Outriders has been sort of ethereal since the moment of its reveal. Every time it feels like we’re getting closer to actually playing it, it gets pushed back. The latest delay was announced just last month, after many thought the game would surely be out in February as previously planned. The good news is that we will get to play Outriders this month, just not the full version. If you’re intrigued by Outriders, this guide will explore everything you need to know about the game’s upcoming free demo, scheduled to go live on Thursday.

It’s a demo, not a beta

This may admittedly seem like a meaningless distinction in 2021, following years of the game industry effectively treating betas as demos, but it’s an important one to make in Outriders’ case as will become clear soon. What we’ll be playing is a demo offering a decent chunk of gameplay. Though the demo itself includes a cross-play beta, the rest of the content should be representative of the final quality. The Outriders demo also isn’t time-limited. You can play it for as long as you like, and it won’t be removed, meaning new players interested in sampling the game at launch and beyond will still be able to download and play the demo.

Outriders demo release time

The Outriders demo will be available on PC (Steam, Geforce Now streaming), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S - but not Stadia, beginning Thursday, February 25. Servers go live on all platforms at the same time worldwide, which is: 9am PT, 12pm ET, 5pm UK, 6pm Germany, 4am Sydney (February 26).

Outriders demo download size

The Outriders demo has a fairly modest download size, considering how massive games and patches these days tend to be. You’re looking at a roughly 24GB download on PC, and 22GB on consoles. Once installed, the demo will take up a bit more than that on your drive.

Outriders demo pre-load

Unfortunately, you will not be able to pre-load the Outriders demo on any platform. Given the download size, however, that’s not too bad.

How to access the Outriders demo

Seeing as the Outriders demo is entirely free, you don’t need to pre-order the game to gain access. This also means that you won’t have to worry about getting a code or an activation token or anything like that. Once the demo goes live, head over to your console’s store (or Steam on PC) and search for ‘Outriders demo’ and start the download.

Outriders demo progress

In what’s becoming increasingly rare, Outriders developer People Can Fly is actually making it possible for your progress in the demo to carry over to the full game. This includes your story progress, character levels, inventory, unlocks and so on. The only caveat to this is that progress only sticks to the same platform. Despite Outriders supporting cross-play, it seemingly does not support cross-progression.

Outriders demo content

The Outriders demo includes a generous amount of content. For starters, all four classes will be available to choose from. All six character slots will be in the demo, too, meaning there’s more than enough room to experiment and explore the different classes. In terms of story content, you’ll have access to the prologue and Outriders’ opening chapter. You’ll get to play right up to and including the confrontation with antagonist Gauss. After defeating them, more side content will become available, which you can also play. Your character’s level is capped at 7, and People Can Fly says that’s enough to unlock four active abilities. You’ll also get two skill points you can spend anywhere you like in the skill tree. As for difficulty, only up to World Tier 5 is available in the demo. World Tiers are essentially difficulty levels, which you climb up/down through dynamically as you play. The better you do, the higher World Tiers you’ll activate, and the more interesting the rewards become. There are also other limitations on resources and materials, which are in place to avoid cases where players grind out the demo and get a big advantage at launch. Beyond that, the game’s crafting system will not be part of the demo, so you’ll have to make do with dropped loot.

Outriders demo cross-play

The Outriders demo supports cross-play between all of the game’s platforms. The feature is being beta tested over the next couple of weeks, so you’ll need to manually turn it on in the game’s settings if you want to play with friends across different platforms. Seeing as Outriders is an entirely PvE game, there hopefully shouldn’t be any dismay about cross-play here.

Outriders PC specs

People Can Fly recently revealed the minimum and recommended specs for Outriders. Those specs apply to the beta, and it’s worth keeping in mind that the full game will also support DLSS. The developer even shared resolution and performance targets for each set of specs, and you can check them all out below.

Outriders minimum PC specs (720p at 60fps)

OS: Windows 10. CPU: Intel i5-3470, AMD FX-8350. RAM: 8GB. GPU: Geforce GTX 750 Ti, AMD Radeon R9 270x. DirectX: DirectX 11. Storage: 70GB.

OS: Windows 10. CPU: Intel i7-7700, AMD Ryzen 5 1600. RAM: 16GB. GPU: Geforce GTX 1060 6GB, AMD Radeon RX 480 8GB. DirectX: DirectX 12. Storage: 70GB.

Outriders is out April 1 on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Stadia.