Outriders launch issues affect crossplay and DX12 performance

(Image credit: People Can Fly)

If you're struggling to stay connected to Outriders pals playing on console, you're not alone. Square Enix has posted a message to Reddit asking players not to attempt PC/console crossplay until a fix has been released.

The Square statement says that "in preparing the Day 1 builds for PC and Consoles, we discovered a desynchronization between the PC and Console code. This results in a backend mismatch which causes players to be kicked out of a multiplayer game that includes both Console and PC players."

The post adds: "Should you invite a Console player into your PC game via an invite code (or vice versa), the game will initially connect, but one player will eventually be kicked out of the game. We highly recommend against doing this until we have patched all versions of the game."

Many players have reported problems logging into the game over the past 24 hours. The Square Enix statement says the team is working on a fix ASAP. "We will provide news on it's release as soon as we are able to." In the meantime Steam and Epic players should be able to play together.

Connection problems are quite common when new multiplayer games come out, given the sudden surge of interest that accompanies the release, but it looks like there are additional issues at the moment on PC, including spotty performance.

"We are aware of an issue with our DX12 implementation that can cause PC players to encounter stuttering, a hard crash or shader cache issues due to an overloaded CPU." says Square Enix. "We are investigating this urgently and hope to provide a resolution in the near future." You can find a list of workarounds in this Reddit post, and official updates on other issues, such as blurry visuals and items falling through the map, in this roundup.

The issues have contributed to a 'mixed' reception on Steam. It looks like it might be worth waiting a week or so before picking this one up, but if you're keen to start building your character now, check out our guide to the best Outrider classes.

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.