It has been a literal shitstorm for Ubisoft recently, and I don’t feel bad for them, as everything that’s been happening has been by choice, and the company deserves criticism for its actions. First, it was about Ubisoft reaching into your Ubisoft Connect accounts and removing access to a game you paid for. But it gets worse with the company trying to stick it to players with its upcoming Star Wars Outlaws. If you’re not familiar with what I’m referring to? That’s ok, I’ll break it down for you.
Recently, Ubisoft dropped the story trailer for its upcoming Star Wars Outlaws, and I’m not going to lie—it seemed great. Ever since the game was announced, I was ready. I loved that we’d be playing as scoundrels and dealing with the underworld, not as Jedi or starship pilots. It happens far too much. But along with the trailer reveal, Ubisoft also announced the pricing for the game, and that’s when things started taking a turn for the worse.
Star Wars Outlaws will be released at three different tiers: Standard, Gold, and Ultimate, with each offering you, the gamer, access to the game and some extra stuff. The standard edition priced at $70, just provides access to the game, which is fine. However, it’s not until we get a look at what the next tier, Gold, includes, and it’s here that it starts to hit the fan. Priced at $110, the Gold Edition includes 3 days of early access, a season pass and an exclusive mission called “Jabba’s Gambit.”
Yes, that’s right, if you don’t pay an extra 30 dollars, you’re going to miss out on content, and that’s straight-up bullshit, and frankly, I’m tired of companies doing this. This is right up there when companies would include exclusive content for the platform while removing it for the other platforms. This was recently done with Hogwarts Legacy. It’s a bad practice, as it punishes gamers for no release. If they are paying for the game, they should get a completed title, not one that has stuff removed because they didn’t pay a greedy, just a “little more.”
The Ultimate Edition, priced at $130, includes this exclusive mission, along with some cosmetics, the season pass, and a digital art book. While I’m sure the cosmetics will be purchasable later, but a digital art book? I’m not even going into why I’m not a fan of that practice, so I’ll save that for another time.
I can’t stomach this nonsense from Ubisoft, and it’s getting frustrating that they deem this acceptable. More so, is that people are also okay with this and are more than happy to pay them whatever they want to get access to something that should be in the base game. Stop it, people. Please stop encouraging this.
Companies shouldn’t be rewarded for this behavior; it just encourages them to keep doing what it’s doing. Whether it’s offering us a piecemeal game, tossing microtransactions for stuff that could be earned in-game, or keeping content exclusive to another platform. And yet, it’s something that’s been happening for years, and unless the people who purchase this still stand up and become vocal about this behavior, it will not stop.
