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I've just played and finished Star Wars Outlaws and I was really surprised that it had received such mediocre reception (75 MC) and more importantly, such underperforming sales (#47 in Europe for 2024 just ahead of FF7 Rebirth and Dragon Age Veilguard, and Jedi Survivor managed to outsell Outlaws in Europe despite being a year older, and in for Circana, it isn't even in the Top 20 for 2024). When they've tried to give the game a new life on Steam via the Wild Card DLC and a launch discount and even marketing, its peak CCU was 2492. So it seems like it just cannot get proper lift off the ground for some reason.
As a product, the game looks gorgeous and expensive, the story is pretty good especially compared to other story-focused Star Wars games like Jedi Survivor, the mechanics and gameplay systems are entertaining and engaging (stealth is accessible, combat is intuitive and engaging, minigames and faction play are innovative and immersive, space flying and space combat feel like a nice entertaining add-on) and the openworld isn't just Ubisoft Formula, as it has some more refreshing ways to explore and uncover locations and loot. And it managed to be a great game and avoid all the laser sword and space magical wizard stuff and still be entertaining and interesting (akin to what Mandalorian achieved). To me, it was one of the better Star Wars games in many years, and definitely more innovative and prettier than the very succesful Jedi series by EA that feels much more derivative and forgettable with a very poor man's Souls formula, smaller and more confined level design, and a Saturday Morning Cartoon level of narrative. But I guess it has laser swords and space magic so it's an easier sell than a scoundrel Han Solo-like Star Wars game?
Regardless of my positive impressions of the actual game, I wonder about the possible explanations for its poor market performance. Like @Christopher Dring , I too am very flabbergasted that it has had such poor legs. It ticks so many mainstream boxes while also innovating and standing out in the marketplace in terms of genre and presentation. Some of the potential explanatory factors I've come across are the following (Bryant Francis also listed some of these for Game Developer back in October):
1) Star Wars fatigue
Maybe consumers are less interested in the Star Wars brand these days, perhaps due to oversaturation of too many big and expensive TV shows? The Acolyte did not get renewed (according to Luminate it was the second-most watched new show on Disney Plus in 2024, but it also supposedly cost around 280-320 million dollars and it had a dedicated hate following ever since it got revealed), the numbers for Skeleton Crew are not very good despite positive reception, and there's some project mishandling of the film productions that keep getting new writers or never get off the ground. Did Star Wars Outlaws suffer from this overall brand perception and fatigue?
2) Rough launch and medicore reviews and high price points at launch
Supposedly the game launched with some immersive-breaking bugs and it had some fail-state stealth sections that meant the game came across as less polished and interesting. The stealth was not on par with more niche stealth genre titles like Dishonored and Prey, and the shooting/action was less of a focus in the design, so it did not excel in any of the departments. This meant that both the bugs and the jack-of-all-trades game design meant the game never really impressed for the launch reviews and the bad word of mouth meant the game's legs were cut under it which helps explain the poor sales tail of Outlaws.
3) Content grifters looking to drum up controversy and reactionary political movements
It's no secret that there's a significant political movement these days that rant about 'wokeness' and 'DEI' etc. whenever a woman or a minority person is prominent in (nerd) entertainment media. There's practically a whole content factory machine on Youtube and video social media that constantly manufacture controversies out of thin air and start sending their viewer communities to spread negative word of mouth about the product that features a woman. Star Wars Outlaws did not escape the ire of these grifters, as it thankfully featured a non-conventional looking woman of color with a very 70s / 80s looking hair style. Outlaws was an innovation in this area where Star Wars video games rarely have much protagonist diversity, where especially the Jedi Fallen Order games are very generic and safe in this department. The question is to what extent these heavily online movements actually have an impact on general sales performances? Do the fake outrage controversies affect the decisionmaking of executives who'd prefer to avoid controversies as to not cause any risk to profits? They also went after Star Wars Acolyte (or Finn in Force Awakes for that matter), so it's not new that a section of the Star Wars audience have some reactionary and very conservative tendencies. But do they affect sales and decisionmakers? I'm afraid that marketing and investors will use Outlaws' performance in the future to reinforce the sexist notion that women don't sell, so we'll need to have yet another white guy as the main character, we can't have enough of those.
4) Broader negative economic climate, consumer spending is down, the general problem of competing for attention as a premium game against the Forever Live Service games
Star Wars Outlaws is not free from the overall pains that the games industry is going through, where higher living costs and lower spending opportunities by consumers mean that they are less likely to go out and spend money on a shiny new expensive AAA game. Star Wars Outlaws had many different pricing strategies with a big and expensive Ultimate Edition for 130 dollars, but of course also the regular 70 dollar edition. The preorder bonuses and season pass stuff caused some controveries when unveiled, but the question is if the reaction this did much damage. Other premium titles like FF7 Rebirth and Dragon Age Veilguard has also performed below expectations, so perhaps this is a case of the type of game it is (expensive AAA premium product with high price barrier of entry?)
