Ubisoft CEO blames Star Wars brand for Outlaws' failure, but the truth lies elsewhere

The reception of Star Wars Outlaws when it was released in 2024 was less than ideal for a company like Ubisoft. The game was based on one of the biggest franchises of all-time, and tackled a gameplay design that had not been successfully done before. It should have been a slam dunk for developer Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft, but instead the game had a lukewarm response from players. The result was a Star Wars game that fell below Ubisoft's expectations and bad word-of-mouth among Star Wars fans, with a lack of excitement for post-release content and major updates. Unfortunately, Star Wars Outlaws just wasn't the hit that everyone wanted it to be.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot spoke during a Q&A to shareholders about the performance of the game and why it didn't fulfill the company's expectations. To him, much of the blame could be placed on the poor status of the Star Wars brand in 2024, stating that "Outlaws was released at a time when the brand that it belonged to was in a bit of choppy waters." While this might be an excuse to give shareholders for why things did not go as planned, it's a far cry from the truth. No matter how much Ubisoft, or anyone else, wants to believe that the end result was from outside factors, Star Wars Outlaws didn't fail because of the state of the Star Wars franchise; it failed because of the game's very poor execution on release.

Big problems to fix later

Two different games before and after

The most glaring reason why Yves Guillemot is dead wrong in his assessment of why Star Wars Outlaws did so poorly is the state of the game on its release day. This is something only lightly mentioned during the shareholders meeting, but was a massive part of why the game was so heavily criticized. Many choices made by Massive Entertainment for the gameplay of Star Wars Outlaws were both confusing and very questionable by critics and players who picked up the game on day 1. Major things other third-person action games seem to have a grasp on, Star Wars Outlaws fumbled frequently, even in the most basic scenarios that players encounter throughout the game's nearly 20-hour main quest line. Dropping secondary weapons when executing actions like vaulting, climbing a ladder, and even punching an enemy through stealth. And that's only the surface level of issues brought up by nearly everyone after the game released.

All of this was made even worse by the number of technical issues across every platform that Star Wars Outlaws could be played on. From glitches that broke quest lines to visual bugs that ruined areas for some players, the game was not optimized well by the time it was released. And these weren't platform-specific issues, but problems that nearly everyone experienced across the board. Whether you were playing the game on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, or PC via Ubisoft Plus, Star Wars Outlaws was in a terrible state most of the time. And while Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft worked hard on getting patches out to fix most of the game's bigger problems, the damage had already been done in a big way. For most people, it was more than enough to walk away from the game or just wait till things were in a better place overall.

But then there's the matter of a massive bug for players who purchased the Gold Edition of Star Wars Outlaws, which forced players to restart their progress when a patch was released for the platform. Many people were incredibly upset by this, for good reason, and were made even angrier when Ubisoft offered loyalty points to people affected by the issue. After spending over $100 to get the game and all the future downloadable content, the last thing anyone wants to hear about is how the game isn't functioning properly. It was a recipe for disaster that did not help the perception of Star Wars Outlaws whatsoever.

Not taking advantage of the time period

A failure to play in this sandbox

One of the better aspects of Star Wars Outlaws for Star Wars fans was the time period in which the game took place. The story of Kay Vess and her companion Nix was set in the time between two of the original Star Wars films, those being The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Anything involving the original trilogy of films is sacred ground for many Star Wars fans, but this specific timeframe is of great importance to everyone because of how much supposed happens in-between the movies. It's a period that is fertile ground for interesting locations and stories that can be told within arguably the most beloved era of the Star Wars timeline, with the potential for iconic characters to show up or major events to be referenced. This was something that was heavily in favor of Star Wars Outlaws being a success in the eyes of everyone.

There's just one problem with all of this. The period that Star Wars Outlaws is set in was already explored in previous material within the Expanded Universe, also known as Star Wars Legends content. The most famous being Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, the multimedia project that included the popular Nintendo 64 game release of the same name. Although none of it is considered canon to the current Disney and Lucasfilm continuity, it is still material that fans hold in high regard, making for expectations and speculations about it. And despite being set in the same timeframe, Star Wars Outlaws does not use or reference anything that fans know from those stories or material that has been established since 1996. There are some original trilogy characters that make an appearance in a very light way, whether in a cameo or through downloadable content, but their appearance lacks excitement and borders on disappointing for most players.

Long-time Star Wars fans who were hoping to see elements like the Black Sun Syndicate, or characters like Dash Rendar, finally have an outlet to be brought into the new canon were left disappointed. But what makes it even more tragic is how those same elements would have fit well within the kind of story and experience that Star Wars Outlaws was trying to give players. Instead, the developers opted to create new organizations and other plot elements that were original to add to the Star Wars mythology, which would normally be a welcome choice. However, when you're playing in a sandbox with things that have been there for a long time before you, it's bound to upset and turn away many people when they're completely ignored for little to no reason.

The other Star Wars games

A giant bantha in the room

For all the major issues that contributed to the poor performance of Star Wars Outlaws, there's one thing that makes Yves Guillemot statements all the more unbelievable. While the state of the Star Wars brand has not been in the same space as it once was for a long time, it's in a place where anything related to Star Wars is destined to fail. Many fans have been disillusioned by the franchise following the release of the sequel films produced by Disney, but there have been other pieces of Star Wars material that were well-received by fans. This includes a few video game releases that prove how it's not the state of the brand that's the problem.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor from Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts is a game beloved by critics and players for multiple reasons. The game was released for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in 2023, which is just before Ubisoft released Star Wars Outlaws. Jedi Survivor went on to become one of the highest-selling games of 2023 in just two days after release, and in 2024 still managed to sell well enough across all platforms and outperform Star Wars Outlaws. This begs the question: if the Star Wars brand is in such a dire state, then how could a Star Wars game from a year prior still manage to outsell a newer game within the same franchise? The results just don't show that, and don't help Yves Guillemot's case at all.

If you go back even further and look at the general reception to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's predecessor, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, you'll find many people speaking positively about the game and selling well across multiple platforms. The issue has never been the overall state of the Star Wars brand that affects how well a game performs, because if that was the case, then both of Respawn Entertainment's game releases would not have been as big as they were, nor continue to do well even today. If anything, the Star Wars name was the biggest factor that helped a release like Star Wars Outlaws from becoming an even bigger disappointment.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true

As much as many people wanted to see Star Wars Outlaws become a success, a combination of things prevented that from happening. But in order for future Star Wars games to perform better and become bigger than others, everyone needs to be honest and see the truth about why things turn out the way they do. As a whole, Star Wars is in a weird space that still feels like a transitional period between where it was and where it may be going in the future, with more projects building upon the franchise in different ways. And for every successful endeavor, there are bound to be ones that stagger and fall into disappointment. Star Wars Outlaws wasn't a success because of nothing more than the poor execution of its release, not due to anything else beyond that. Take the moment and search your feelings, because you know it to be true.