Yesterday, developer People Can Fly released the latest—and repeatedly delayed—patch for Outriders. It was supposed to fix an issue wherein players would get killed instantly, without explanation. Instead, it appears to have irritated everyone under Enoch’s sun.
The patch notes for yesterday’s long-awaited update are minimal, purporting to address a bug that miscalculated armor values and one that allowed Brood Mother enemies to kill players in one hit. (Those two problems, in tandem, are apparently among the reasons players would die in seemingly a hit or two.) It also addresses “crashes” and “minor bug fixes,” plus some outstanding sign-in issues, which have plagued the game with varying severity since it launched nearly two months ago.
But this is Outriders, the game that can’t catch a break, so the new patch didn’t quite deliver. Following the rollout, players took to the game’s subreddit to share video clips of their characters dropping from full (or nearly full) health to nothing. Predictably, the page is awash in memes poking fun at the state of the game, some of which are pretty funny, actually. But the consensus seems clear: Players are frustrated.
Washington Post reporter Gene Park tweeted that he saw someone call the studio “People Can Nerf”—which, sure, good effort on that person’s part, but c’mon, that’s not even a good pun! This came up because, in early April, People Can Fly pushed out a patch that seriously nerfed the Trickster class by increasing cooldowns for its special abilities. That sparked some conversation about whether or not People Can Fly prioritized the primary concerns with the game, and about why any developer would even want to cut into player’s power in a noncompetitive game in the first place.
This all amounts to what the kids call a “total bummer.” Outriders, at its core, is an engaging, punchy third-person shooter with unique abilities that are generally really fun to use. But the prevalence of bugs—and, more notably, the staying power of those bugs—make it difficult to play, particularly when there are so many terrific alternatives right now.