Outriders hit with launch day server and connection issues, should be more stable now [Updated]

What you need to know

• Outriders is a brand-new co-op looter shooter from Square Enix and People Can Fly.
• The game launches today, and is included in Xbox Game Pass, but is being hit with intermittent online issues.
• Players are having trouble signing in to the game, joining their friend's lobbies, and playing in online co-op.
• The Outriders team seems to have fixed some of these issues, but players may still experience trouble.

Update April 2, 2021 at 4:29pm ET: Outriders' developer People Can Fly has noted that Square Enix is responsible for the on-going server issues, delivering a statement on their own Twitter account.

Update April 3, 2021 at 12.50pm ET: Outriders servers are, once again, down, and being investigated by Square Enix.

Update April 3, 2021 at 14.35pm ET: Square Enix says that it has implemented more server fixes and that connectivity should resume "soon." As of writing, we're still unable to get back in ourselves, though.

Update April 4, 2021 at 6.22pm ET: Square Enix says Outriders servers are currently stable at highest concurrent player-base so far. Users still seeing issues may need to do a cache recycle (fully power off console and unplug for a few minutes). Some issues may also be resolved by selecting a chapter from the lobby menu, rather than hitting "continue."

Original article:

The latest big game release is Outriders, which officially releases today. This game is a co-op focused looter shooter that combines aspects of popular games like the Division 2, Destiny 2, and many more. However, despite cross-play co-op being a huge component of what makes Outriders appealing for many gamers, Outriders is running into a string of network-related issues on launch days. The Outriders team has been staying on top of it all day to resolve issues.

Players have been running into issues in Outriders, including:

• Trouble authenticating and signing in to Outriders initially
• Trouble connecting to friends and co-op lobbies
• Poor connections, network lag, and more inside of lobbies
• Intermittent disconnects from co-op lobbies

The Outriders team is working hard to resolve all these issues. It's not immediately clear what's causing these issues, but it does seem like Outriders uses P2P (peer-to-peer) for online multiplayer, which means one player in a lobby "hosts" the other players. P2P usually isn't as reliable as dedicated servers. On top of this, many of the online multiplayer issues also seem to be stemming from the requirement of a Square Enix account to sign-in and play Outriders (Outriders uses Square Enix accounts to enable cross-play).

Things should be considerably better for Outriders than they were earlier today but bear in mind that you may still run into some issues attempting to play the game, especially in co-op. Hopefully, things continue to improve for Outriders, since the game is at its best when played with friends in online co-op. You can keep track of Outriders issues through the Outriders status page.

Outriders is available now for Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC. You can also play Outriders at no additional cost through Xbox Game Pass for consoles. If you aren't familiar with Outriders or these kinds of games, be sure to check out our ultimate beginner's guide to Outriders for some sweet tips and tricks.

Outriders hasn't been around long enough for us to say for certain, but if the game delivers it can certainly earn a place on our list of best Xbox Game Pass games.