have to count your login.
A similar issue plagued the Outriders demo, which became available late February and allowed players full access to the game’s prologue and first chapter. In the demo, you could circumvent an infinite loading screen by falling back on the time-tested method of “turning it off and back on again.” More often than not, closing and reopening the game would do the trick. (Speaking from personal experience, sometimes you had to do this process twice.)
Now that the full game is out, that workaround no longer appears to work. The only known solution is a virtue: patience.
“Just wait I waited like 5 minutes and finally got it,” one user wrote on Reddit.
“Same!” wrote another.
In a Reddit post, a Square Enix representative said the publisher was “looking into” the problem, and confirmed the current best fix. “Waiting a little while should eventually let you log in.”
“We’re aware that a small percentage of players are encountering certain issues and our teams are proactively gathering information and working on updates and fixes,” a Square Enix representative said in a statement to Kotaku, and pointed to the game’s known-issues Reddit thread, which offers the most up-to-date info on when fixes might be made available for things like this.
I played a bit of Outriders last night. When I first booted up the game, I found myself facing an apparently infinite loading screen, and tried the method that worked so well throughout the demo. It did not work, but sitting on my ass for a hot second did. After about five minutes, I was able to get into the game, where all of my hard-earned progression from the demo—all four characters with all their gear and resources and skills—was waiting for me.
DISCUSSION
Wondering if this is worth the investment (of time, not money since I’m already on Game Pass). Made it to the settlement in the demo but got sidetracked into Destiny 2 again. The combat felt like a really janky last-gen Mass Effect mashed with The Division. Wasn’t really doing it for me.
On the other hand I was stunned by how good the writing and dialogue was from what I’d played. Not sure what exactly the extra ingredient was, but the exchanges with the other colonists talking about leaving Earth and what not was among the best, maybe even the best, I’ve ever experienced in an open world/RPG type of game. I may have to give it another go just to see if the quality holds up.