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Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot has blamed the state of the Star Wars brand on the high-profile failure of the open-world game Star Wars Outlaws. Launching with over a million sales in its first month and decent reviews, Guillemot claimed that the “choppy” state of the IP was to blame for the underwhelming sales of the company’s very expensive open-world game.
Ubisoft blames Star Wars Outlaws failure on Star Wars itself
Speaking during a recent general meeting, a shareholder asked the Ubisoft CEO what they have “leaned from the failure” of the game “In terms of sales”. Guillemot was asked if pricing or marketing was lacking for the open-world game, but the CEO primarily blamed the iconic brand itself.
“We didn’t reach out sales targets,” the CEO said. “The game suffered from a number of items. First, it suffered from the fact that it was released at a time when the brand that it belonged to was in a bit of choppy waters.”
Later, the Ubisoft CEO did admit that Star Wars Outlaws did not launch in an optimal state. Over the past year, the open-world game has been significantly patched, ironing out bugs and even overhauling major main mechanics which is a pretty big sign that the game itself launched in a poor state.
“The game had a few items that still needed to be polished,” Guillemot continued. “They were polished and debugged in the early weeks after release, but it did affect sales volumes.”
The Ubisoft CEO also claimed that “improvements on the game are not finished” despite the game’s first anniversary coming up. With a rough-looking Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game slated to release on September 4, 2025, the Ubisoft lead also hopes that it will do well on the new handheld.
Honestly, as someone who likes Star Wars Outlaws, it wasn’t a fantastic game on launch, and blaming the Star Wars brand itself is a bizarre stretch. While it’s true that the brand has been slammed online for years now, it’s still an incredibly powerful IP where everything is pretty much guaranteed to do okay. In fact, it feels hilariously out-of-touch to blame Star Wars when EA’s eight-year-old Battlefront 2 is currently hitting sales charts again.
When even the worst-rated Star Wars movie of all time, Rise of Skywalker, is able to make over a billion dollars, and Star Wars Fortnite collaborations are able to increase player counts on the most-popular game of all time, it sure seems that the brand itself isn’t to blame.
About the Author
Star Wars Outlaws
- Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S/X, Xbox Series X
- Genre(s): Action, Action Adventure, Adventure
