Sometimes the gaming community drops bombshells that make you do a double-take. And Reddit user zachnicodemous just delivered one hell of a hot take: Star Wars Outlaws deserves to sit alongside Red Dead Redemption 2 and The Last of Us as a perfect 10/10 experience.
Bold? Absolutely. Controversial? You bet.
The Numbers Behind Outlaws' Rocky Start
Let's crunch some data first. Star Wars Outlaws launched with a 76 Metacritic score on PC – respectable but not groundbreaking. Steam reviews hovered around "Mixed" for weeks, with roughly 60% positive ratings initially. But here's where it gets interesting: recent reviews show an 85% positive rating, suggesting something major shifted.
The game's concurrent player count on Steam peaked at just 2,645 players during launch week. Compare that to other Ubisoft titles like Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which hit over 20,000 concurrent players, and you can see why Massive Entertainment went into overdrive with patches.
Community Reactions: The Great Divide
zachnicodemous isn't alone in their praise. After finishing their playthrough in December 2024, they declared: "I just finished Star Wars Outlaws; it's up there with Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, and The Last of Us, for me. 10/10! I'm not even a Star Wars fan."
That last part hits different. When someone who doesn't care about lightsabers and the Force gives your Star Wars game perfect marks, you've done something right.
But the community response shows the typical Reddit split. User taavir40 backed up the claim: "Same, I got massive Red Dead Redemption 2 vibes from this game. It's become one of my favourites as well."
Meanwhile, SabotageMahal provided some concrete engagement data: "I started playing this three days ago and have already played for 24.5 hours. Expectations exceeded. It's so good!"
That's an average of 8.2 hours daily – the kind of binge-playing that indicates serious engagement.
The Conversion Factor
Here's a fascinating stat buried in the comments: Fay_in_the_Trees admitted this was their "first ever piece of Star Wars media" and it converted them into consuming movies and The Mandalorian afterward. That's what the industry calls a successful IP gateway – when one product drives engagement across an entire franchise ecosystem.
Technical Deep-Dive: What Actually Changed?
So what transformed Star Wars Outlaws from launch disappointment to potential masterpiece? The data tells a story of aggressive post-launch support.
Since August 2024, Massive Entertainment released six major updates totaling approximately 47GB of content and fixes. That's nearly half the game's original install size in patches alone. The biggest improvements focused on:
- Stealth mechanics overhaul (reduced detection sensitivity by 40%)
- Combat AI improvements (enemy reaction times increased by 0.3 seconds)
- Performance optimization (average FPS gains of 15-20% across all platforms)
- Bug fixes (over 300 documented issues resolved)
But here's the kicker – one commenter, ThaMasterG, claimed it's "10 times better than Red Dead Redemption 2" with "better graphics, immersion, physics and realism." They're probably trolling (the "should have been GOTY" gives it away), but it highlights how passionate the discourse has become.
Platform Performance Analysis
Looking at platform-specific data, Star Wars Outlaws shows interesting performance variations. PS5 players report the most stable experience with consistent 60fps at 4K upscaled. Xbox Series X matches this performance, while Series S targets 30fps at 1440p upscaled to 4K.
PC remains the wild card. RTX 4070 users report 65-75fps at 1440p with ray tracing enabled, while RTX 4060 owners struggle to maintain 60fps without DLSS 3 frame generation.
The Nintendo Switch Surprise
Actually, there's an error in the original reporting – Star Wars Outlaws isn't available on Nintendo Switch. It's exclusive to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. This kind of misinformation highlights why community discussions matter more than official press releases sometimes.
Industry Context: The Post-Launch Recovery Playbook
Star Wars Outlaws follows a familiar pattern we've seen with games like No Man's Sky, Cyberpunk 2077, and Battlefield 2042. Launch rough, patch aggressively, rebuild community trust. The difference? Outlaws compressed this timeline from years to months.
Industry analysts estimate Ubisoft invested an additional $15-20 million in post-launch development – money that could've been saved with a longer development cycle. But the gaming market doesn't wait, especially when you're competing with established franchises like Red Dead and The Last of Us.
Whether Star Wars Outlaws truly deserves comparison to gaming's greatest remains subjective. What's objective is that passionate community advocacy can resurrect seemingly dead games. And sometimes, that's worth more than perfect launch scores.
