*Updated: The public build of the game fixed my progression blocker and I’ve now concluded the main campaign. My final score is an 8.0 as I was happy with where the story went and how the power ramp played out for Kay as a character.
You are Kay Vess, a Scoundrel with a heart of gold. Well, at least when there’s some profit to be made in being nice. Caught up in a grand conspiracy between a new cartel and empire you’ll run for your life across six planets as you look to pull off the heist of your life. Outlaws is set between Empire and Return of the Jedi, and I loved every second of it that I could actually play. Sadly, I ran into one of the worst soft-lock progression bugs I’ve ever seen near the end of the title and this will have to be a “review in progress”. With that sad note out of the way, let’s break down this title and see if STAR WARS Outlaws is for you.
Taking a Canto-sized Bite out of the Zerek Besh
The game begins with Kay, poor as can be, looking for a big score to finally get off of her home world of Canto. After some slick tutorializing on how the game works, you join a new crew looking to raid the mansion of Sliro, leader of the Zerek Besh. They are a newly formed syndicate, looking to dominate all others. Your raid goes poorly, and Kay steals a ship that turns out to be wildly important to Sliro. He puts a death mark on her life, and you’re off to the races. The game’s marketing has made it clear that you’ll spend the majority of it building up a crew to pull off a massive heist.
This means traveling to various planets like Tatooine, home of the Hutt Cartel. The Pyke’s planet of Toshara is the first you’ll visit and is your introduction to how massive the game can be. This is a full-on Ubisoft open-world game from the studio that brought you both The Division titles as well as the recent, and excellent, Avatar title. You should be able to mainline the golden path on normal in roughly 15-20 hours, so don’t worry about this title feeling overwhelming. I say should because I had a nasty progression blocker. Every time I went to visit the planet Akiva my docking bay would remain shut, and I couldn’t take off in my ship. Talking to a few others they haven’t had this problem, but it is one to be aware of if you’re getting the title at launch.
As long as things are working this title has all the familiar trappings of a Ubisoft Massive title. It looks great, the maps can be enormous, and the non-main cast voice acting can be terrible. I love Massive’s titles, and Outlaws is no different. It has all of its strengths and many of its weaknesses. While the main quest is full of high quality, cinematic moments the side content varies. There is a lot of “radiant” style mission/contract work that’s there to let you enjoy the gameplay mechanics. Far too many of the bespoke side quests feature voice acting that sounds like something struggling to use the bathroom as they do their alien voice. It’s not bad, per se, it’s just a noticeable dip in quality.
Kay Vess, Grip Strength level 100
STAR WARS Outlaws is played from the 3rd-person perspective and features a wide variety of gameplay systems. Kay is a good shot, but her biggest strength (and it’s infinite) is her grip strength. You’ll be doing a lot of climbing and thankfully Kay is one of the best climbers the galaxy has ever known. On base settings, there’s plenty of yellow paint and arrow signs to show you where to traverse. Whether it’s jumping up and grabbing some rocks or using your trust grappling hook to swing, climb, or drop down Kay is up to the task. Running and jumping feel good, though not great. There were too many times when I should have mantled up and instead, she hit the edge, floated alongside it for a second, and then fell to her death.
Reloads were quick on both Xbox and PC and it rarely cost much in the way of time or credits. You will lose the latter if you die in a firefight, and the game’s checkpoint system can send you back 5 minutes or more during some missions, which was occasionally infuriating. To get around the environment you have a speeder that you can call you at almost any time. It controls well enough and like most other items in the game has a series of upgrades that make it amazing by the game’s end. Key to all platforming and movement is your animal pal, Nix. A quick hit of the left bumper can send Nix to open vents, click switches, or even attack your enemies.
Nix is also able to sense enemies and devices that can be activated in an Assassin’s Creed style, which for “reasons” carries over to Kay’s vision. There’s a lot of Ubisoft’s other titles shining through in Outlaws, and it’s full of features that make me love those titles. In a Far Cry style, Kay has a pair of STAR WARS-appropriate binoculars, which you can use to tag enemies so that you always know where they are. As the game’s story focuses on your theft of a ship there’s a lot to do with it out in the space around planets. The controls are straightforward, and movement felt great on the controller and good enough on a mouse and keyboard. Taking off and landing is a masked cutscene after choosing a menu prompt, there’s no No Man’s Sky here. Outlaws can be played as a full-on combat game, though it is far more difficult if you try, at least on normal.
