Ubisoft revealed that it replaced Julian Gerighty as its Creative Director for Star Wars Outlaws in the wake of admitting that it “underperformed sales expectations.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
In the game’s first Dev Update, Ubisoft shared that Drew Rechner is now the game’s Creative Director and that the company has been “listening to, gathering and actioning players feedback and we see there are key areas where we can elevate the game experience to better meet your expectations.”
Rechner has been with Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment for nearly 11 years and has been a Creative Director at the company since January 2024 according to his LinkedIn. He was previously the Associate Game Director on Massive’s Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.
He echoed the comments from Ubisoft in a message addressed to gamers, “I also want to take the time to say that we hear not only your positive feedback, but your constructive feedback as well. Thank you for sharing with us and helping us make the game even better.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
Rechner also shared his vision for the game moving forward, “The first key area of improvement to the game is combat where we see a real opportunity to add more depth and excitement to the experience, further rewarding your tactics and precision.”
He continued, “Our second key area is stealth which is not only about improving the readability and consistency of enemy detection, but also providing choice in how you want to approach each encounter.
“Finally, our third key area of focus is centered around the character controls, which means improving the reliability of cover, increasing the responsiveness of climbing and crouching, and generally improving the consistency of the controls overall,” Rechner stated.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
While he pointed out these are areas of improvement he and the Ubisoft team will be working on, he did not provide any specific details, but instead promised, “You can expect to see more details about how we will be celebrating and embracing player choice more than ever before, whether it’s sneaking through encounters, going in blasters-blazing, or everything in-between.”
Rechner added, “We will provide more specific details about the changes to these areas and more in the upcoming weeks as we provide further updates to you. All of this will culminate in the release of Title Update 1.4 which will release on November 21st alongside the Steam launch and first story pack, Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
The change from Gerighty to Rechner comes in the wake of Ubisoft admitting that Star Wars Outlaws “underperformed sales expectations” despite achieving “solid reviews” in its First-Half 2024-25 Earnings Figures report.
It also comes after Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot completely evaded a question on the state of Outlaws’ sales curve. He was asked during the company’s Earnings Conference Call by an investor from BMO, “On Star Wars Outlaws, obviously, off to a slower start than you guys wanted, can you provide a little color into the sales curve there more recently? Have you guys started to see things pick up? Can you talk about any discounting you might be doing or strategies for discounting into the holiday period would be helpful?”
Guillemot responded, “On Outlaws what we can say is that the three title updates that we’ve delivered at the same time we’ve been observing substantial positive community sentiment improvement. The biggest update is still to come by November 21st. And it will come on the same day as the first big story pack and the launch for Steam. So we are putting ourselves in a position to have a must-play game that should address a mainstream audience for the busy season. Also to be a long-term seller.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
He added, “It has great quality and the team wanted to make sure that we will remove a few frictions. And then implement some gameplay mechanics that will certainly delight the players.”
Guillemot later stated, “Yes, we will be planning some promotional support throughout the busy season.”
As you can see, he does not provide any color on the game’s sales curve whatsoever.
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
It is rumored that the game sold around 1 million copies in its first month since release.
Grant Taylor-Hill at Insider Gaming wrote, “We have secured a current sales figure from sources close to the game. At the time of writing, Star Wars Outlaws has just ticked over one million sales worldwide.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
However, the game has completely fallen off True Trophies’ Top 40 Most Popular PlayStation Games chart as well as True Achievements’ Top 40 Xbox Gameplay Chart.
Furthermore, Twitch Tracker notes that the game was only being streamed by an average of 32 channels in September down from its average of 194 in August. Most recently the average channel count has declined to 17. Along with the drop in channels, viewership has also plummeted. It went from an average of 8,468 viewers to 321.
Looking at peaks, the game hit a peak viewership of 117,554 on August 25. It has completely fallen off a cliff with peak viewership in October only hitting 746 viewers. The peak number of channels streaming the game peaked in July with 1,221, but has also fallen off a cliff in October to just 37.
A screenshot of Star Wars Outlaws viewership data via Twitch Tracker taken on November 5, 2024 at 11:48 AM ET.
While Guillemot is attempting to tout this game as a potential long-term seller, most of the data points available to the public do not appear to back up that assertion.
What do you make of Outlaws replacing Gerighty with Drew Rechner as Creative Director?