5) Ubisoft brand perception
I was talking to a friend who works at Ubisoft and they thought that the general 'core' gamer is really out with their knives when it comes to Ubisoft. That Ubisoft has attained a really negative impression among enthusiasts, probably due to the monetization strategies and their (understandably) formulaic productions that result in very similar open world formula games with huge amounts of labor thrown at each project. Did this Ubisoft brand tarnish and make the general consumer less interested in Outlaws? Certainly I've seen that whole "Ubisoft openworld game *rolls eyes*" reaction both online and offline.
6) No Laser Swords and No Space Magic Wizards
Star Wars is heavily associated with jedis and sith and lightsabers. Some have claimed that people are not interested in Star Wars if these things are not present. Star Wars Solo was such a project and underperformed as a movie and tanked the whole Star Wars Story initiative that Disney was trying to do (but Rogue One didn't?). Outlaws is also a similar story with no lightsabers or flying space wizards, so one might assume it's because ? But that doesn't help explain how something like Mandolorian - at least in its first season and much of its 2nd season - obtained so high success with having no lightsabers or jedis doing backflips. Was it the power of Baby Yoda as a brand then? But Outlaws had Nix who was pretty damn cute as well. So I don't know. I don't think Star Wars needs jedis and lightsabers to be commercially successful.
Overall
The game was projected by JP Morgan to sell around 7.5 million but was downgraded to sell 5.5 by March 2025 after its underperfoming launch. I'm not sure if it will hit even this number considering the first month sales numbers and subsequent poor legs, but I have no idea. The game's credits has almost 6600 people listed (mind you that this includes Disney business people) and the game looks insanely expensive with Uncharted narrative setpieces combined with a heavily detailed open world à la Rockstar. It has since been part of Ubisoft's descent into financial chaos with shareholders and Tencent talks and what-not. I personally think it's a confluence of factors, with Outlaws not being the only premium title that has suffered sales-wise in 2024, that Star Wars it not as hip with the younger audiences any longer, and general bad word of mouth stemming from the mediocre reception at launch. Bryant Francis makes the argument that they should reinvest in a sequel like what they did with AC1 to AC2, but I'm not sure there's a climate for this and that the game simply is not a mass market seller that AAA(A) demand these days. I thought it was one of the more fascinating AAA games that I've played in years if not the best Star Wars game since KOTOR or Republic Commando, so it's sad to see it not get rewarded by the market.
As a product, the game looks gorgeous and expensive, the story is pretty good especially compared to other story-focused Star Wars games like Jedi Survivor, the mechanics and gameplay systems are entertaining and engaging (stealth is accessible, combat is intuitive and engaging, minigames and faction play are innovative and immersive, space flying and space combat feel like a nice entertaining add-on) and the openworld isn't just Ubisoft Formula, as it has some more refreshing ways to explore and uncover locations and loot. And it managed to be a great game and avoid all the laser sword and space magical wizard stuff and still be entertaining and interesting (akin to what Mandalorian achieved). To me, it was one of the better Star Wars games in many years, and definitely more innovative and prettier than the very succesful Jedi series by EA that feels much more derivative and forgettable with a very poor man's Souls formula, smaller and more confined level design, and a Saturday Morning Cartoon level of narrative. But I guess it has laser swords and space magic so it's an easier sell than a scoundrel Han Solo-like Star Wars game?
Regardless of my positive impressions of the actual game, I wonder about the possible explanations for its poor market performance. Like @Christopher Dring , I too am very flabbergasted that it has had such poor legs. It ticks so many mainstream boxes while also innovating and standing out in the marketplace in terms of genre and presentation. Some of the potential explanatory factors I've come across are the following (Bryant Francis also listed some of these for Game Developer back in October):
1) Star Wars fatigue
Maybe consumers are less interested in the Star Wars brand these days, perhaps due to oversaturation of too many big and expensive TV shows? The Acolyte did not get renewed (according to Luminate it was the second-most watched new show on Disney Plus in 2024, but it also supposedly cost around 280-320 million dollars and it had a dedicated hate following ever since it got revealed), the numbers for Skeleton Crew are not very good despite positive reception, and there's some project mishandling of the film productions that keep getting new writers or never get off the ground. Did Star Wars Outlaws suffer from this overall brand perception and fatigue?
