Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws may have reviewed okay enough, but it may not have sold enough, if Ubisoft’s recently stock decline is any indication. Ubisoft shares are now down 13.5% in the wake of the launch of Star Wars Outlaws, which analysts say has failed to meet sales targets.
The game was officially released on August 30 which is when the sharp decline started, part of a larger overall decline of 43% this past year.
Reuters reports J.P. Morgan analyst Daniel Kerven saying that Star Wars Outlaws “has struggled to meet our sales expectations despite positive critical reviews,” and lowered sales expectations from 7.5 million units down to 5.5 million units for the current fiscal year. The hope was clearly that this big budget, first-ever open world Star Wars game would be a huge boon to Ubisoft, but it does not appear that’s the narrative unfolding. It reportedly cost 30% more than Assassin’s Creed Mirage but was underperforming that game by 15%, albeit that’s based on Twitch data.
Again, Star Wars Outlaws reviewed fine, even positively. A 76 metascore is generally viewed as “good” in the grand scheme of the gaming industry, if not trending toward average in the world of AAA releases. But that’s in the bottom half of Ubisoft’s franchise catalogue over the last 10+ years, and for some, it’s just not the Star Wars game they wanted (disclaimer: myself included, who set it down after a few too many hours of awkward stealth).
Star Wars Outlaws
There are also reports that Ubisoft’s would-be large-scale PvP shooter XDefiant is bleeding players, going from an Ubisoft record of 1 million uniques and 8 million total in its first week, down to a reported 20,000 concurrent players on all platforms as barely anyone has stuck around. This is the same week that saw the complete and total shutdown of PvP shooter Concord in an industry that is especially brutal to new multiplayer shooters.
Ubisoft has one last card to play in 2024, the release of Assassin’s Creed Shadows where players will fight as a samurai and a ninja in feudal Japan. It’s unclear how it will perform but it reinforces just how heavily Ubisoft leans on Assassin’s Creed and it now cannot bank on what might have been perceived as a sure thing like a big Star Wars game.
Star Wars Outlaws is not a live game, but it will see further content added. While Jedi: Fallen, EA/Respawn’s Star Wars adventure game did get a sequel, it’s unclear how Outlaws may need to perform to get that greenlight, as that other series was reviewed better and sold better, certainly.
Star Wars is in a somewhat rough place in the Disney era with movies having been paused for years and its Disney Plus shows ending or being cancelled or hugely delayed. Now, they’ve launched a big game to little fanfare, despite it being not bad. But it probably should have been better.
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