A Windows Update Has Made Star Wars Outlaws, Avatar & Assassin's Creed Games Unplayable

Following its Steam and Wild Card DLC releases, players jumping into Star Wars Outlaws last week had some issues attempting to play the galactic action-adventure game. This mainly pertains to PC players who have the game installed on Windows devices, as a recent Windows update has made it impossible to run Star Wars Outlaws.

This was all but confirmed by Microsoft recently as they stated that there are issues regarding the Windows 11 version 24H2 update that had been made available. This issue was first identified a day after the game's Steam and Wild Card DLC releases for Star Wars Outlaws, and we're still awaiting an update on its status.

According to a post from Microsoft, "After installing Windows 11 version 24H2, you might encounter issues with some Ubisoft games. These games might become unresponsive while starting, loading, or during active gameplay. In some cases, users might receive a black screen."

As for which games have been impacted by the Windows 11 version 24H2 update, Microsoft has confirmed that Star Wars Outlaws is one of the impacted Ubisoft titles; however, it identified a few more games. These games include Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Origins, and Valhalla, for which Ubisoft had released a "temporary mitigation" for Outlaws, which was added in Title Update 1.4.0 last week.

Microsoft has further elaborated that they've "have applied a compatibility hold on devices with these games installed" to best protect their "Windows update experience. These devices will not be offered to install Windows 11, version 24H2, via the Windows Update release channel."

Furthermore, they've advised Windows users not to attempt to "manually update to version 24H2 using the Windows 11 Installation Assistant" or utilize the "media creation tool until this issue has been resolved." However, if the problem remains persistent, Microsoft has supplied a workaround where players can open the Task Manager application, locate the Ubisoft launcher or the game, and end the task before rebooting it.

Microsoft is working with Ubisoft to provide updates regarding this issue impacting specific Ubisoft titles over the next few days and will give more information. Additionally, they will alert players "on a resolution," which we'll update on this page once more information has been provided.