It’s been official for a while: the poor sales of Star Wars Outlaws have forced Ubisoft to reconsider the launch of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, which has also been the subject of controversy for almost a year. In an investigation published by journalist Tom Henderson who had the opportunity to speak with Ubisoft employees on condition of anonymity, the evil is even deeper. Concerning Star Wars Outlaws, the French publisher recognized sales which did not meet expectations and even less objectives. Analysts had spoken of so-called slow sales, and according to Tom Henderson, a small million copies were sold in one month of operation. A million is a big number and some would dream of reaching such a score, but for a so-called AAAA (yes 4xA) game with a Star Wars license, it’s obviously a disappointment. We do not know the budget that was allocated to implement this Star Wars Outlaws, but for comparison, Tom Henderson indicates that Assassin’s Creed Mirage had sold 5 million units in 3 months, while Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order had exceeded 8 million copies in just 2 months. Always having fun comparing, the 3 million of Final Fantasy XVI in a few days is even considered a disappointment for Square Enix which did not cover its costs either.
Of course, faced with this timid launch, Ubisoft modified the positioning of Star Wars Outlaws to make a game that could perform in the long term. For this, a roadmap was deployed with additional free content, corrections and even changes in gameplay, such as these punitive infiltration missions that we pointed out in our test, and which clashed with the rest of the missions, totally out of step with this incomprehensible system. Of course, the countless bugs will be fixed and the AI will also undergo changes in order to appear less stupid. It remains to be seen whether the public will still have confidence or whether the game has not already been resold or deleted from players’ libraries…