PSA: Don't spend £115 on Star Wars Outlaws' Ultimate Edition

Perhaps this should go without saying, but there's no need to drop £115 on Star Wars: Outlaws' expensive Ultimate Edition, which includes an "exclusive" mission with Jabba the Hutt.

However you feel about the fact this eye-wateringly priced option exists in the first place, it's worth noting that not only can you buy Star Wars: Outlaws' Standard Edition for £60 - almost half the price - but that Ubisoft's usual method of handling "day one" exclusive missions is typically to release them for free down the line.

As a reminder, Star Wars Outlaws comes in three flavours. The Standard Edition is the vanilla game, the Gold Edition (£95) includes its Season Pass, while the Ultimate Edition (again, £115) includes the Season Pass and some extra cosmetics.

Ubisoft has said you'll need to buy the Gold or Ultimate Edition to play "the Jabba's Gambit exclusive mission available at launch", and while this is listed as part of the game's Season Pass offerings, there seems a fair chance it may also be handled in the same way as Ubisoft's many past "pre-order exclusive" missions.

Last year's Assassin's Creed Mirage featured bonus mission "The Forty Thieves" which you could only unlock with a pre-order purchase. But it later became available to claim using the game's Ubisoft Connect hub around six weeks after launch, for 60 Units (achievement-like currency points you earn by progressing through Ubisoft games - and from experience of Mirage, you easily notch up enough before you're half-way through).

The same was true with "pre-order exclusive" missions for Assassin's Creed Valhalla (the "Way of the Beserker pre-order mission), Immortals Fenyx Rising ("A Tale of Fire and Lightning"), Assassin's Creed Odyssey ("The Blind King") and Assassin's Creed Origins ("Secrets of the First Pyramids"). Each were advertised as something you could only get up front by putting down money quick, but became Ubisoft Connect rewards after a couple of months.

So, Ubisoft has form in picking intriguing-sounding story missions and holding them back for select customers at launch, only to provide access to them later anyway for those with a bit of patience.

It's worth reiterating that there's a bit of extra muddle here with Star Wars Outlaws, as "Jabba's Gambit" is listed as something for Season Pass owners - ie. those who pay for the Gold/Ultimate Editions - and because it hasn't been made clear if meeting/interacting with Jabba is exclusive to this mission. (Jabba has been in multiple trailers now, so it seems unlikely you won't meet him otherwise, but we shall see.) Regardless, this confusion also seems by design - the idea is the casual purchaser errs on the side of caution and buys one of the game's more expensive options to get Jabba just in case.

Our advice would be to not.

We've asked Ubisoft if Jabba's Gambit will be made more widely available later, and whether the greedy slug is locked to that mission.