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People Can Fly’s Outriders demo has already broken the top ten selling games chart on Steam after only a few days. The demo’s release has driven pre-orders on the cooperative action RPG numbers through the roof.

Outriders is the latest installment in the looter-shooter genre to be added to Steam. Created by Bulletstorm developers People Can Fly and published by Square Enix, Outriders is a sci-fi action-adventure RPG where players can team up in squads to take down enemies in the pursuit of more loot across multiple platforms. Hype began when the first trailer was revealed in February 2020 and Xbox also released a new trailer ahead of the demo's launch on February 25.

Following the release of the free demo on Steam, Outriders pre-orders rose to the top ten best-sellers games chart. According to the Steam database, Outriders quickly began climbing the charts after the demo became available to download on Steam and consoles. Outsiders is the 7th best-selling game on Steam at the posting of this article. Along with Outsiders, Stardew Valley was also featured in the top ten best-sellers after a 50% off sale in celebration of the game’s fifth anniversary, placing just ahead of Outsiders in the chart. The worldwide release of Persona 5 Strikers was also in the charts, taking up two of the ten chart spots. The hit early access survival game Valheim managed to remain at the top of the chart for another week after a boom in popularity.

The rise of Outsiders may be perfectly timed, with EA officially shutting down Anthem for good and Destiny being between major updates. The loot-based shooter genre is ripe for the picking right now. Similar loot-based games, such as Diablo 4 and Diablo 2: Resurrection, are expected to launch in either late 2021 or early 2022 after the recent Blizzcon announcements. People Can Fly timed their demo perfectly, giving people a chance to try out their game during a dry period in the market.

Whether or not these pre-release numbers will reflect the overall success of Outriders is yet to be seen. Pre-release hype has burned many franchises before, with the memory of Cyberpunk 2077 release still raw for many gamers. Triple-A titles tend to get a lot of hype and pre-orders, only to not live up to expectations on release. Hopefully, this won’t be the case with Outriders, with players able to test out the waters early on with the demo and see if they really are willing to invest.

Outriders will be released on April 2 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Stadia.