Ubisoft Cancels Star Wars Outlaws Sequel Despite High Anticipation

Ubisoft made several mistakes in the past few months, and they were all bad. People aren't as excited about Star Wars Outlaws as they used to be because of how poorly Ubisoft handled the marketing for Assassin's Creed Shadows. So far, nothing has caught our attention that even seems slightly interesting. We knew Kay Vess, who was kind of like Han Solo.

Months before its debut, Assassin's Creed Shadows became the talk of the town, completely obscuring Star Wars Outlaws. However, the game did manage to resurface in the media at some point. After all, it is Star Wars. Regardless of the initial shortcomings with Outlaws, the developers remained committed, and the game held to its promises. However, it seems like Ubisoft paid little attention to that, as it looks like the game is over now.

That's correct! Just when fans of the first game were hoping to see Kay Vess continue her adventure, Ubisoft has officially canceled the follow-up to Star Wars Outlaws, which won't come as a surprise to many in the business. A report read that the project was in its early stages of development before it was quietly put on hold.

Some fans of the original will be disappointed by Ubisoft's choice, but it wasn't really a surprise. When Star Wars Outlaws came out, it got mixed reviews. Some people liked how ambitious it was, but it didn't connect with many people and didn't live up to either critics' or Ubisoft's own standards. From what I've heard, the game didn't do well at all, both commercially and strategically. It didn't meet the standards needed to support continued investment in the franchise.

The cancellation brings up a bigger problem that producers have to deal with: licensed games can be good and bad at the same time. On the one hand, brands like Star Wars have a huge audience and a place in culture that few other IPs can match.

On the other hand, they have very high licensing and production costs, which make it much harder to sell and make money. License deals like this give game publishers a chance to use very popular IPs, but there's a high price to pay for that. Games that are based on well-known IPs need to do better than just do well.

Ubisoft's problem is similar to recent ones, like the Wonder Woman game that was canceled. Yes, the figure is well-known in the world of comic books, but that doesn't always mean the same thing to people who play video games. It's a lesson that just because something works well in one medium doesn't mean it will work well in another, especially when budgets for development get too big.

The only non-gaming brands that always seem to pull their weight are the big ones, like Spider-Man, Batman, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. Even then, how things are done matters; that golden ticket was in Ubisoft's hands, but they lost it.

The company hasn't said anything about the cancellation in public, and they probably won't. But it's clear what the message is: if a Star Wars game doesn't do well enough to get a sequel, it's not the license's fault. It has to do with the performance.

For Ubisoft, the way forward might be to go back to places they've been before. They have more creative freedom and less danger with their own franchises, which were built in-house. But that plan isn't foolproof on its own; it needs to be paired with a better product. "They also need to, you know, learn how to make better games," the story said straight out.

There won't be a Star Wars Outlaws sequel, but the lesson is still valid: name recognition alone won't get a game to the finish line. Not any longer.