Japanese publishing giant Square Enix has said that Xbox Game Pass helped make Outriders a success.

In an investor Q&A posted on the company's website, the firm's president Yosuke Matsuda said that as a result of Microsoft's subscription service, the game had reached a large audience. Outriders launched at the start of April and by the end of its first month on the market had attracted 3.5 million players.

During this Q&A, Matsuda was asked whether Square Enix was working on similar games to Outriders off the back of its success, as well as being asked how well the game was performing.

"It does not mean that we will necessarily be releasing more titles in the looter shooter genre like Outriders," he said.

"We have yet to announce some of our forthcoming releases, so I hope you will look to us unveiling those in June and thereafter. In regards to the response to Outriders, while there were slight issues with bugs and the like on launch, we believe it has gotten off to a good start as a new IP. In addition, we have been pleasantly surprised as the digital sales ratio for the title have been very high, and the number of active users has also beaten our expectations.

"We believe that our decision to make Outriders available with Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass as soon as the title launched also worked in our favor. (to build an installed base for the game)."

As of December 2021, Xbox Game Pass boasts 18 million subscribers.