James Whitbrook
Star Wars games have done a lot over decades of iteration and exploration. For as many genres that have been mapped onto the galaxy far, far away, however, there’s been a few less perspectives. Agents of the Empire and the Rebellion, Jedi and Sith, pilots, troopers, generals and heroes, bounty hunters. And yet, the fantasy of a scoundrel’s life has rarely been the focus—which makes a game that so fascinatingly captures that specific Star Wars lens like Outlaws does a long time coming.
Out this week from Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment, Star Wars Outlaws follows Kay Vess (Humberly González), a young woman dreaming of making her own way in the galaxy as a smuggler and scoundrel. Double crossed during a theft from a growing power in the criminal underworld, the mysterious new syndicate Zerek Besh and its leader Sliro (Caolan Byrne), Kay finds herself with a death mark on her head and pushed into another risky heist on Sliro’s assets, pulling together a team and making a name for herself among the underworld to land the hit that will set her up for life.
There Aren’t Enough Scoundrels in Your Life
Kay’s perspective is one Star Wars has long been enamored with, but it’s one games set in the galaxy far, far away have rarely made attempts to really encapsulate in the way Outlaws manages to do during its single-player campaign. Feeling less like an extended riff on a Star Wars movie and more like a TV series, the game gives you a greatest hits of a sci-fi crime tale. There’s crew building, heists, double crosses, hoodwinks, and roguish charm aplenty, anchored in a compelling emotional hook in Kay’s own desires to make a life where she is not just free, but has found a sense of place in the galaxy and with the people that she surrounds herself with.
Kay herself is cut from a charmingly Han-Solo-esque cloth in the exact way you’d want a protagonist in this kind of tale to be—not so much the legendary Han he’s become by the climax of the original trilogy or the sequels, but something more akin to when we meet him in A New Hope. Kay is a bit of a mess, flying by the seat of her pants more than she’s ever really prepared for what she gets herself into, but is quick-witted and silver-tongued enough to scrape by. She’s no grand hero, but her heart is in the right place, and Outlaws embraces that to tell a tale that keeps a reverence for Star Wars at a loving distance. This is not a game of being immediately roped into Star Wars‘ grander conflicts, but one that pointedly keeps its scope firmly planted on the ground with its ragtag bunch of misfits and morally flexible underworld factions.
While there are, of course, at least some familiar faces encountered over the course of the game (two already shown in trailers include prominent leaders of the syndicates you deal with: Jabba, head of the Hutt Cartel; and Solo‘s Qi’ra, leading Crimson Dawn) Outlaws for the most part relishes in the chance to explore a new group of characters within this universe. There’s ND-5 (Jay Rincon), the intriguingly charming Commando Droid tasked as Kay’s enforcer; the lovable Nix (whose grunts and growls are provided by Clone Wars legend Dee Bradley Baker), Kay’s animal companion; and a whole host of other would-be scoundrels, slicers, rogues, and ruffians united in this sense that the galaxy is wide open with opportunity for them, away from the sound and fury of the Galactic Civil War raging in the background.
Over the course of the roughly 20 hours it can take to finish Outlaws‘ main narrative (it’ll be much longer if you even remotely dabble with the litany of side content littered across its open worlds), this lens on Star Wars‘ galaxy doesn’t outstay its welcome. While the main missions have a relatively standard and linear structure compared to the open world content—for the most part you’re infiltrating a place, grabbing a thing or a person, and then getting out, violently or otherwise—what they trade in limiting your freedom of approaches is easily made up for by the strength of the narrative laid over them. There’s enough meat in both the novel charm of the scoundrel perspective and these compellingly flawed characters to not just keep you entertained by the time the credits roll, but also leave you wanting more in a framework that is ripe for further exploration.
A Good Blaster by Your Side
Outlaws further leans into this scrappy upstart characterization in its moment-to-moment gameplay, too. While overall Outlaws operates in the vein of most any other action-adventure open world third-person shooter (especially in Ubisoft and Massive’s oeuvre in the field, leaning on Assassin’s Creed and The Division‘s gameplay plenty), thematically Kay is no Cal Kestis or even a Kyle Katarn. You’ve got a blaster by your side, and plenty of ways to modify it to suit your tastes through unlockable abilities or crafting upgrades, sure, and the shooter combat is satisfying enough.
But there’s an interesting friction in Outlaws‘ approach to combat that Kay, even by the time she’s learned the proverbial ropes, rarely feels like a hardened gunslinger. Enemies take just enough shots, and dish out just enough pain on your own limited health pool to feel intimidating even in smaller encounters, and downright stressful when all hell breaks loose. Han himself might not have enjoyed the sneaking around part of his smuggling career, but it’s where Kay is in her best element, and Outlaws rewards you with plenty of satisfaction for engaging with its stealth elements.
While Kay does get a lot of bells and whistles to make stealth a useful tool in her arsenal, she’s mostly aided by Outlaws‘ killer feature in this regard: her adorable little alien partner, Nix. Nix is the absolute star of Outlaws‘ stealth mechanics. Controlled mostly with the tap of a button, from the get-go Nix opens up Kay’s ability to interact with the world and her would-be opponents from afar while remaining hidden in the shadows. He can fetch Kay dropped blasters that pack a bigger punch than her pistol, distract cameras and guards (or even pickpocket the latter), open doors, and sabotage alarm systems.
