Outbound hits 1.5 million wishlists

Square Glade Games released Outbound on Steam on May 11 after months of momentum that included more than 1 million wishlists by October 2025 and about 1.5 million wishlists by launch-week accounts from gaming outlets. The game, a van-life survival and building sim, arrived with a $24.99 list price and a 10% launch discount that runs through May 25, according to its Steam store page. Within days, the launch conversation shifted from wishlist demand to player complaints about content, pricing and performance, and then to the studio’s responses to negative reviews. By May 14, Steam showed 597 user reviews, with 71% marked positive. ### How big was Outbound before launch? Square Glade Games said in an October 2025 Steam post that Outbound had crossed 1 million wishlists before release. Kotaku reported on May 12 that the game had recently reached more than 1.5 million wishlists on Steam, and 3DJuegos separately reported roughly the same figure around launch. February 2026 demo players had already turned Outbound into a visible Steam Next Fest title, with community posts praising its low-stakes building and exploration loop. (store.steampowered.com) Steam community threads from the demo period show players asking for the demo to remain available and describing the game as one of their festival standouts. ### What set off the backlash after release? (store.steampowered.com) Steam community posts dated May 11 show players accusing the developers of asking users who left negative reviews to refund the game and remove or change those reviews. One discussion thread that was later marked answered by the developer centered on that complaint. Kotaku reported that screenshots of those replies spread beyond the game’s store page and drew additional criticism. (steamcommunity.com) Steam’s review page also shows at least one highly rated user review referring to the “Refund and Remove your negative review” replies while criticizing the game’s price, performance and amount of content. (steamcommunity.com) ### What did the developers say after that? Marc and Tobi of Square Glade Games wrote in a Steam discussion reply that they were “genuinely sorry” for how their recent messages had come across. The pair said the first 24 hours after launch had been “incredibly overwhelming” and said they had handled the situation badly. The same post said the studio would no longer ask anyone to change negative reviews and had deleted its previous comments. (kotaku.com) The developers also said they were “working around the clock” on reported issues and that some earlier replies about fixes reflected what they believed had been deployed at the time. ### What were players criticizing besides the review replies? (steamcommunity.com) Steam’s store page shows Outbound launched at $24.99, with a $2.99 “School Bus Adventures” DLC item and a $4.99 soundtrack available at release. User reviews highlighted those prices alongside complaints about shallow progression, repetitive gathering, sparse world design and performance problems. (steamcommunity.com) OpenCritic listed the game with a 65 average from 20 critic reviews and a “Weak” rating, while Metacritic’s critic page showed a spread from positive notices to sharply negative ones. SteamDB said the game reached an all-time peak of 5,778 concurrent players on May 11 and was running at 1,610 live players when the page was crawled on May 14. ### Where does the launch stand now? (store.steampowered.com) Steam’s May 14 store listing still labeled Outbound “Mostly Positive,” based on 597 user reviews, even after the dispute over developer replies. The same page said the latest update was posted “Today” and linked to a May 12 message thanking players for an “incredible, busy day since the launch.” May 25 is the next concrete date on the store page, when Outbound’s 10% introductory offer is scheduled to end. (opencritic.com) Marc and Tobi said in their Steam response that they were returning to work on the issues players had raised, making patches and community handling the next test for Square Glade Games after the game’s first week on sale. (store.steampowered.com)