Star Wars Outlaws Experiences Further Sales Challenges

Star Wars Outlaws Underperforms, Outsold by Jedi: Survivor

Ubisoft's Star Wars Outlaws, the franchise's first open-world title, is facing significant challenges. Released in August 2024, the game, despite initially positive reviews, has underwhelmed both critics and consumers, resulting in disappointing sales figures and a sharp drop in Ubisoft's stock price. The company acknowledged falling short of sales projections in September.

A recent report by VGC and industry journalist Christopher Dring highlights the game's struggles, revealing that Star Wars Outlaws is being outsold by 2023's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. While precise sales figures remain undisclosed, Jedi: Survivor, a critically acclaimed sequel to a popular title, clearly outperformed Outlaws. In Europe, Outlaws only managed a 47th place ranking in 2024's best-selling games.

Several factors contribute to this disparity. Jedi: Survivor benefited from being a highly anticipated sequel to a successful predecessor, receiving overwhelmingly positive reviews upon its April 2023 release. Furthermore, a later PS4 and Xbox One update reignited interest in the game.

Conversely, Outlaws has struggled to gain traction, despite ongoing updates and DLC releases. The first expansion, "Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card," featuring Lando Calrissian, launched in November. A second expansion, "Star Wars Outlaws: A Pirate's Fortune," is slated for Spring 2025 and will include the popular character Hondo Ohnaka. However, these additions haven't been enough to significantly boost sales. Player dissatisfaction with the combat and stealth mechanics, while addressed in later updates, also likely contributed to the game's poor performance.

The future of Star Wars Outlaws remains uncertain, despite Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment's continued optimism regarding the potential of future DLC. The significant sales gap between Outlaws and Jedi: Survivor represents a considerable setback for the open-world Star Wars experience.