Nix can even play a role in combat in a limited capacity, leaping for an enemy’s face on command to keep them from attacking Kay as she either runs in for a takedown move or blasts them from afar. It’s Nix that absolutely elevates Outlaws‘ stealth gameplay and sets it apart from similar games, making it both satisfying to engage with instead of attempting to run into a situation guns blazing, while also solidifying the bond that he and Kay have in the narrative. Like Kay, he’s not a superweapon—he can’t be harmed, but he can be discovered and lead to guards being alerted of Kay’s presence—but he helps further push Outlaws‘ vibe of playing as a scrappy upstart in the world of Star Wars, using any trick and advantage you can against overwhelmingly better prepared and armed foes.
Scum, Villainy…
Beyond its primary narrative and moment-to-moment gameplay however, Outlaws‘ biggest take on Star Wars‘ criminal underworld shines in its faction reputation system. Throughout the game Kay will come across four criminal groups she can work with: three familiar from Star Wars lore, the Pyke Syndicate as well as the aforementioned Hutt Cartel and Crimson Dawn, and one created for the game, the insectoid Ashiga Clan, based on the Rise of Skywalker planet Kijimi. As Kay navigates the galaxy, she can take jobs that impact the balance of power she has in the underworld, currying favor with certain groups at the detriment to her relationship with others, creating a sense of calculated risk whenever you’re interacting with Outlaws‘ open world.
The bulk of Outlaws‘ side content comes in the form of missions and contracts you can do with each of the four syndicates. For the most part, these contracts reward money, but they vitally also reward reputation points with the related faction… and, depending on the mission, can also come at the cost of lowering your standing with one of the other groups. The higher your reputation with a given syndicate, the greater favor you have with them. That comes in the form of access to faction-aligned vendors on Outlaws‘ various worlds that can offer you discounts on materials and customization unlocks, or access to rarer goods used to upgrade your skills and abilities. That form of access also matters to areas of the map, from small bases to certain sections of a city controlled by the different crime groups. If Kay’s reputation is good, she can pass through these areas without arousing suspicion, or if she’s truly favored, even swipe as many items she can find hidden throughout them.
That means, of course, there’s also the opposite reaction if her reputation dips, creating Outlaws‘ most intriguing sense of player friction, one that remains true to the fantasy of being a Star Wars scoundrel. A bad reputation might mean being gouged on merchant prices, or being locked out of specific ones altogether. It might mean not being able to take on lucrative contracts with greater rewards. It might mean an area you could previously traverse through unimpeded now becomes a restricted area requiring stealth, or, even worse, a shoot-on-sight approach with the associated faction (they can even get pissed off enough to eventually start sending hit squads after you, regardless of where you are). This push and pull is amplified by the fact that many of Outlaws‘ reputation-influencing side activities, like contracts, carry an element of risk themselves: the higher the reward, the more likely the mission will come with caveats, like stealing an item without raising alarms, or only getting one chance to complete it at all.
It’s in this delicate balance that Outlaws‘ scoundrel character truly shines. There’s no pleasing everyone at all times, and these reputations are not one-and-done bars to fill. There’s always a potential for your relationship with one of the given factions to shift, and with that shift, an opportunity for you to crawl your way back into their good graces. Finding that balance of infamy makes you feel way more like a scoundrel than any of the actual shooting or slinking around ever could, always making you question what you’re doing and what missions your taking at a given moment as you interact with Outlaws‘ world. Is it worth burning one faction at this moment to gain favor with another, is it worth making your life a easier on a mission by preparing with a little proverbial schmoozing in advance if you’re going to an area controlled by a particular syndicate–these questions are constantly running through your head, and bring a meaningful sense of character to Outlaws‘ systems.
For as immensely characterful as it is, however, the faction system is one you’ll barely have to engage with if you stick to Outlaws‘ primary narrative, and only really comes to play in the open world and side content. There are a few beats throughout the main story where your reputation with a particular syndicate is impacted for better or worse, but that’s the narrative impacting on the system rather than your own decisions as a player. One time during the main story, my relationship with one faction went down at one moment, and almost immediately back up the mission after, making the consequences feel much less impactful.
It’s rendered even less so as the narrative begins to develop and shift toward setting you up against more and more Imperial influences in the criminal underworld, too, as they act almost akin to police ratings in Grand Theft Auto–a consequence-free enemy faction you don’t have to worry about having standing with, and largely exists just to be fought. It’s a huge shame, especially as, early on, Outlaws mines a lot of identity and feeling out of the friction the system has baked into it, but it ultimately lacks the bravery to commit to that friction most of the time.
