Star Wars Outlaws Preview Gets Roasted Online

Video Games

Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft’s upcoming game that has been criticized since its first trailer (much like their other big 2024 release; those guys are in trouble), will go on sale this month, and clips are popping up on social media, along with playthroughs and, of course, gaming media impressions. I’m sure you can guess what the games journalists have to say about it, but everything else points to an underwhelming Star Wars game – and an underwhelming game in general. The clips sport poorly functioning AI for NPCs, especially bad guys, as well as bad graphics that keep the main character suspended in midair instead of landing after a crash, and some questionable physics when taking down Stormtroopers.

IGN on Star Wars Outlaws final preview:

-Journalist: ‘I’m having a blast with Star Wars’ fighting mechanics!’

-Video: Game Completely broken beyond belief and NPCs wondering, ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ pic.twitter.com/BiYZSA0iSh

— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) July 30, 2024

I made a gif of the stormtrooper AI just firing into a wall pic.twitter.com/IH2NUkYt4c

— Jawa (@JawaJuice_) July 31, 2024

Star Wars Outlaws makes me feel like I’m in an episode of Andor. pic.twitter.com/0yu2O7nz7e

— Timmeh GCX @ Universal Orlando (@Darkness429) August 1, 2024

These clips come from IGN’s video, “The Final Preview,” which demonstrates the gameplay. This makes watching the clips hilarious because the IGN journalist praises the game as the clips highlight its flaws. It’s not only a bad portent for Star Wars Outlaws but an indictment of gaming journalism. Sure, opinions are subjective and whatnot; I tend to be forgiving of video games as long as they’re fun (I don’t care about how unrealistic the girl knocking out that Stormtrooper is, for example), which is part of why I don’t review them. But these people are supposed to give objective, detailed analyses of the video games they review to help the consumer; you can’t just shrug off things like bad AI and graphical glitches. You can’t tell me they didn’t notice how the Stormtroopers were shooting at a wall or that nobody noticed that cat thing she uses as a sidekick when it was running around right in front of them.

“I’ve never been so immersed in a takedown experience as I was with Star Wars Outlaws”—IGN 10/10: Too Much Empowered Women Experience pic.twitter.com/1lQ9WJ2VAu

— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) August 1, 2024

To that end, Mark Kern watched a bunch of playthroughs of Star Wars Outlaws by people whom Ubisoft allowed to preview the game, and he points out how you have to read between the lines by noticing the things these YouTubers praise, as opposed to what they don’t mention:

I watched a dozen Star Wars Outlaw gameplay playthroughs.

Multiple youtubers were flow to LA and given 4 hours to play the game.

These are people who Ubisoft watches closely, so nobody will say anything truly negative because it’s not a review. What you have to look for is what… pic.twitter.com/uaptRGvhYF

— Grummz (@Grummz) August 1, 2024

He’s right; it’s like that episode of Friends where they see Joey star in an awful new show, and they make up positive things to say so they don’t hurt his feelings, even arguing over who gets to compliment the lighting. These gamers are caught between a rock and a hard place; they need to maintain their relationships with studios so they can preview games like this, which means they have to be as positive as possible about a stinker like Star Wars Outlaws, but they also can’t shill too hard, lest they lose the trust of their viewers. So they have to deal out vague, faint praise for certain aspects while simply neglecting to offer an opinion on others.

And that’s a must for them on this one because it doesn’t look like gamers are buying the media hype for Star Wars Outlaws. As Yellowflash points out in his video, the IGN preview has a devastating ratio of 2.7K likes to 10K dislikes. That does not bode well for Star Wars Outlaws; it means people see right through the journalists running cover for a lousy game. Other sites are publishing articles trying to shame anyone who doesn’t like it, making it all about the lead character’s looks (which, while I get what they’re going for – 80s sci-fi tough girl chic, similar to Ellen Ripley – do fit a pattern, and they’re a huge downgrade from the character’s gorgeous model), but that’s not gonna fly when the mechanics are this shoddy. Gizmodo even ran a strange article about people who find one of the droids sexy, and while it features reactions from the game’s narrative director and the actor who plays the droid, it has no examples of this “hot droid thirst.” Trying to lure people in with the promise of erotic robots feels like an act of desperation, and one I doubt will work out very well for Ubisoft.