As criticism of the gaming industry's increasingly unethical monetization tactics mounted, Ubisoft delivered a bombshell to Star Wars Outlaws' budding player base: you would need to purchase a season pass in order to play the mission that stars Jabba the Hutt at launch. This implies that you must purchase the game's Gold or Ultimate edition or have a Ubisoft+ Premium membership. It goes without saying that this hasn't exactly made folks pleased.

Star Wars Outlaws has previously faced criticism by initially offering a season pass. Why is a battle pass required for a single-player, full-priced game like this one? Unfortunately, many would have likely overlooked it since this is not a really novel technique. However, we later discovered that the mission, which allows you to work with and meet Jabba (as ND-5 owes the notorious mafioso), would only be accessible to season pass holders. To be fair, the phrase "Play the exclusive Jabba's Gambit mission at launch" suggests that the mission will be available to all players at some time.

However, it does not sit well with people—or it shouldn't—that you have to pay $110 or $130 (for the Gold and Ultimate versions, respectively) to play a mission that has been highly anticipated for some time. To make matters worse, the season pass's description is as follows: "Open two more story extensions that will be released after launch, including a Jabba-only adventure on Day 1...” It seems from that that customers who buy the basic version would get less material for their seventy dollars. Whatever your stance, it is unacceptable to place material behind a paywall, particularly in a game that costs full price for a single player.

How Ubisoft responds to this scenario is yet to be seen. Or, in fact, whether mission material will always be inaccessible without a battle pass. We do know that you will need to pay extra money if you want to play the Jabba adventure when it launches. Well, at least it comes with some makeup, I guess.