… And Wretched Hives
You need a good playground to put all that content into, and for the most part, Outlaws does a good job here too. There are five primary planets visited throughout the game: The city of Canto Bight, on Kay’s homeworld Cantonica, bookends the narrative, while Toshara (an entirely new world created for Outlaws), Tatooine, Kijimi, and Akiva represent the more typical hubs. The latter four represent a depth of scales and environments Outlaws plays with: Kijimi is the game’s smallest environment, a dense, snow-covered set of city streets home to trading and tussling in equal measure. Tatooine and Toshara, meanwhile, contrast pockets of settlements—either small villages or vast cities like Mos Eisley and Mirogana—with vast, open plains and flats. Akiva sits somewhere in between, a dense jungle environment with pockets of civilization. The scope of each world feels interestingly big enough to navigate, regardless of scale: fast travel points are available, but few and far between (and can be cut off momentarily depending on your faction standing), making Kay’s trusty speeder bike feel necessary for hoofing it from place to place.
This applies less clearly to Outlaws‘ limited approach to space environments. Each world has a small orbital map where players can use Kay’s brick of a ship, the Trailblazer, to engage in dogfights, or scour debris and asteroid fields for materials, but while some missions will send you to the stars they’re few and far between compared to ones where you’ll have your feet on the ground. It’s a nice extra layer of flavor—it’s always satisfying to calculate your hyperspace jump and punch it to your next destination, or fly through layers of atmosphere as you transition from space to ground—but it’s easily Outlaws‘ least-utilized element.
But there’s enough to do out in the world of each planet that it never feels like you’re traversing, either in space or on the ground, just for the sake of it. Not only is there a huge amount of density in terms of side content—both in terms of side missions and factional contracts you can take, as well as trade and upgrade materials to find, treasure caches to uncover, and minigames big and small, including Sabacc matches and speeder races, and Fathier betting or arcade games tucked away in a quiet corner of a cantina—the way you uncover this content leans heavily into how Kay interacts with, and exists in, the world around her. There’s an incredible sense of space throughout Outlaws, like resting points where Kay can lean on a railing or at a bar and just take in the immaculately detailed environments, or the ability to pick up intel on a hidden cache or a mission opportunity by leaning up against the right wall and overhearing a conversation. It never gets too overwhelming, but you’ve got plenty you can chase outside of Outlaws‘ main storyline to easily pad out your time with it.
This similarly applies to Outlaws‘ approach to Kay’s abilities. There’s no RPG systems to be found here, either in terms of gear stats or leveling up, or skill trees to sink points into. Instead, Outlaws has experts: nine side characters Kay encounters throughout the galaxy that, after learning about and eventually getting to know via a mission together, represent various schools of the scoundrel trade. There’s an expert dedicated to improving your speeder bike, or one that gives you a better time handling the various heavy weapons Kay can temporarily pick up in combat, or one that gives you better slicing tools. Even after you’ve established a relationship with an expert, accessing their skills and benefits isn’t as simple as putting points into an unlock system: they’re earned through a combination of finding certain materials and items in the open world, and reaching specific, related gameplay objectives.
Although much more mandatory in terms of its relationship to the main story compared to the reputation system and, with that importance, less of that interesting push-and-pull—some experts early on have to be found to advance the plot, and some have skills that will make certain encounters much easier—experts provide another great layer to Outlaws‘ scoundrel fantasy. Again, it really wants to make clear that Kay is not a perfectly formed Star Wars hero: she’s a person like any other in the galaxy, getting by on who she knows and who she can learn from.
Never Tell Me the Odds
It’s in this great sense of roguish charm that Outlaws shines at its very best. Its impeccable sense of detail capturing Star Wars‘ lived-in galaxy, from the smallest bustling alleyway to the satisfyingly ’70s chunky text of its user interface, makes it a game packed with love for its world, as seen through the eyes of anyone who was ever enamored with Han Solo from the moment he pulled the trigger on Greedo in A New Hope. The vibe is almost unlike any other Star Wars game there’s been, a marriage of systems (if you’re willing to invest and engage with them beyond the enjoyable adventure of the main story, that is) and aesthetic trappings that absolutely nails the feeling of being a scoundrel in the galaxy far, far away. Even when you’re done with the main story, the feeling of going out into the galaxy, whether doing odd jobs, picking up random bits of hearsay, exploring for useful items or sneaking around Imperial outposts, or simply finding a cantina to sit in and soak in the atmosphere for a little while, is unmatched. Contemporary Star Wars games like Squadrons, Battlefront, or Respawn’s excellent Jedi games all offer different, familiar fantasies, and Outlaws sits alongside them in quality while standing out in its scoundrel perspective.
It’s perhaps fitting for the fantasy then, that this charm assault on the surface largely distracts from what is otherwise largely standard open world design. The most unique and interesting elements that Outlaws brings to the table mechanically are kept to the fringes to deliver a solid, linear action adventure game, executed well enough to be good, but kept from greatness by its inability to completely commit to those elements. But the template is now here for Star Wars‘ first big foray into open world gaming for successors to build on: Outlaws sets a great standard for Star Wars games to play with, and in true scoundrel style, it does so with a little bit of endearing bluster. A cheeky wink and winging it can get you far on the galaxy’s edge, after all.
Star Wars Outlaws hits PC, Playstation 5, and Xbox Series X and S on August 30 (or August 27 depending on which version of the game you pre-order). A copy was provided by Ubisoft for review purposes.
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