“There’s an offhand line in Outriders that sure sounds like a reference to the failed January 6 insurrection in Washington, D.C. According to the game’s publisher, any connections one could make there are ‘purely coincidental.’ Developed by People Can Fly and published by Square Enix, the class-based looter-shooter Outriders officially released last week for everything but the Switch. In the future – you’ll never believe this – ‘Earth [is] dead,’ ruined by war and famine and all that other apocalyptic turmoil that tends to serve as set dressing in airport kiosk sci-fi novels. To preserve humanity, the governments of Earth band together and fund a colony ship that will carry thousands of survivors to a habitable planet, Enoch, roughly a dozen light years away. You’re cast as a titular outrider, a gun-slinging badass tasked with exploring Enoch before the rest of the settlers leave the safe confines of the ship. One early mission – ‘Reunion’ – features some banter between your character and Jakub, with the two reminiscing about the good ol’ days of killing people on Earth.”

“You: ‘I’m getting major déjà vu in this place. Reminds me of that mission is Damascus, where we rescued those diplomats.’ Jakub: ‘I had to save your ass from that machete-wielding mob.’ You: ‘Ha! More like that time I had to save your sorry ass from that redneck mob storming D.C.'”

“You’re not wrong to think this line is a reference to the failed coup attempt that was agitated by Republican political leadership. When reached for comment by Kotaku, representatives for Square Enix and People Can Fly had this to say: ‘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. Any similarities to real-world events are purely coincidental'” – Kotaku.