Star Wars Outlaws Still Looks Buggy the Week of Its Release
Ubisoft’s big release of Star Wars Outlaws is this Friday, and despite the company initiating the“biggest marketing campaign ever” – which mostly amounted to flying YouTube influencers to California and sending them to Disneyland – there are signs that the game is not ready for prime time. The preview we saw at the beginning of the month courtesy of IGN already demonstrated some bad gameplay and graphics, with poor enemy AI and some odd scenes of bad guys simply firing into a wall. (This explains the wining, dining, and parkgoing Ubisoft did for the YouTubers.) But it was to no avail, as the IGN preview was ratioed into oblivion, and games journalists took to their keyboards to defend Star Wars Outlaws against the usual imaginary suspects.
You wouldn’t think it could get much worse than that, especially since the game hasn’t been released yet, but today saw some laughably bad gameplay from Star Wars Outlaws. YouTuber King Kami posted a video clip on X showing his attempt at using stealth to take down a bunch of Rodians discreetly. (Of course, they’re Rodians, because nowadays, Star Wars wouldn’t be Star Wars without the same five or six alien species, plus a new one that looks like a plushie.) The lead character, Kay Vess, whacks a Rodian over the head with her blaster to knock him out… then suddenly sweeps across the landscape like the Flash as she drags the unconscious body away, alerting the rest of her enemies to her presence. (So, like a dumb version of the Flash.) They begin firing, Kay Vess fires back, it looks bland as hell even when it’s working, and at the end, she faces the final Rodian, who is walking in place in the weeds, looking at Kay to his side, gun extended, and I don’t believe he fired once in the video. Kami leaves the guy alone, presumably because it’s hard to care at that point. You can see the video below:
Star Wars Outlaws needs a few patches to deal with the bugginess.
Kinda hard to do stealth when stuff like this happens. pic.twitter.com/62n00T4Wx4
— KAMI (@Okami13_) August 26, 2024
Star Wars Outlaws looks astonishingly bad; like, bad enough that it constitutes fraud against the customers. This game isn’t finished if it plays this poorly, and Ubisoft has balls like an elephant releasing it in this state and having its media sycophants run cover for it. This is why people are sick and tired of entertainment being made for the wrong reasons, whether it’s blatantly woke or “What if the hero was a girl?” The people who make these things only care about the message they’re shoving into their content and never pay attention to quality. The graphics and gameplay may suck, but you’ll notice that in that video, Kay Vess is wearing Han Solo’s exact outfit from Star Wars because that was the real point. As long as it’s somewhat functional, it’s good enough.
That’s the mistake the developers, writers, directors, and whoever else make when creating entertainment like this: they think their customers have the same motives they do. The “creatives” care about activism, but the gamers, moviegoers, and readers care about having a good experience with the art. They’re at cross purposes, which is why it’s a bad idea to hire people with agendas to create art and why these loons never understand why their products bomb. To jump to comic books for a quick second, it’s why Kelly Sue DeConnick is comfortable saying, “If you don’t like my politics, don’t buy my book,” with that smug look on her face (aside from the assured job security these lawsuits-waiting-to-happen seem to have). They expect scores of fellow travelers to buy their books, games, and movies to support their cause. But it never happens, and Ubisoft is looking at a very expensive (somehow) money pit on their hands starting Friday.
Let us know if you’re excited for Star Wars Outlaws (no judgments; we all like what we like) in the comments!