2) Rough launch and medicore reviews and high price points at launch
Supposedly the game launched with some immersive-breaking bugs and it had some fail-state stealth sections that meant the game came across as less polished and interesting. The stealth was not on par with more niche stealth genre titles like Dishonored and Prey, and the shooting/action was less of a focus in the design, so it did not excel in any of the departments. This meant that both the bugs and the jack-of-all-trades game design meant the game never really impressed for the launch reviews and the bad word of mouth meant the game's legs were cut under it which helps explain the poor sales tail of Outlaws.
3) Content grifters looking to drum up controversy and reactionary political movements
It's no secret that there's a significant political movement these days that rant about 'wokeness' and 'DEI' etc. whenever a woman or a minority person is prominent in (nerd) entertainment media. There's practically a whole content factory machine on Youtube and video social media that constantly manufacture controversies out of thin air and start sending their viewer communities to spread negative word of mouth about the product that features a woman. Star Wars Outlaws did not escape the ire of these grifters, as it thankfully featured a non-conventional looking woman of color with a very 70s / 80s looking hair style. Outlaws was an innovation in this area where Star Wars video games rarely have much protagonist diversity, where especially the Jedi Fallen Order games are very generic and safe in this department. The question is to what extent these heavily online movements actually have an impact on general sales performances? Do the fake outrage controversies affect the decisionmaking of executives who'd prefer to avoid controversies as to not cause any risk to profits? They also went after Star Wars Acolyte (or Finn in Force Awakes for that matter), so it's not new that a section of the Star Wars audience have some reactionary and very conservative tendencies. But do they affect sales and decisionmakers? I'm afraid that marketing and investors will use Outlaws' performance in the future to reinforce the sexist notion that women don't sell, so we'll need to have yet another white guy as the main character, we can't have enough of those.
4) Broader negative economic climate, consumer spending is down, the general problem of competing for attention as a premium game against the Forever Live Service games
Star Wars Outlaws is not free from the overall pains that the games industry is going through, where higher living costs and lower spending opportunities by consumers mean that they are less likely to go out and spend money on a shiny new expensive AAA game. Star Wars Outlaws had many different pricing strategies with a big and expensive Ultimate Edition for 130 dollars, but of course also the regular 70 dollar edition. The preorder bonuses and season pass stuff caused some controveries when unveiled, but the question is if the reaction this did much damage. Other premium titles like FF7 Rebirth and Dragon Age Veilguard has also performed below expectations, so perhaps this is a case of the type of game it is (expensive AAA premium product with high price barrier of entry?)
5) Ubisoft brand perception
I was talking to a friend who works at Ubisoft and they thought that the general 'core' gamer is really out with their knives when it comes to Ubisoft. That Ubisoft has attained a really negative impression among enthusiasts, probably due to the monetization strategies and their (understandably) formulaic productions that result in very similar open world formula games with huge amounts of labor thrown at each project. Did this Ubisoft brand tarnish and make the general consumer less interested in Outlaws? Certainly I've seen that whole "Ubisoft openworld game *rolls eyes*" reaction both online and offline.
6) No Laser Swords and No Space Magic Wizards
Star Wars is heavily associated with jedis and sith and lightsabers. Some have claimed that people are not interested in Star Wars if these things are not present. Star Wars Solo was such a project and underperformed as a movie and tanked the whole Star Wars Story initiative that Disney was trying to do (but Rogue One didn't?). Outlaws is also a similar story with no lightsabers or flying space wizards, so one might assume it's because ? But that doesn't help explain how something like Mandolorian - at least in its first season and much of its 2nd season - obtained so high success with having no lightsabers or jedis doing backflips. Was it the power of Baby Yoda as a brand then? But Outlaws had Nix who was pretty damn cute as well. So I don't know. I don't think Star Wars needs jedis and lightsabers to be commercially successful.
Overall
The game was projected by JP Morgan to sell around 7.5 million but was downgraded to sell 5.5 by March 2025 after its underperfoming launch. I'm not sure if it will hit even this number considering the first month sales numbers and subsequent poor legs, but I have no idea. The game's credits has almost 6600 people listed (mind you that this includes Disney business people) and the game looks insanely expensive with Uncharted narrative setpieces combined with a heavily detailed open world à la Rockstar. It has since been part of Ubisoft's descent into financial chaos with shareholders and Tencent talks and what-not. I personally think it's a confluence of factors, with Outlaws not being the only premium title that has suffered sales-wise in 2024, that Star Wars it not as hip with the younger audiences any longer, and general bad word of mouth stemming from the mediocre reception at launch. Bryant Francis makes the argument that they should reinvest in a sequel like what they did with AC1 to AC2, but I'm not sure there's a climate for this and that the game simply is not a mass market seller that AAA(A) demand these days. I thought it was one of the more fascinating AAA games that I've played in years if not the best Star Wars game since KOTOR or Republic Commando, so it's sad to see it not get rewarded by the market.
