Outriders Reference To US Capitol Riot Is "Purely Coincidental"

A line in Outriders that appears to reference the January 6 insurrection in Washington DC is "purely coincidental," according to publisher Square Enix.

Outriders features a sci-fi story in which Earth has been abandoned for a new home, but various characters are old enough to remember their prior planet. In a dialogue exchange reminiscing about old times and swapping war stories, your player character makes a reference to saving your partner from a "redneck mob storming DC."

At a glance, this appears as if it could have been a reference to the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol building, in which supporters of former President Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election results. However, Square Enix says this isn't the case.

"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," a spokesperson told Kotaku. "Any similarities to real-world events are purely coincidental."

Basing such a line on real-world events would have been difficult in any event, given that games require such long development times. The line of dialogue was already present in the game's demo, which was released on February 25. That was just under two months after the insurrection, so making, recording, and implementing the dialogue just afterwards would have been exceedingly quick.

Outriders is off to a great start judging by server popularity, but intermittent server issues have also been a source of frustration for players. For more on the game, check out tips you should know before starting Outriders.