Why This Line In Outriders Is Drawing Attention

Outriders, the third-person loot-shooter from People Can Fly and Square Enix takes place in an alternate future after Earth has been destroyed. As a result, humanity must venture out into the galaxy in search of a new home. However, despite the setting, Kotaku has reported that certain players feel a conversation between the Outrider (player character) and Jakub references recent political events in the U.S.:

Outrider: "I'm getting major déjà vu in this place. Reminds me of that mission is Damascus, where we rescued those diplomats."

Jakub: "I had to save your ass from that machete-wielding mob."

Outrider: "Ha! More like that time I had to save your sorry ass from that redneck mob storming D.C."

Though some have drawn parallels between the D.C. comment and the real-world early 2021 incident when a mob stormed the United States Capitol building in support of President Donald Trump, Square Enix and People Can Fly told Kotaku,"We wrote and recorded the script for Outriders a couple of years ago and all aspects of it are entirely fictional and related to the backstory of the game. Any similarities to real-world events are purely coincidental."

The attack on the Capital occurred on Jan. 6 and the demo for Outriders, which reportedly included this line of dialogue in it, released on Feb. 25. As pointed out by Kotaku following the statement from Outriders' publisher and developer, video games take years to make, so the idea that the team behind Outriders scrambled to write and record dialogue in such a short amount of time for one throw-away line seems unlikely.

Outriders launched on April 1 for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and came to Xbox Game Pass for console on day one. Despite sharing many similarities with games like Destiny 2, Outriders is not a live service game, complete out of the box with no microtransactions. People Can Fly has said that the title could see expansions release later down the line, depending on how the initial experience is received by players.

Outriders was originally intended for a September 2020 release before being delayed to Holiday 2020. Square Enix then pushed the game to February 2021 before ultimately moving its launch to April. Video game delays have become increasingly common due to the ongoing global pandemic, with major titles like Gotham Knights getting delayed until 2022.