Chris InglisStar Wars Outlaws is an open-world adventure developed by Massive Entertainment in collaboration with LucasFilm Games and releases worldwide on August 30, 2024, with early access starting from August 26 via Gold Edition. Filled with high stakes games of Sabacc, flaunting with authority, playing syndicates against each other, space exploration, stealth missions, and great gunplay, all combines into an excellent Star Wars game that I am loving the more I play. Having played previous Star Wars MMORPGs like Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic and being able to freely explore those open world zones, the open world exploration here isn’t as prestigious for me, but certainly having an engaging story that took me across the Star Wars galaxy has been exciting and fun.
Similar to Star Wars Galaxies, this game is set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Star Wars Outlaws introduces us to Kay Vess, a charismatic and cunning bounty hunter navigating the seedy underbelly of the galaxy. The story delves into themes of loyalty, betrayal, and the allure of power. We get to work with various syndicates and choose to side with one or some of them, balancing their interests against your own and pitting syndicate leaders against each other. There are four main syndicates in the game – The Pykes, Crimson Dawn, The Hutts, and The Ashiga Clan. Your choices will influence relationships with these factions and shapes the course of the story and side quests.
I recently watched the movie Solo with my daughter which inspired me to side with Crimson Dawn in my playthrough and it’s been a lot of fun. There are plenty of ways to gain and lose favour and you can see how you sit with all syndicates in the game’s menu. Gaining favour with syndicates will allow you to complete tasks for them, collect faction-specific items and resources and at discounted vendor prices, and many more benefits. Some areas of a map are controlled by a faction, so gaining favour with them will give you better access to those areas or make them more hostile. Of course, siding with one syndicate means you will become enemies with the others, and they can even send hit-squads to hunt you.
The setting of Star Wars Outlaws is visually stunning, capturing some of the iconic aesthetics of the Star Wars universe. Character animations are fantastic and represents the species we see in Star Wars movies and games well, and voice acting is superb. The game’s soundtrack is also exceptional, featuring a blend of orchestral and electronic elements that perfectly capture the mood and atmosphere of the Star Wars universe. Seeing droids and people going about their business, hearing a conversation and eavesdropping (which can net you a point of interest or a hint at some treasure or gambling tip), and many other idle activities made the world feel alive and very much representative of a true Star Wars experience.
When taking control of the speeder for the first time, all I wanted to do was zoom around and explore the cool things I was seeing. I saw a group of speeders to my right so veered off the path to chase them but a big red 10 second countdown warned me to return to the quest area. This was a little immersion breaking and I was worried the game wasn’t as open as advertised but worry not. After you complete certain events in the story, the game completely opens, and you can explore every corner of the map yourself. There are also fast travel points you can unlock to help cross vast distances much quicker.
Stealth plays a large part of many the missions which allows you to infiltrate an Imperial base or try to steal something from an opposing faction. Some early sections are forced stealth without weapons, while others allow you to go ham and blast your way through. If stealth isn’t your cup of blue milk, then you may get frustrated in the initial missions until it opens more. Like in the recent Assassin’s Creed Mirage and similar games, I always have best intentions to be as stealthy as possible.
I take out single targets with melee takedowns by pressing V, or if there are two of them, I will order Nix to attack one while I take out the other. Usually though I will stuff up and switch to my blaster (providing the mission hasn’t locked it out). Nix comes in handy often, able to press buttons inside a room to unlock the door, to looting items that you can’t reach, stealing items from victims, and even fetching a weapon from a rack so you can use it to take out the bad guys.
Beyond the main story, Star Wars Outlaws offers a rich and immersive experience spread across five main planets. We start on Cantonica in the casino city of Canto Bight, we then head to the moon of Toshara which is our first time seeing it in Star Wars, Kijimi, Tattooine and Akiva. I was in awe when I first landed on Tatooine, crossed the desert and entered Mos Eisley. Unlike No Man’s Sky, you aren’t flying down to a planet’s surface yourself, it is automated and looks like you’re flying through clouds before it lands you at a spaceport. It’s a great effect and I am fine with this level of automation. Once on a planet, it just has one very large map to explore which was fine given the sheer volume of things to see and do in between main story and side quests.
This game has the best representation of playing Kessel Sabacc that I have seen. It was a little overwhelming at first reading the instructions, but I learned best just by playing games. One of the quest lines sees you facing higher and higher stakes and gaining access to underground Sabacc tables. You can also utilise shift cards that give you an advantage like making other spend more chips, and you can find more of these throughout the world which is yet another reason to explore everywhere. Sabacc was a great change of pace after some intense stealth or action sequences.
Being a fan of space flight games, I was very excited to see how it was handled in Star Wars Outlaws utilising our ship, the Trailblazer. After being teased early on, it took a little while to be able to get the ship into space. Patience paid off because once I got into my first ship to ship battle, I was very impressed. If you have played Everspace 2, you will feel familiar in Outlaws, only we’re in a much bigger ship. It can feel a little sluggish at first but soon I was flying like Wedge Antilles. The scream of Tie Fighters and the blatt of lasers really had me hooked.
You can scan the area which will reveal new points of interest and any lootable items in the near vicinity. Your ship is basic to start off with, so it doesn’t take much for you to blow up. You have a healing ability which is on a timer, so use it wisely. Utilising shift to boost, A and D to dodge left or right and using z and c to roll can help you evade oncoming fire, but it was very cool fighting with Tie Fighters, Tie Interceptors and Imperial Cruisers, as well as other faction ships. Pressing Q will lock onto a target with your missiles and hold the right mouse button to zoom in to help with your laser accuracy.
Another of the highlights of Star Wars Outlaws is the extensive customisation options for not just Kay’s clothing and her blaster but you can also upgrade your speeder and ship. Parts you can obtain are performance upgrades as well as aesthetics that range from coloured plating and hanging items on the speeder, to changing the engine glow colour and armour for your ship. Some clothing items and accessories even have skill bonuses whilst most are just different cosmetics. Nix doesn’t miss out either with some headbands and other items to give him some flare. Whether you’re a stealthy assassin or a gunslinging daredevil, there are plenty of customisation options available and more to unlock through gameplay.
Overall, Star Wars Outlaws is an awesome open world Star Wars experience with outstanding visuals, a great soundtrack and excellent gameplay. To see worlds like Tatooine in such great detail and to walk around Mos Eisley, with the hustle and bustle all around us, is a unique and immersive experience. Forced stealth in a game like this may not be for everyone, but otherwise I really enjoyed hunting for treasures, exploring the lands and space combat.
This review utilised a PC key provided by Ubisoft ANZ and Star Wars Outlaws launches on August 30, 2024, with early access available now for Gold Edition on Ubisoft Connect, Epic Games Store, Xbox and PlayStation.
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Chris Inglis
