If you hadn’t already known, I have been enjoying my time with Square Enix’s and People Can Fly’s title, Outriders. The gameplay is fun, the modding system is the best I’ve seen in any game, and even at 80 hours in, I feel as if I’ve only scratched the surface. However, due to certain issues, my enjoyment of the game has soured. More specifically, the ongoing issue that results in the character’s entire inventories being wipes. Gone. Like it never existed. And that, my friends, is a potential deal-breaker.
This glitch has devastated several players ever since complaining about it. Heck, it nearly happened to me a few days ago while I was loading into a co-op session. My character sat frozen for 20 seconds, and while doing so, I noticed that the gear that had loaded in with me disappeared. I was horrified, and all I could think of is “Crap, there goes all my time with this game.” Thankfully after another 30 seconds, my gear appeared. Though I couldn’t switch to my sidearm for a few moments, thankfully, that was also rectified shortly after. The problem here is that shouldn’t have ever happened. I can’t recall one game with an inventory wipe glitch as bad as Outriders has currently.
Just a short note to reassure you that resolving the inventory wipe is our top priority and will remain so until fixed.
The moment we make a breakthrough we will immediately update you all.
As a reminder, we are aiming to restore progression – details:https://t.co/7DZulERIkm
— Outriders (@Outriders) April 10, 2021
Could you imagine a bug like this in a game such as Diablo? A game that is so dependent on your gear that has driven players to this day to continue playing the game? Only to have everything gone in an instant and through no fault of your own? It’s like a gut punch, and I don’t know if you’ve ever been punched in the gut; it hurts.
Others haven’t been so lucky, as I noticed over on the Outriders subreddit. Every day, more and more people have started complaining that their character’s inventories have been wiped. The only thing left is what you’d see if you created a new character. All their hard-earned epic and legendary gear were gone. That would piss me off to no extent.
Now, People Can Fly are aware of this. In fact, the first patch that was released was supposed to help with these issues. Instead, more people have started saying that they’ve lost their gear. So that means the patch didn’t help. This is a line from the 1.05 patch notes that supposedly addresses this concern.
Will Fix a multiplayer crash that could result in client players having their inventory wiped
Except it didn’t. Now it seems like the glitch is getting worse. The image below sums up how I feel about this perfectly.
Some are even reporting that the characters who did get wiped cannot log back into the game. Whether this is part of the glitch or something implemented by People By Fly has yet to be determined.
Why is this happening?
While People Can Fly hasn’t stated the actual case, I have a theory about what’s happening. When you create an online session or connect to one, the servers initiate the session and tosses all the players into a peer-to-peer game. Then everyone starts to load in, except for the host. During this time, your data is sent to the host who acts as the server, and should anything that causes a blip with the connection to occur; this is where the problem occurs. The game will load or attempt to load you in, and if there’s a mishap, it saves your game. The problem here is that there’s no sort of error checking, and if saves at the moment your character does have its gear loaded in, the problem presents its self. You end up with a character with no inventory and a game save that has been overwritten.
What can you do to protect yourself?
Sadly, it would seem that for now, the only way to prevent this glitch from happening is not to play online. No co-op at all. This means you wouldn’t be able to play with randoms or friends in modes meant for co-op play. This undoubtedly will hurt the game, but if you give a damn about your characters and the time you invested in them, it’s worth it.
What’s being done about this?
The developer, People Can Fly, is aware of the issue and released a Twitter statement. They stated they are aware of the issue and are working to reduce the inventory wipe occurrence from happening. There’s no ETA on a fix, but they have mentioned that if you notice your gear has disappeared, immediately close out the game. Then reboot your console or PC.
They also mentioned that they would also restore characters who have experienced the character wipe at an unknown date. The downside to this is it is weeks out, and the restoration won’t be 1:1 restore. Only epic and legendary gear will be restored, and even then, those items may not have the same stats. This sounds like they’re just going to give you a piece of gear with random stats instead of what you lost. And that sounds like a terrible idea to me. Especially for those who’ve farmed for specific pieces of gear, built them up using precious resources, only to have this happen. I hate to say it, but it sounds like People Can Fly doesn’t know what characters have in thier inventories. I bet those dedicated servers that people were asking for sound like a good idea with each passing day.
I got to be honest here. I am very hesitant about playing Outriders again. I love the game when it works. But there have been far too many issues and glitches that the game has experienced. While I’m not saying it’s on the level of another game that I won’t name, the state of Outriders is an embarrassment. I know People Can Fly has been working around the close to fixing the issues, but at this point, it’s not enough.
If I lost my character after 80 hours of gameplay, I don’t think I’d ever touch the game again. And I know I’m not the only one who feels this way, and it stinks. Outriders is a great game, but one that is plagued by all these issues. Ultimately, it’s the issues that have soured the community, and rightfully so. The ball is in People Can Fly’s court, and I hope they can turn this around.
A Few Changes I’d Like To See Made To Outriders
Please fix this and do it quickly. While the game is far from unplayable, no one wants to play half a game or risk losing it all in the process of enjoying the endgame content. I enjoy the game and I don’t want to see it fail due to this bug.
Outriders is available for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, PC, and Stadia.
