While Outriders may have failed to recoup its own development budget, there was still hope among fans, myself included, that a sequel could build upon the first game’s solid foundations and fulfil its potential. Sadly, a new report has laid that hope to rest, claiming that Outriders 2 has been cancelled.
Thumb Wars broke the story, stating a source informed them that Outriders 2 was one of the recently publically cancelled projects. The information was apparently verified by a secondary source as well. According to the sources, the game was “nearly finished” and that the “development team only became aware of the gravity of the studio’s situation at the same time as everyone else.”
This information should be taken with a dose of salt. Established in 2024, Thumb Wars does not have a track record for breaking exclusive stories and their writing team doesn’t have much experience. This isn’t to say that they do not have sources or can’t have access to exclusive information, just that their claims should be treated with reasonable scepticism.
The situation Thumb Wars refers to is People Can Fly’s ongoing financial problems. While the company has seen growing revenue over the past few years, profits have not risen. In fact, they’ve reported over -$60 million in loses.
Right now, the company is being kept afloat by its ongoing work on Gears of War: E-Day, along with working on a mystery project with Sony on a PlayStation IP. They are also going to release Lost Rift – an FPS that blends base-building, cooperative PvE, and intense PvPvE gameplay – into Early Access “soon”.
Outriders was an interesting sci-fi title that managed to draw in 3.5 million players in its first month, largely due to launching onto Game Pass, and while the reviews were nothing amazing, a lot of people seemed to quite like the game. However, it did not manage to break even, as was confirmed multiple times by People Can Fly in financial documents. The publishing deal with Square Enix allowed People Can Fly to earn royalties only after Outriders recouped its development costs, including distribution and marketing. Outriders failed to earn any royalties, and therefore did not make back its costs, sadly.
A sequel was therefore already a riskier proposition. I personally thought a sequel had a lot of potential, so I’m sad that we won’t get to play the finished project.