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Why Star Wars Outlaws failed but Hogwarts Legacy was a hit


Collage of Star Was Outlaws and Hogwarts Legacy artwork

One was the biggest hit of 2023 and the other was… a game that came out in 2024 (Ubisoft/Warner Bros. Games/Metro)

With a new patch for Star Wars Outlaws drastically altering a major gameplay element, GameCentral ponders how things ended up going so wrong and what it could mean for future Star Wars games.

Calling Star Wars Outlaws a failure isn’t quite fair. It’s certainly not a bad game, depending on the level of affinity you have for the source material, but in terms of sales it does seem to have been a disappointment, especially to publisher Ubisoft.

Outlaws was described as having a ‘softer than expected’ launch back in August. It was only the second best-selling game of the month, losing out to the 11-year-old GTA 5, and its first week sales weren’t even half of what EA’s Star Wars Jedi: Survivor managed in the same timeframe.

Given the significance of the brand, Ubisoft was no doubt banking on Outlaws making up for what has otherwise been a lacklustre year for the company. Instead, its underperformance has only helped incentivise a possible Tencent buyout.

What is the new Star Wars Outlaws patch?

With the release of a significant patch and a Steam launch, Star Wars Outlaws’ reputation could yet improve, but why does it need salvaging in the first place and how did Ubisoft go so wrong with a quality game and a proven licence?

We must re-emphasise that Star Wars Outlaws is not a bad game, nor has it had a Cyberpunk 2077 level disaster of a launch. There’s certainly an additional appeal if you’re a Star Wars fan but taken on its own merits it’s a superior open world adventure, that avoids the usual tropes of Ubisoft games, such as obnoxious mission markers, icon-filled maps, and having to climb radio towers.

Ubisoft’s reaction to the disappointing sales has been to drastically change key elements of the game, reducing the stealth aspect so that it’s only ever optional. This seems to be a knee jerk reaction to complaints that an early mission punished you too harshly for failing at stealth but it’s really just a superficial issue that’s only going to put a bigger spotlight on the slightly underwhelming combat.

What really hurt Star Wars Outlaws, aside from a curious lack of marketing (seriously, we felt we saw barely any ads for the game) is that it simply wasn’t what Star Wars fans were looking for in a video game. Or at least didn’t offer anything distinctly Star Wars that you couldn’t find in any other sci-fi game.

We’ve often joked over the years, that our dream game is a Han Solo simulator. Not necessarily in terms of controlling the character himself but just doing the sort of things he was implied to have been up to before he met Ben Kenobi. In our minds it would’ve been a mix between Elite Dangerous and Grand Theft Auto – something that doesn’t currently exist in gaming and would be completely unique …read more

Source:: Metro

      

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