Star Wars: Outlaws was first announced by Ubisoft around January 2021 with input from LucasFilms Games and a number of other studios.Journalists and reviewers got to play early builds at various gaming fests but their opinion was that it was at its best “okay”, stating that the gameplay felt a little too simple and almost everyone criticized the horrendous facial animations akin to the facial animations which plagued AC: Mirage. It is slated to release on August 30th of 2024 on all platforms bar the Switch. Recently, Ubisoft released the Season Pass for the game with story missions, cosmetics and day one exclusives.
Missions Locked Behind A Paywall
What is perhaps the most infuriating thing in the gaming industry to date and still prevalent across the big companies is some content relevant to the game being inaccessible even though a consumer is already paying the full price, seventy dollars for it. Paying an extra Thirty Nine dollars will give the consumer the season pass that unlocks 2 exclusive missions that will arrive post launch and a “Jabba the Hut” mission that will be available for those that pay this extra fee.
The first of the two post launch missions will be released in the fall of 2024 titled “Wild Card” will Kay will cross paths with a popular character from the series, Lando Calrissian and the second mission titled “A Pirate’s Fortune” will feature another iconic character, Hondo Ohnaka set to be launched in 2025.
Cosmetics We Haven’t Even Seen Yet
Along with the exclusive “Jabba the Hut” mission, players who fork over the extra money will get two cosmetic packs for the protagonist Kay; there hasn’t been a showcase or anything of the sort to know what the cosmetic packs look like and if the paying gamer will like it. What feels extremely scummy here is the fact that there are tiers of prices for “editions” of the game. Standard, Gold and Ultimate editions. The “Standard” edition as per the information on Ubisoft’s pre-order site for the game, it will just be the base game and IF pre-ordered the player will be awarded with cosmetics for Kay’s Ship and speedster.
The “Gold” edition at an insulting One Fifty dollars will give players 3 days early access and the season pass. For Eighty dollars which is insulting to say the least. What is even more blood boiling is the “Ultimate” edition which costs One Seventy Five dollars, will get players the awards of the “Gold” edition along with 2 additional cosmetic sets and an art book. Expecting buyers to pay more than Seventy dollars for cosmetics they can’t even get proper showcase or in-game footage of to see how it actually looks is baffling to say the least.
Reception To The Season Pass
While the season pass has just been announced we have to wait to see how potential players and journalists’ reactions to this. It’ll most likely be similar to the backlash Ubisoft faced when they initially revealed the multiple editions of the game. The most amount of backlash was received from the exclusive paywalled missions and now since the season pass also gives another 2 exclusive missions it’ll most likely piss more potential customers. This coupled with the reception of their gameplay revealed on IGN with a staggering Eighty-Six Thousand dislikes to Twelve Thousand likes and with specific clips of the reveal making rounds on social media ridiculing the inferior enemy AI, the “okayish” shooting and overall basic gameplay. This feels poised to be another week where everyone takes a rightful swing at Ubisoft.
All of the actions and decisions taken by Ubisoft with the three tiers of the game, the lackluster gameplay puts Ubisoft in hot water (as if they weren’t already with AC: Shadows), it seems almost fated that Ubisoft will receive more backlash now. While all of the above microtransaction missions and cosmetics will be separately available it doesn’t make the feeling of getting scammed go away. All in all, the enormous leaps in price for early access and cosmetics does not feel worth it for paying Eighty dollars extra and extra cosmetics with season pass which will contain more cosmetics and 2 extra missions and an art book certainly does not feel worth the extra 100 dollars Ubisoft is asking.
