It is no secret that the commercial reception of action-adventure title Star Wars Outlaws was found disappointing by Ubisoft. According to VGC, the game only managed to be the 47th best-selling game in Europe last year. For context, this means that the much older Star Wars Jedi: Survivor sold more than Outlaws in 2024.
This is in contrast to expectations for Star Wars Outlaws, which received mostly positive previews before launch (Massive’s reputation also didn’t hurt). Critical reception, however, was lukewarm. Even our own review gave the game a score of 6, citing its rough stealth mechanics and instant-fail gameplay sections as its biggest sticking points.
This poor reception has had many consequences and might be one of the big reasons for Ubisoft founders, the Guillemot family, looking for a buyout to stem its falling stock prices. Ubisoft’s stock prices fell shortly after the release of Star Wars Outlaws, with initial physical sales in the UK reportedly being 55 percent lower than Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
Analysts have also not been kind to the company, with JP Morgan analyst Daniel Kerven stating that Star Wars Outlaws had failed to meet sales expectations, ultimately lowering its own sales expectations for the title by 2 million copies.
Since the game’s release, several updates have been released that attempt to fix some of its bigger issues. An update from November is notable for sweeping changes to how the stealth mechanics work. Similar updates have been released to bring changes to combat and cover system as well.
Star Wars Outlaws has also received story DLC in the form of Wild Card, which also ended up being a disappointment thanks to lacklustre writing and dialogue, short length, and a bad final boss. The game has also made its way onto Steam, rather than staying on Ubisoft Connect and the Epic Games Store on PC.
In the meantime, Ubisoft has revealed that it is working with advisors to understand how to extract maximum value from its IPs and other assets. CEO Yves Guillemot has reportedly also been in talks with Tencent for a potential buyout of the company, with the former wanting more control over the decisions made by the board of directors.
Other titles by Ubisoft are also facing issues, with the company having recently announced that XDefiant would be shutting down. The upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows has also been delayed to March 20.
