When you think of the Star Wars franchise, what comes to mind? If you are a millennial or from gen X then you most likely think of the original trilogy or the Clone Wars. Maybe you will think of the slew of Star Wars video games that were released during the ’90s and early 2000s. If you were born in the last twenty years, you will know the older movies but Star Wars the Clone Wars, The Skywalker Saga, and The Mandalorian would have had more of an impact. In the last decade, Star Wars games have been rather hit or miss. Meanwhile, EA’s Star Wars Jedi franchise and Lego Star Wars have reinvigorated the gaming market. Now, Ubisoft looks to capitalize on the market with a different type of Star Wars game with Star Wars Outlaws.
Developer: Massive Entertainment
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PC (Ubisoft Connect), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S
Release Date: August 26th, 2024 UB or 30th standard
Players: 1
Price: Base: $69.99 USD
Star Wars Outlaws is the story of Kay Vess, an aspiring splicer, and her cute little companion Nix. After a heist gone wrong, Kay Vess’ guardian, Bram, signs her up for a risky high-value mission to get her out of the area; this mission however gets Kay into even more trouble when the crew she is working for turns on her, incapacitating her and leaving her unconscious in the vault.
Sliro, a powerful black market merchant and lord discovers Kay in his vault and attempts to interrogate her about the rebel army. Kay is able to escape with the help of Nix and steals a limited edition spaceship called the Trailblazer; the theft of the starship and breaking into the vault causes Sliro to place a death mark bounty on Kay.
Escaping from Sliro’s mansion, Kay ends up crashing the Trailblazer on Mirogana and meets an engineer named Waka. With Waka’s help, Kay is able to start repairing the ship and increasing her reputation by working with different factions within the town.
The four primary factions, the Ashiga Clan, Crimson Dawn, Hutt Cartel, and Pyke Syndicate will give the player a variety of missions to undertake, however, most missions have choice paths that will impact the player’s reputation with each clan. By undertaking certain missions, the player is introduced to new characters that can help Kay unlock new skills while offering special benefits.
As far as the story goes, Kay’s tale of learning to become a better splicer, finding her own path, and learning who to trust feels pretty generic; it is a decent Star Wars tale but not one that will live on within us and become a nostalgic memory. The main story felt rather lackluster compared to the side missions the player could undertake. The interactions with Nix and some of the other characters are more heartwarming than the main story.
At Summer Game Fest, Ubisoft gave us an hour-long preview of Star Wars Outlaws. The hour-long preview focused primarily on platforming and combat both on land and in space. When we finally got our hands on the game, it felt like we had been duped. Rather than a run-and-gun bounty hunter style, we were forced to play a stealthy sneaky style.
As someone who hates playing games stealthily, being forced to sneak through areas without being caught or else fail was absolute torture. Yes, you could knock out or kill enemies along the way, however, if an enemy spotted you as you were taking them out you could still fail the mission. On top of that, these stealth missions are not one-offs.
Within the first six hours, about 75% of the missions we undertook required us to be stealthy or die multiple times. This made playing through Star Wars Outlaws fairly difficult. Additionally, you can sense that Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment still wanted some core gameplay elements from other Ubisoft titles like Avatar, Far Cry, and Assassin’s Creed.
In addition to the forced stealthy mechanics, Star Wars Outlaws has three issues that can be fairly annoying. Firstly, the use of the speeder is a great mode of transportation, but it feels like Ubisoft deliberately made the world bigger in order to have an open-world style and to be able to use the speeder.
Second is the skill system. The game itself does not have levels but swaps it out instead for a skill-based system where the player must complete different challenges to unlock new abilities. These abilities can not be unlocked until you meet a mentor and you gain no progress toward the challenges until you do. Some of the mentors within the game are story-driven interactions while others require the player to search for them.
Third is the faction-controlled territories within the open world; when moving throughout planets, it is fairly easy to drive through a faction-controlled territory. Sadly, if you have a poor or horrible reputation with a certain faction, they will attack you upon sight. This mechanic can be rather annoying since the faction leaders and side characters will still interact with the player and not lock you of the quests.
