Outer Worlds Studio Apologizes To Player Who Bought The Sci-Fi RPG For A Free Upgrade They Can’t Actually Get

It’s not the best choice, it’s Spacer’s Choice. That satirical slogan has been dogging The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition since it arrived with some annoying issues at launch back in 2023. It’s once again become appropriate after the game’s latest unexpected snafu. Players who owned the original version of the game were recently supposed to get a free upgrade, but Obsidian Entertainment ultimately had to decline “due to various entitlement restrictions and backend issues.”

This all started with the original version of The Outer Worlds being delisted this month. As a result of that decision, Obsidian Entertainment promised everyone who owned it that they could get a free upgrade to the Spacer’s Choice Edition on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. This was especially cool because when the next-gen port originally came out, people who had already bought the game had to pay an extra $10 to upgrade.

“If you have at least the base edition of The Outer Worlds in your digital library* before May 27th, you will be receiving the Spacer’s Choice Edition free,” the studio posted on Steam on April 30. “That’s right, free! This is for all platforms that the Spacer’s Choice Edition is on (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Steam, Epic Games Store, GOG). After May 27th, The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition will be available for $39.99.”

Obsidian even went ahead and said that while it couldn’t guarantee anything, it was investigating whether it could also find a way to extend this offer to people who owned the physical version of the game on PS4 or Xbox One. Since players had until May 27 to purchase the base game and still get the upgrade, many went and did exactly that. After all, Spacer’s Choice Edition has been fixed since its troubled launch and comes with all of the DLC. Cool beans!

Except it turns out that people who own the base version of the game can’t upgrade after all on PlayStation and Xbox. “The Spacer’s Choice Edition upgrade was intended to say ‘Thanks’ to anyone who purchased The Outer Worlds base game by providing them a free upgrade to the newly improved version,” the studio later wrote on X.

Simply put: scam.
Like game companies and studios are having it easy right now, with so many people losing their jobs.
Obsidian is taking a huge risk right now by doing this. They're risking losing something far more valuable than $15: their fans' goodwill
Good luck

— MrBert (@MrBert11) May 28, 2026

It continued, “However, due to various entitlement restrictions and backend issues we weren’t able to provide this as smoothly as we wished and our players are, rightfully, upset. If you purchased the base game on Xbox One or PlayStation 4 between 4/30 and 5/27, or have any issues with the upgrade, please contact our support team and we’ll work with you to make it right. Sorry again for the frustration around this.”

It’s unclear what the make-good would be in this situation. A refund for anyone who just purchased the base game? Complimentary DLC? A free $10 upgrade? So far at least, the apology isn’t going over well. “Simply put: scam,” wrote one person on X. “I have a quick fix,” wrote another. “Make the DLC free for a week and everyone’s happy. You could do that and gain a lot of good will, but you prefer to apologize and make excuses.”

At least some people are getting the DLC free. “To their credit they emailed me a code to get spacers choice that also forced the dlc for the og version to activate / be recognized,” wrote one player who had previously been locked out from accessing the PS5 version of the game. “Got both full version now.”

It’s worth noting that this hasn’t been an issue at all on Steam, only on PlayStation and Xbox. The latter is especially confusing since Obsidian is a first-party studio, even though The Outer Worlds was originally published by Private Division, a Take-Two label that no longer even exists. In some ways the entire weird debacle perfectly fits the sci-fi RPG’s unique brand of corporate satire.