Outriders demo: how to play the 'Destiny 2 killer' everyone's raving about

If you haven't heard of Outriders, crawl out from under that rock and get ready to dive into the cross-platform looter shooter from the studio behind the delightfully crass Bulletstorm. 

Not set for release until April 1, 2021, the demo is live right now, and plunges players into a sci-fi world they can shoot their way through with two of their closest friends/ random internet people. Because it's a full-blown demo, it won't be going anywhere, and can be downloaded at any time, 

Available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and of course Xbox Series S, the demo will eat up around 25GB max, depending on your platform of choice. So PS4 players may want to hold off on that Call of Duty update after Activision's PSA about how much space it'll take up.  

Outriders supports cross-play, so you can squad up with friends on different platforms; the feature is in beta and needs to be activated via the in-game menu. To find out more about how to get started, whether your progress will carry over, and what lies in store in the demo, scroll on down.

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Outrider demo  – How to access and play the demo 

Annoyingly, you need to have a Square Enix membership to access the Outriders demo. It's free, so it's not the end of the world, but it's a bit of a faff if you don't have one already. You can scan the on-screen QR code presented to you, or visit the link to the website and enter the code the demo generates for you to link your account. One you're all linked up, you're good to go!

Outrider demo – what's included?

Players will have access to prologue and opening hours of Outriders, making for over three hours of gameplay that consists of the opening act, a handful of main questlines, and some side quests you can pick up during the campaign, or once you're done with the main quests. It's drop-in, drop-out co-op, so you can rotate friends if they've been audacious enough to make weekend plans that require leaving the house (or not being online). 

All four Outrider character classes (Devastator, Pyromancer, Technomancer, and Trickster) are available, although there are six character slots so if you want to try a new class at any stage, you can create a new character, and skip the prologue to get stuck into the meat of the game immediately. Seeing as it's a demo, it should come as no surprise that there's a progress cap which kicks in at level 7. You can find out more about the available classes in Square Enix's dedicated Spotlight Series on YouTube.  

Outrider demo – how to enable cross-play 

Don't know anyone else with a PS5 because they're impossible to get hold of? Aside from bookmarking our PS5 stock tracker, you can squad up with your friends on any other platform!

The feature is in beta and is disabled as default for the demo, but you can switch it on in a jiffy. Just head to the settings and enable cross-play. If no one's online, regardless of platforms, you can party up with internet strangers at your base camp using the matchmaking option.   

Outriders demo – will progress carry over to the full game?

It will, so while you're waiting for April to roll around, we recommend getting stuck in with all four character classes to find your favorites so when launch day comes, you can pick up right where you left off. 

Another thing to note for last-gen players is that the PS4 and Xbox One version of Outriders can be upgraded for free to the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions, so you can go ahead and pre-order or buy when the game launches on April 1, 2021, and upgrade when you're ready.