In my experience with Star Wars games, I have always believed that Star Wars games work best with a more linear structure. While I found both Star Wars Jedi Survivor and Fallen Order enjoyable, the games shone best in the more linear sections than the large sandbox sections. Star Wars Outlaws dares to be the first major "open-world" game and it is quite a tall order. I am happy to report that Outlaws may have just pulled it off. Star Wars Outlaws knows exactly what it is right from the jump and spends the next 30 hours or so honing to near perfection that feeling of being a slick operator within the underworld. Star Wars Outlaws is a fantastic effort from Ubisoft Massive that showcases the kind of open-world magic Ubisoft was once lauded for in the age of Black Flag and AC II.
Star Wars Outlaws gracefully and intelligently avoids the pitfalls of the standard Ubisoft open-world experience and delivers a much more manageable set of open-world maps that the player can sink their teeth into without being overwhelmed. It also helps that the game is packed with great writing that provides the character with something interesting to say at all times. Going into Star Wars Outlaws, I could not help but feel a little tentative, given I hadn't particularly enjoyed The Division games by Ubisoft Massive fearing a looter-shooter-type structure. All my fears were quelled mere minutes into the game when I was greeted with some of the most well-done cutscenes, dialogue and an open world that felt inviting.
Star Wars Outlaws is a definite stone-cold hit in a game franchise that is often more miss than hit. Despite not attempting to reinvent the wheel, the game is packed with fresh ideas on well-worn-out concepts to build an experience that doesn't lose steam throughout its roughly 20-hour runtime.
Star Wars Outlaws: Double Crossing Your Mates is Fun
Gameplay
For the first time in a very long time, a Ubisoft game finally felt like it benefited from an open-world structure. Kay Vess and Nix's adventures span beyond just the main questline and the best experiences are often found in the game's numerous side quests that come in the form of Faction quests or exploration (plundering) tasks. Ubisoft Massive's decision to implement smaller open-world planets rather than 1 giant map adds the kind of variety and freshness that has been hard to come by in recent years. The game takes place over 4 different planets - Toshara, Kijimi, Akiva, and Tatooine (yes, we're going to Tatooine in Star Wars Media - AGAIN). Each world feels and plays a lot different than the others. While the perenially dark Kijimi is a frosty, claustrophobic cityscape that has you scaling rooftops and navigating narrow streets, Toshara is a mountainous, arid playground that lets you make full use of your Speeder.
Traversal in Star Wars Outlaws does not reinvent the wheel and neither does combat. Yet, they work flawlessly because they feed into the game's thematic elements to near perfection. Kay Vess is not a Jedi neither a soldier, armed with only her Blaster - your choice of tackling objectives will usually default to Stealth. While you can successfully charge into enemy bases and come out the other end scraped and bruised, it will always be better to sneak around and make away with your objective (usually stealing something or hacking something) without the enemy ever laying eyes on you. Speaking of enemies, ou get to pick yours. While, yes, Imperials are always the bad guys - the game has a total of 4 Syndicates - Pyke, Ashiga, Crimson Dawn, and the Hutt Cartel. Throughout the game, the player can choose to be partial to a Syndicate, which will affect their Reputation level with them.
All Syndicates can offer Kay contracts which she and the player can choose to honor or not. Breaking the Contract usually means picking one Syndicate over the other, resulting in not just a boost in Reputation but also Credits. This creates an exciting gameplay loop that feeds into the thematic elements of the game where Kay is a freelancing scoundrel who works the Syndicates to her benefit. However, pissing off somebody too much creates interesting situations. For most of your quests deal with infiltrating and stealing something - it helps if you're in the good graces of a Syndicate you're just about to steal from. Being good with a Syndicate allows Kay to enter and roam freely in their Districts except for the Restricted Areas. Getting caught in the Restricted Area does not immediately trigger a mission failure (most of the time), but a loss of reputation with the Syndicate that just caught you trying to steal a Datapad or some such. This adds another level of complexity to the open world as the player can now strategically execute contracts for Syndicates to gain access to their areas that will help them with another quest.
Combat works pretty standard and so does stealth. However, it is made a lot more interesting with the addition of your companion, Nix. The little Merqaal can complete several tasks, from distracting enemies to trapping alarms and detonating grenades at Kay's command. Stealth feels a lot more involved with Nix and the game makes sure to put Kay in situations that incentivize stealth instead of forcing it on the player. Although there is a lack of variety with enemy bases, having prior of the area you're about to stealth through significantly reduces the challenge. While lower difficulties will offer players a more breezy experience with a decent amount of challenge, the most ideal way to play, I found, was to crank up the difficulty to utilize Kay's entire inventory and Nix's many useful abilities. While Traversal isn't anything to write home about, it serves its purpose of making going from Point A to Point B a relatively fun experience. The Speeder is fairly enjoyable albeit a little challenging especially when it comes to collisions. Space Combat leaves a little to be desired as the only way you can make the most out of it is by completing certain Expert requirements to add more functionality to your spacecraft.
