Star Wars Outlaws is reportedly having major issues ahead of its launch on Nintendo Switch 2. But for anyone familiar with the game, this should come as no shock.
When Star Wars Outlaws was first announced, Ubisoft positioned it as the definitive open-world Star Wars experience — a sprawling title where players could explore planets, fly through space, and live out the fantasy of being a smuggler in a galaxy far, far away. With Disney and Lucasfilm backing the brand, the publisher touted the game as a major step forward for both Star Wars gaming and Ubisoft’s portfolio.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
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But when Outlaws launched on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC in August 2024, the experience was anything but smooth. A year later, as the title approaches its second chance on Nintendo’s next-generation hardware, the Switch 2, early reports suggest the cycle of Star Wars Outlaws disappointment may be repeating itself.
Hands-On Impressions Paint a Troubling Picture
At PAX West, attendees were given a chance to try Outlaws running on Switch 2 hardware. According to impressions from outlets like Good Vibes Gaming, the results were not encouraging. They described the game as “running pretty poorly,” citing repeated dips below 30 frames per second even in simple, contained areas such as narrow hallways aboard a Star Destroyer or during limited space combat sequences.
Jabba the Hutt in Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
Even more concerning, Ubisoft restricted all recording during the event. Journalists and influencers were barred from capturing gameplay footage, leaving only written impressions to surface online. That decision fueled speculation that the publisher knew the port wasn’t ready for primetime.
A leaked 40-minute gameplay video posted separately by YouTuber mataleao offered a somewhat different view. In docked mode, the performance appeared smoother, with some viewers claiming it looked comparable to optimized builds of Cyberpunk 2077. But that footage left open a crucial question: how does Star Wars Outlaws perform in handheld mode, the bread and butter of Nintendo Switch consoles? Without official transparency, skepticism has only deepened.
A History of Technical Turmoil
The nervous reaction isn’t unwarranted. Long before Nintendo Switch 2, Star Wars Outlaws launched with one of the roughest technical showings for a modern AAA game in recent memory.
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
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Among the most widely reported issues:
- Stealth mechanics were broken: Enemies often failed to react, detected players through walls, or simply ignored stealth kills altogether.
- AI inconsistencies undermined gameplay: Patrols glitched into loops, enemies got stuck in geometry, and entire missions could be broken by faulty triggers.
- Speeder controls felt incomplete: Vehicles handled poorly, with jittery animations and unreliable collision detection.
- Animations frequently bugged: Characters clipped through environments, dialogue scenes played out with bizarre physics errors, and facial animation stutters killed immersion.
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
Ubisoft responded quickly with patch 1.2, which adjusted AI placement, improved stealth logic, and refined speeder responsiveness. Yet the fact that so many core systems required immediate fixes underscored how unfinished the game had been at launch.
The Infamous PS5 Save Corruption Bug
Perhaps the most damaging blow came shortly after release with an update for PlayStation 5. In an effort to introduce a 40 fps graphics mode for smoother visuals, Ubisoft inadvertently created a catastrophic save-data bug. Players who installed the patch found their progress wiped, forced to restart the entire game with a new save file.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
For fans who had purchased deluxe or early-access editions, this represented dozens of hours of lost progress. Ubisoft offered minor compensation in the form of cosmetics and in-game currency, but the damage was already done. Social media lit up with furious complaints, and mainstream outlets covered the debacle, branding Outlaws a disaster.
Ubisoft Acknowledges Star Wars Fatigue
The fallout extended beyond technical missteps. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot later admitted the game had failed to meet expectations, citing two primary factors: Outlaws lacked the polish expected of a blockbuster, and the Star Wars brand itself was in a period of turbulence.
Yves Guillemot via Ubisoft North America YouTube
He described the franchise as being in “choppy waters,” referencing the cancellation of Disney’s The Acolyte series and the lukewarm reception of other recent Star Wars projects. For Ubisoft, the timing was brutal. Even a well-optimized game might have struggled to capitalize on brand enthusiasm during such a low point.
Sales were disappointing, forcing Ubisoft to recalibrate its release strategy. Internal documents revealed that an Outlaws 2 sequel had already entered very early development — only to be scrapped entirely in the wake of the first game’s poor performance.
Can Switch 2 Save Star Wars Outlaws?
That cancellation makes the Switch 2 port especially important for Ubisoft and Star Wars Outlaws. If the game can find a second life on Nintendo’s new hardware, it could soften the financial blow and reintroduce the title to players who skipped it during its rocky debut.
Key art for Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
But that gamble comes with enormous risk. Nintendo’s reputation has traditionally rested on strong optimization and polished releases, even for third-party ports. If Outlaws launches with the same frame rate stutters, handheld struggles, and bug-ridden gameplay reported at preview events, it could cement the game as one of the most mishandled Star Wars titles of the modern era.
A Larger Pattern
The story of Outlaws is not unique. In recent years, Ubisoft has repeatedly launched ambitious games in states that required months of patching before reaching stability. Fans have grown wary of “wait six months” releases, where early adopters pay full price only to serve as unpaid beta testers.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
For Star Wars fans, the disappointment is doubled. This is a franchise with legendary gaming roots — Knights of the Old Republic, Jedi Academy, Battlefront II — and yet modern installments too often arrive incomplete. Where players once expected groundbreaking innovation, they now brace for patches and hotfixes.
Final Thoughts
The Switch 2 release of Star Wars Outlaws should have been an opportunity to reframe the game’s legacy. Instead, early previews suggest that Ubisoft may have learned nothing from its past mistakes. Performance concerns, a history of glitches, and the cancellation of its sequel all point to a title struggling to find relevance in a galaxy that once promised so much more.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
If the Switch 2 version can’t deliver a stable, polished experience, Ubisoft risks turning Star Wars Outlaws into more of a cautionary tale than it already is — not just about rushed development cycles, but about how quickly fan trust can vanish when a beloved brand is mishandled.
Do you think Star Wars Outlaws can perform on Switch 2? Sound off in the comments and let us know!
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Make games people want and they people will pay for them and play them. Make what YOU want and be prepared for a low attach rate.
Release a crappy title on the Switch and it will bomb hard. Outlaws is starting out in last place already, a disaster on the Switch will end that team. And it is going to be dreadfully difficult to hit performance targets on the Switch 2, which has less capable hardware than either of the other mainstream consoles. Culling rendering distance, dropping polys on the models and flair on the VFX… got to minimize those draw calls! And even after that you still have to fit in a postage stamp size of memory.
If Outlaws had bucked the Girlboss trend and rejected the “The Force is Female” gibberish it might have done better. Fans will buy anything, even crap games. But they “Girlbossed too close to the sun”, as one person put it (Nerdrotic?) and took down a franchise which had stood strong and printed money for 40 years.
Outlaws was one of those, and it deserves to suffer for not providing entertainment as job 1 instead of prioritizing THE MESSAGE.
Hopefully it bombs on Switch 2 as well.
Seriously… i see this game come up on sale on Steam and once again take a look at it. Or I see an article online about it… and DAMN, that is one ugly ass main character. I just can’t bring myself to buy it because I know I will have to look at her for the entire game and I just can’t do it.
All the other issues with the game just pile into the “nope, not gonna buy it” list but that one tops them all. So sad, especially when you see the actress doing her voice. They really did a disservice to her
I see ugly people al day along, why would I want to see it in my games?