Ubisoft’s ‘Star Wars Outlaws’ Faces Massive Backlash Over Absurd Release Pricing, Protagonist’s In-Game Model Looking Worse Than Real-World Actress
Ryan Pearson
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[UPDATE, April 17th, 2024: A Ubisoft spokesperson issued a statement to IGN, clarifying players will still meet Jabba in the base game. “To clarify, Jabba the Hutt and the Hutt Cartel are one of the main syndicates in Star Wars Outlaws and will be part of the experience for everyone who purchases the game, regardless of edition.”
“The ‘Jabba’s Gambit’ mission is an optional, additional mission with the Hutt Cartel along Kay and Nix’s journey across the Outer Rim. This mission will be available to those who purchase the season pass or an edition of the game which includes the season pass,” Ubisoft emphasizes.
The use of “main syndicate” indicates players will be able to do missions for and against the Hutt Cartel. Nonetheless, the Ubisoft store page explains “Just as Kay is putting together a crew for the Canto Bight heist, she receives a job from Jabba the Hutt himself. Turns out that ND-5 owes Jabba a debt from years ago, and he has come to collect.” Why Jabba wouldn’t think to use this debt sooner is strange (unless this occurs soon after Jabba or ND-5 enters the picture), and struggles to shrug off claims the DLC is cut out to make a profit.
The original article follows below.]
In the latest instance of the franchise suffering under Disney’s ownership, the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws video game has found itself facing an outpouring of criticism for its continuing of some of the video game industry’s worst modern-day design trends.
First announced back in June 2023, Star Wars Outlaws recently re-entered the public discourse thanks to the release of both its official Story Trailer and details regarding its various retail editions – both of which have been met with a scathing reception from players.
Using third-party plug-ins to view dislikes, one can see that at the time of this article’s writing, the upload of the trailer on Ubisoft’s own YouTube channel has a like-to-dislike dislike ratio of 4:15 (36,000 likes to 135,000 dislikes) across 1.96 million views.
Meanwhile, the upload posted to the official Star Wars channel holds a ratio of 17:28 (34,000 likes to 56,000 dislikes) across almost 772,000 views), while the “Story Trailer Developer Breakdown” notably posses its own ratio of 9:25 (2,700 likes to 7,500 dislikes with 59,000 views).
Though reasons for this backlash are numerous, per comments regarding the game made both on social media and on its respective trailer uploads, the main points of contention players are having with the Star Wars Outlaws‘ artistic direction and its absurd monetization schemes.
Though not the first appearance of protagonist Kay Vess, social media honed in on the fact that in the latest trailer, her game appearance in the latest trailer is noticeably much less flattering compared to her physical model and voice actress, Humberly González, with many accusing the disparity of being proof that developer Massive Entertainment were attempting to follow various DEI design recommendations regarding the avoidance of the ‘male gaze’.
For example, in response to X user @Nick_Maresil fuming that critics of Kay Vess’ appearance were “f—–g insufferable,” @GiveMeBanHammer shared an image showing how much more accurate EA and Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi series was in recreating the appearance of its lead actor Cameron Monaghan and questioned, “They may be insufferable – But are they wrong?”
Unfortunately for Ubisoft, this backlash was only amplified following the reveal of the price tags for each of the game’s three retail editions.
For the standard edition, players will need to fork over a worryingly-growing-industry-standard-price of $70 USD
Then there’s the Gold Edition, which for the price of $110 USD gets player not just the game, but also as three-days early access, the ‘Kessel Runner’ cosmetic pack – which includes one skin apiece for Kay Vess’ speeder and her starship, the Trailblazer – and the game’s season pass, which notably grants players the ability to play an exclusive mission, Jabba’s Gambit, at launch.
Finally, for a whopping $130 USD, players can take home the Ultimate Edition, its offerings including not only all of the above items, but also access to an extra ‘Kessel Run’ skins for Kay and her alien companion, Nix, the ‘Rogue Infiltrator’ and ‘Sabacc Shark’ vehicle skin bundles, and a digital art book.
And while these two transgressions may be the main target of players’ ire, the game has also been privy to a wide variety of lesser-known controversies, including the accusation that Ubisoft engaged a bot army to generate interest in the title, and developer Massive Entertainment’s recent turn to promoting their respective eco-friendly and gender equality initiatives, and the fact that it continues the trend of physical games needing an online connection to install – a particularly worrying move given Ubisoft Director of Subscriptions Philippe Tremblay’s previous declaration that players should get used to the idea of relying on digital storefronts for their collections.
At present, Star Wars Outlaws is set to emerge from hyperspace on August 30th.
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