In light of recent criticisms faced by Obsidian Entertainment for its poor wording about the Spacer’s Choice Edition up grade for the original The Outer Worlds on PS4 and Xbox One, studio owner Microsoft has offered its own statement to make things clearer. According to IGN, a spokesperson for Microsoft has said that the free upgrade was meant to be a “thanks” to those who had picked up the original sci-fi RPG. However, entitlement restrictions got in the way of this.
“The Outer Worlds Spacer’s Choice Edition upgrade was intended to say ‘thanks’ to anyone who purchased The Outer Worlds base game by providing them a free upgrade to the newly improved version,” said the spokesperson. “However, due to various entitlement restrictions and backend issues, we weren’t able to provide this as smoothly as we wished, and our players are, rightfully, upset.”
Further in their statement, they have said that those who bought the base version of The Outer Worlds on PS4 or Xbox One between April 30th and May 27th can contact the support team.
“If you purchased the base game on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 between 4/30 and 5/27, or have any issues with the upgrade, please contact our support team, and we’ll work with you to make it right. Sorry again for the frustration around this.”
As for other platforms, the spokesperson has reiterated that the Spacer’s Choice Edition upgrade will remain free for PC players if they already own the base game, which has since been delisted from Steam. However, PS4 and Xbox One players who own a digital copy of the base game will also need to buy the DLCs or the expansion pass to be eligible for the upgrade moving forward.
Obsidian Entertainment had originally made the announcement about the upgrade at the beginning of the month. However, some poor phrasing led many to think that they would be eligible for the upgrade on PS4 and Xbox One as long as they had bought just the base game before May 27th, and that future purchases would need players to buy the DLCs for the upgrade.
“About three weeks ago, Obsidian clearly announced that if you have bought the original Outer Worlds before May 27, you will get the Spacer’s Edition for free on May 27,” wrote one Reddit user. “However, they just announced that this is now not the case and you need to buy both DLC as well.”
The studio took to social media to offer its apologies and pointed to “unforeseen platform limitations” that only affect PS4 and Xbox One.
“Apologies for the confusion,” wrote Obsidian. “Due to unforeseen platform limitations, Xbox One and PS4 digital owners will need to own both DLCs to be eligible for the upgrade.”
The Outer Worlds was released back in 2019 on PC, PS4, and Xbox One. Since then, the title has seen the release of two story expansions, an upgrade pack, dubbed The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition, and ports for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. In our review of the original release, we gave it a score of 6 out of 10.
