Can Star Wars Outlaws be salvaged?

I want to make one thing perfectly clear. I like Star Wars Outlaws. I finished it. I think it has some significant flaws but also some great Star Wars vibes, great characters, an engaging story, and when the mechanics do click they can be pretty fun. There’s a good chance we’ll look back on Star Wars Outlaws as an underrated game much like Alien Isolation is today when all is said and done.

But there is no denying that Star Wars Outlaws has not critically or commercially lived up to the lofty expectations put upon it. For a hugely expensive AAA game bearing the Star Wars license on multiple platforms it definitely hasn’t sold well and generally scored in the “good but not great” range for critics whose very valid complaints ranged from things like serious performance issues to incredibly frustrating stealth gameplay

To their credit Ubisoft has done far from just letting the game die in the wild. Far from it they are actively working to make Star Wars Outlaws the best game it can be. This includes some major gameplay updates post release, and a release on the dominant PC digital storefront Steam later this week (it was available on PC but not on Steam) will hopefully inject some life into the game as it also gets its first major story DLC, Wild Card, which features Star Wars legend Lando Calrissian.

But aside from some basic quality of life updates, is all this effort to invigorate some life into Star Wars Outlaws all for naught? Will even meaningful updates and a Steam release really turn the tide? Ubisoft also hasn’t had the greatest reputation as of late. Their games have a reputation of only being minor variations of a couple of well-worn formulas and are also thought of as rarely worth purchasing at launch since they often have significant price discounts at most a few months after release.

There’s also a question of what is the end game for Ubisoft here. This isn’t one of their live-service titles that can really grow an audience in the same way those games do. I mean obviously the ideal would be that Outlaws has a good long tail that warrants a sequel, but certainly something on this budget level wouldn’t be done again. If there were a follow-up, it’d likely have to be way more compromised which would just be another failure and that would certainly be the end of any possible further adventures of Kay Vess and her friends.

I would love nothing more than for Star Wars Outlaws to somehow become a success with all this extra effort being put towards what in my opinion was a pretty dang good if somewhat flawed game. I just don’t really see it happening.

This isn’t Cyberpunk 2077, it isn’t Final Fantasy XIV. It doesn’t have that kind of heat behind it nor the fanbase waiting for it to prove itself. They’ve moved on. There’s so many other big games to play right now that have already proven themselves out the gate and more on the way. It’s just going to be Star Wars Outlaws fate to be one of those games people will look fondly back on years later that will likely never get a follow-up.

That’s all for today. I am mostly back from hiatus but given Thanksgiving is nearly upon us I may not have another post until early December but I’ll try and squeeze something in during the next couple weeks if I’m able. Either way, see ya real soon!