While the open world on the planets is where you'll find most of your quests and contracts- a good chunk of the game unfolds in space. Where it's slightly riskier as enemies will most likely have you outgunned at nearly every turn. Picking a fight is a lot more calculated decision than on the ground and you're more liable to abandon a fight rather than die a slow death by a thousand torpedoes. Ultimately, Star Wars Outlaws is a welcome change of pace from the standard Ubisoft open-world and the most fun I've had playing Star Wars this side of Force Unleashed II.
Story
Now, to the part that won the most brownie points with me. Star Wars Outlaws, thankfully, stays away from the Jedi and the Sith to tell a more personal story about a relatively lower-powered character. Kay Vess and Nix are two lowly thieves that happen to find themselves in the crosshairs of one of the most feared Syndicates in the galaxy and the only way out is to pull off the greatest heist the Galaxy has ever seen. This puts Kay and Nix on a trajectory to meet interesting crew mates, Syndicate bosses, and nasty Imperials. Like my favourite Star Wars media, Outlaws concerns itself more with the politics of the Galaxy - starting interesting conversations around the grey-ish moralities of the Rebel Alliance and who pays the cost for an uprising.
Class warfare and politics form the backdrop of Kay's story while the Syndicates take centre stage. Through the course of the game, Kay builds a reputation that has Syndicates chomping at the bit to use her services, which she can then use to her advantage. Although it did feel like Kay came off more naive and blue than I would have liked in the start, I am happy to report that the game does have a solid arc for her as she comes into her own towards the end of the game. While the game touches on similar themes previously explored in other media (most notably in Guardians of the Galaxy), the game buys enough goodwill from the player to excuse some of its telegraphed twists and character betrayals.
One of the only complaints I had with the story was the villain - Sliro. Even though the character was deeply underdeveloped, he always had something interesting to say, thanks to the game's fantastic writing. The same goes for some of the other grey characters like our "handler" - Jaylen Vrex. The game's standout characters included Kay, the BBX Unit Commando ND-5 and a/trigger-happy Hutt bombmaker Ank Each character is given a key backstory that adds a ton of depth that I wasn't quite expecting, which helped me invest in the crew a lot more than I had anticipated.
The game's best story moments happen in your dealings with the 4 Syndicates and your choices will help shape tip the power balance in one's favour over the other. One of Star Wars Outlaw's best feats comes in the form of not overly relying on the member berries. While, yes, there is the odd cameo and reference that will get a dry chuckle out of you, they do not overstay their welcome. Star Wars Outlaws charts its legacy and leaves players with a Star Wars story that could be considered one of the best in the years to come.
Presentation and Technical
I played Star Wars Outlaws on a PS5, and for the most part, the game looked pretty serviceable on Performance mode. While cranking it up to Quality meant the lighting and textures were significantly improved, it didn't feel good enough to sacrifice 30 frames per second. The game also has a Performance RT mode capped at 40 frames per second, which is a sweet balance between the two modes. The game also lets you play in the CInematic 21:9 mode, which is a pretty neat addition. While it looks like the default way to play the game would be in 21:9, it just didn't feel like I was getting enough information to work with. While fidelity was an issue on the PS5, it helped the environment work was some of the best I have seen in Star Wars. Each area has been worked to near perfection, especially the nebula in the Kijimi orbit or the arid and stark Tatooine.
Where the game does run into a bit of trouble is on the technical side of things. As the game stands, certain voice lines for characters are repeated at the weirdest moments possible. I had ND-5 ping me about a Sabacc game that I had already finished and won well after it had wrapped throughout the entire game. Thankfully, bugs and other technical glitches didn't get in the way of the overall experience. While it does feel a little rough around the edges, it's nothing that a Day 1 patch probably cannot fix.
Final Word: Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws is a bright spot in Ubisoft's current game output and stands out as one of the publisher's finest achievements. The game perfectly encapsulates the Space Scoundrel experience that fans have been yearning for since the time Harrison Ford as Han Solo burst onto the scene. This has all the markings of a potentially massive franchise if Massive can capitalize and iterate on the already great Reputation system. It will be interesting to see what the fan response will be towards the game as it would be a travesty if this ends up as the next Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, another solid space sci-fi title that failed to meet publisher expectations in terms of sales.
Given that Star Wars has a massive fanbase, it stands to reason the game is bound to do well financially, considering the quality. Overall, Star Wars Outlaws is a fantastic open-world adventure that gives you pretty much everything you need from a game like this.
