Microsoft U-turn on charging $80 for The Outer Worlds 2 and other Xbox games, cue memes and pre-order refunds

Microsoft have done a U-turn and decided they don’t fancy making a series that at least tries to satirise capitalism the face of a price hike. In the US, The Outer Worlds 2 will no longer cost $79.99, but the low, low sum of $69.99 instead.

For UK folks, that means a tenner’s been knocked off what you’ll pay to pre order the standard version of the RPG, which comes out on October 29th. Xbox and co will be doing the same with their other holiday period games this year, rather than pushing up how much folks are paying to £70/$80.

Yep, this about face has seen The Outer Worlds 2’s pre order price on Steam knocked down from £69.99 to £59.99, the same price as fellow Obsidian role-playing thing Avowed. The premium edition’ll still cost you £89.99, though.

IGN reports folks who’ve already pre-ordered the game for the higher price will be able to claim refunds from whichever storefront or location they bought it from, and Xbox says these might take a few days to come through.

In their continued efforts to make me feel mildly embarrassed about having liked the first Outer Worlds and being at least curious to give the sequel a go, Microsoft announced this price change with not one but two meme posts to the series’ official Musk platform account.

“We have received your SOS via skip drone about the pricing,” read the first one. “As an organisation devoted to making sure that corporations do not go unfettered, we at the Earth Directorate have worked with [REDACTED] to revise the price of The Outer Worlds 2. While this will not bring peace to the galaxy, or even your local colony, we assure you all that we are here to fight for all colonies in every way that we can.”

Ok, bit cringe maybe, but I can deal with it and…oh no. They almost immediately posted a second highly-edited corporate meme clip of someone punching a Spacers’ Choice moon mascot with the price plastered over its face. Look, I get that the devs probably weren’t fans of the price increase either, given it might well have meant fewer folks buying their game, but maybe don’t try to play this off as some grand victory. It’s some execs going ‘harrummph’ and putting their tails between their legs for now.

Some execs, I have to point out, who oversaw mass layoffs earlier this month.