Obsidian Entertainment’s RPG follow-up, The Outer Worlds 2, launched today, but the debut has been marred by connectivity problems. Within minutes of the 1:00 p.m. EDT release window, players began reporting that the game could not be purchased, installed, or launched on Xbox Series X|S, the Xbox app for Windows, or through Xbox Game Pass.
Those disruptions are tied to a widespread outage on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform—the backbone for many of the company’s online services and infrastructure—rather than to any fault in Obsidian’s servers or the game itself.
Obsidian has acknowledged the situation and is sharing ongoing updates on Bluesky, confirming that the studio is coordinating with Microsoft to restore access. The team posted: “We’re working with Microsoft to resolve the issue and will update players when we have more information.”
Due to an ongoing Azure service outage, The Outer Worlds 2 may be temporarily unavailable to purchase or install on Xbox Series X|S, the Xbox app on PC, and with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass.
— Obsidian (@obsidian.net) 2025-10-29T17:13:46.819Z
Because the root cause lies with Microsoft, Obsidian’s ability to fix the outage is limited. Microsoft’s Azure status page reports that engineers have started rolling back to a previously known-good configuration and expect that deployment to finish within about 30 minutes, at which point customers should begin to see recovery symptoms. On the status page the company states, “We have initiated the deployment of our last known good configuration, which is expected to complete within 30 minutes. As this deployment progresses, customers should begin to see initial signs of recovery.”
It remains unclear whether access will return simultaneously for all platforms or whether Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, and standalone purchases will recover at different times. For minute-by-minute updates, Obsidian’s official social channels are the most reliable source.
This Azure incident follows a separate major cloud outage earlier in October: on Oct. 20, Amazon Web Services suffered a disruption that impacted several high-profile games and services, including Fortnite, Roblox, and Nintendo’s online storefront. That event underlined how dependent major entertainment platforms have become on a handful of cloud providers.
Source: Polygon