If you are playing through Star Wars Outlaws in a sneaky manner, the core gameplay can feel refreshing compared to the hack-and-slash mechanics of Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order or Survivor. However, if you hate this approach, you are in for a bad time. Although the stealth missions were a soul sucker, we were able to find enjoyment in three different aspects of the game.
The first and probably the best thing that kept us going was Kay’s interactions with Nix. Within certain areas, Kay can interact with Nix in a caring manner; eating with Nix is also a cute interactive experience even if there is a slightly annoying QTE mini-game involved. The second aspect was the space combat; flying the cruiser in space was fairly easy to understand once you had some hands-on time with it.
The ability to focus on an enemy and providing a lead shot indicator made combat exciting and invigorating. The final aspect that kept us in the game was playing Sabacc. Strategizing on how to beat the NPCs and take them out as fast as possible can be a thrilling rush similar to Poker or Black Jack.
Like recent new games, Star Wars Outlaws had its fair share of gameplay and visual bugs. In most instances, the game looks fine while playing on higher settings, however, there were noticeable moments where the game would struggle to keep up with the scene and frames would drop or characters would not render properly.
These issues typically would happen during cutscenes or when moving throughout the open world. While playing through the game, there were some very noticeable bugs that ruined the gameplay experience. At one point, we were attempting to take out someone right as they were being shot and it caused them to be stuck upright, alive, and standing menacingly halting our progress.
In the same area and a few other areas, we saw blaster bolts going through the wall and objects, this made taking cover or hiding aggravating. Yes, dying could reset it, but depending on where the game created a checkpoint, you could have 5 to 15 minutes of gameplay that you have to start over.
Star Wars Outlaws may look good in most avenues but the gameplay bugs and visual issues can detract from the player’s immersion and overall experience. The game is still playable in most instances, just requires you to go through a few times to compensate for the issues.
You can see that Ubisoft attempted to put a high level of detail into each character model and building. Players who are using older PCs or an Xbox Series S will not be able to fully enjoy the level of detail that the developers have put into the game.
At one point, when attempting to save the game it broke saying that there were enemies nearby and refused to save. Driving the speeder can also be an unpleasant experience with a ton of swaying and motion blur; the controls to drive the speeder are a lot more sensitive than controlling the spaceship.
With Star Wars Outlaws the two major factors in determining if you want to play through it again are firstly, Do you like stealth gameplay? Next, do you want to see how your choices with the different factions can impact the overall story? If you are looking for variance or potential changes, then sure it is worth playthrough again, otherwise, it is worth shelving and coming back to do another playthrough down the line.
With Star Wars Outlaws, you can get past the stealth mechanics and focus on the story and character interactions, then you can have a good time. The bugs within the game can be annoying but they don’t cause the gameplay to be completely ruined.
Regardless, having to reset due to bugs can be a headache. The Rhythm-based game can be annoying and difficult for those with auditory impairment, but the mini-games can be made easier within the settings menu.
The game is heavily reliant on Nix assisting Kay but it makes the companion feel useful. The Blaster mode while on the speeder makes it easy to take out enemies while driving. The constant reliance on stealth makes the gameplay feel slow and tedious.
The ability to choose what faction you want to side with changes the story experience and gives the players additional opportunities. The checkpoints in the game can be massively unappealing because of how far they can set you back when you die.
Overall, Star Wars Outlaws is an adequate game that gives you a decent Star Wars experience but isn’t anything memorable. Yes there are different ways to enjoy the game but the soft locks, forced stealth, and checkpoint system can make you not want to continue playing. The game does feature some fun gameplay elements such as Sabacc and Nix interactions but it doesn’t drive the overall experience.
Hopefully, as the game is out Ubisoft continues to update it so that the bugs and soft locks do not kill the experience. If you are considering picking up Star Wars Outlaws and don’t want to shell out $70, you can get UPlay+ to play it. If not, it is better to hold off until some of the issues are fixed.
Star Wars Outlaws was reviewed on PC using a copy provided by Ubisoft. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Star Wars Outlaws is now available on PC (Ubisoft Connect), PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.
