When you think of the Star Wars franchise, what do you think of it? In recent years, many would think immediately of the Star Wars the Rise of Skywalker trilogy, or the Star Wars TV shows (The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian, Ahsoka, and the Acolyte).
While many criticized the Acolyte and viewed the Sequel Trilogy as a stain on the franchise, others loved the return of Luke Skywalker and other popular franchise characters. Even the Mandalorian brought some good grace from fans due to the work of Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian.
Although the Star Wars TV and cinematic adaptations have fans divided, many fans still have a relatively positive outlook towards the Star Wars video games.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Fallen Order and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga were positively received by many critics and fans alike. The Star Wars Battle Front remastering however had tons of problems when it launched and left many feeling like it was a cash grab.
Last year Ubisoft revealed a small teaser of their upcoming game, Star Wars Outlaw. Many at the time wondered if the canceled Star Wars 1313 was the precursor or inspiration for Star Wars Outlaws. At Summer Game Fest 2024, we had the opportunity to meet with Ubisoft at the Ubisoft Forward and preview Star Wars Outlaws.
For the demo, Ubisoft built a cantina, similar to the one in the game, down in the basement of The Belasco. Guests could try blue milk while playing the demo. On the top floor of the Belasco, guests could watch a master blacksmith create Kunai bottle openers and check out the Japanese-themed restaurant.
The Empire Base and Flying, Scrapyard, and the Frozen Artifact.
For the Star Wars Outlaws demo, players were given three 20-minute intervals to complete levels. These three levels showed off the game’s platforming, fighting, and flying portions.
For the flying mission, we didn’t jump directly into flying. Instead, we had to sneak through an Empire base and find sensitive information. During this mission, we had to try out the lockpick, which is rhythm-based. While waiting for the cargo ramp to open, we had to shoot different stormtroopers.
The game featured a focus shot mechanic where you could target multiple enemies, stun the stormtroopers, and try out different weapons. Once the ramp was down, we were able to take off. This began the outer space fight portion of the mission.
Flying into the debris field gave us a chance to hide somewhat. Once in the field, we could then take on the three Tie Fighters. Once all three Tie Fighters were dead, we could go to the relay and disable the wanted broadcast.
The second took us to a snowy level (Kijimi City) where we were looking for a valuable item. For this mission, the primary focus was to sneak through the fortress and take out the foes. Rather than taking them out slowly and using our little friend as a distraction, we went in guns blazing.
The firefight was slightly challenging at first but as we took out more enemies, it got a lot easier. After killing everyone, we were able to get the keycard and unlock the door to deactivate the shield and claim the relic (Bann Pu’Dira).
With the relic in our possession, we had to escape the area and return it to the queen. On our way to the queen, we found a door that had to be unlocked. This door didn’t use the lock pick mechanic but instead used a different game similar to Wordle but with symbols.
Sadly, what was hidden in that room was outside of the designated playable area. With the Queen thankful, she offers to give you the Bomb Maker if you help them with their plans of expansion.
The third and final mission was in the Scrapyard. This level was to show off some of the game’s platforming mechanics; most of the level was us platforming or figuring out the puzzles. In order to open some doors, we had to use the shock blaster variation.
Once on the Star Destroyer’s bridge, we could grab the Nav Computer. Sadly this new-found treasure is short-lived. Veil is lurking right behind us and wants revenge. When the core becomes unstable, we are able to escape with the help of a robot ally.
Gameplay impressions
If I didn’t know that Ubisoft was the one to publishing Star Wars Outlaws, I would have thought that it was the same developers of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order or its sequel Survivor. The platforming mechanics are similar to the two games and it uses a similar camera angle as well.
The shooting mechanic in Star Wars Outlaws feels similar to some of Ubisoft’s other games (Far Cry, Avatar). Flying in the game felt smooth and nice to do rather than feeling like you are going to get sick from changing angles continuously.
Sadly, we weren’t able to tell if the game was a Far Cry clone or not. From what we could tell, Star Wars Outlaws has a lot of the positive elements from each of the Ubisoft games, but we will ultimately have to wait and see.
The parts of the story in Star Wars Outlaws we were presented with seemed like fun narrative points but we can’t say for certain where exactly it ties into the overall Star Wars universe.
Star Wars Outlaws is set to launch on August 30th across Windows PC (via the Ubisoft Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
