After over a three-year wait, Star Wars Outlaws was finally released on August 30, though not to universal acclaim. Despite receiving generally positive critic reviews, the action-adventure video game had a lukewarm launch. The game also met several criticisms, with players reporting several issues, including problems with the save system. As it isn’t the only problem users complain about, with the addition of the difficulty spikes happening at the beginning of the game, director Julian Gerighty promises to address these “incredibly punishing” missions with an upcoming patch.
Massive Entertainment is now working on fixing some issues in Star Wars Outlaws to improve the game. One major criticism is the difficulty during certain instant-fail stealth missions. Both Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment acknowledge this “mistake,” and Gerighty reveals to GamesRadar+ that they are working to fix it.
“So especially, I mean, you're probably thinking of one of the early missions in Mirogana, which is incredibly punishing,” she said. “And for me, that is a mistake, and this is something that we're going to work on improving.”
However, despite the planned fix, Gerighty claimed it would not include “removing the fail state completely.” But users don’t have to worry, though. She also believed that there would be millions of low-hanging fruits to make the gameplay “more enjoyable and understandable.”
“We just don't want it to feel unfair. And today, I think it feels unfair. And believe it or not, this wasn't our intention,” she explained. “This is more of something that crept in in the last week or so and that we're correcting already for a patch that's coming out maybe in ten days.”
By the looks of it, the game’s developer and publisher are now on their way to retooling certain early missions and giving players what they think is a fairer version of the game to enjoy. Director Mathias Karlson added that the devs wanted users to have an incredible experience, making them feel “completely in stealth” in one second and the fear of being caught in the next.
“I can create chaos locally to be able to avoid that happening,” he said. “However, if that turns out to connect with its current tuning and with enough people, it’s, of course, something we take very, very seriously, and we’ll consider.”
Star Wars Outlaws’ Lukewarm Launch Reportedly Causes Ubisoft’s Stock to Drop
Meanwhile, despite the hype surrounding Star Wars Outlaws’ release, it was met with mixed reception, reportedly resulting in a drop in Ubisoft’s stock prices by over 10%. According to Insider Gaming, Ubisoft Entertainment’s SA stock price is now at €15.50 or about $17, its lowest since December 2014. The company’s market cap is now at €1.99 billion or approximately $2.198 billion.
The stock price drop is said to begin after the release of Star Wars Outlaws, which only received a 4.9 user score on the review aggregator Metacritic. Hence, J.P. Morgan slashed its sales forecast by 2 million units, predicting only 5.5 million units sold by March 2025. Add that to Disney’s expensive licensing, and it’s easy to see why investors are worried about the company’s future.
So far, how extensively the new patch will address the game’s stealth missions remains to be seen. What is important is Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment acknowledge the issue and are now working to fix it.