There’s a wide variety of mini-games to play, my favorite being Sabbac. It’s a basic card game that became my main time waster while waiting to see if the devs could figure out my progression blocker. You’ll find races to bet on, card games, and even the slicing mini-games can be fun in their own right. You’ll have to suss out which icons to pick out in a bit of a game of chance. There’s so much to do in Outlaws and I think it’s best to find it on your own instead of reading a listicle in a review.
Combat on and off the ground
For combat, it comes in two varieties, on the ground and in space with your ship. Kay is a competent fighter, one surprise or three less surprising melee attacks can take out most enemies. The larger ones require a stun upgrade if you want to fist them down. Kay’s blaster features multiple firing modes, with my favorite being a charged-up power shot that explodes on impact. Most of the game’s side content benefits you by earning new gear, upgrading materials, and finding the people you’ll need to help you learn new abilities.
Played from a 3rd-person perspective Outlaws is reminiscent of The Division. A key difference is the lack of a “press to enter cover” button. It’s all done automatically by Kay as long as you are crouched. She’ll keep her head down and only pop up once you choose to aim. It feels good and she’s not a Jedi, so you’ll need to play conservatively on the harder difficulties. I did as many side missions as I could once I realized my story progression was broken and went from struggling to win most firefights to holding my own after I upped my health and damage output a fair amount.
Outlaws is best played as a stealth game, which makes sense because you’re just a normal person running around in a comfortable outfit. There are easier difficulties that let you focus on gunplay if you’d like, though the game’s GTA-style wanted system can still be punishing when the Death Trooper squads are called into the fray. Nix is a huge help with stealth, as he can jump on the face of an enemy and let Kay come in with a solid kick or right hook that sends them down for the count. Enemy AI is pretty dumb because it’s not that fun when they’re smart. They can be relentless though, especially on the higher difficulties. Kay has a Red Dead-style super which she can pull off at a fairly decent rate. Pressing both sticks on your controller activates it while on foot or the speeder. You can mark up to three targets and then take them out with a pull of the trigger. I think this is the only way to attack the speeder, which felt annoying until I realized that it comes up every 10 seconds there.
Space combat is basic dogfighting, with a pull of the left trigger letting you zoom in on an enemy and lock on. You can use turbo lasers and missiles to take your foes out and there isn’t much more to worry about. You have sideways dashes to avoid incoming fire and it’s all just complicated enough to never get boring. My favorite part about flying in space around planets is how densely packed they are with things to find. Outlaws has a lot of upgrade materials and searching around in the ship was a relaxing, beautiful way to find them.
Graphics, Story, Music, and…. Bugs
STAR WARS Outlaws look damned good on Xbox. With my 120hz monitor, I chose to play in the 40fps mode and it felt like the perfect balance of graphical quality and smooth gameplay. You lose a fair bit in the lighting on the 60fps mode and 30 just felt like molasses. I hopped between Xbox and PC and the game is a beast on the latter. I have a 5800x and a 7900xtx and without frame generation, I struggled to break 80fps with Ultra settings. The game looked fantastic, though not as good as the recent Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. I found that title to be more visually impressive overall, though it had far less going on as the open world was the star. Outlaws is dense, with a lot of characters and systems running at all times. I think the trade-off is worth it as while Pandora looked more memorable, I found the Worlds of Outlaws to feel more alive.
The story, at least what I’ve gotten to see, has been a mix of solid writing and predictable outcomes. I’m not the biggest STAR WARS fan, though I do think Andor is one of the greatest TV shows ever made. This feels like the old movies, for both good and bad. Characters are easy to read and most of the plot hasn’t revolved around people being idiots to make it move forward. As I am now stuck, one day before the embargo, in a soft-locked save file I do not know how it turns out. If you’re coming to Outlaws for the story but have realistic expectations for what that means in STAR WARS then I think you’ll be satisfied.
The music is amazing, feeling like it belongs in the franchise without ever using John Williams scores directly. This feels like a Scoundrel’s version of a STAR WARS theme and I love it. Voice acting is solid across the board for the main actors and weak across the board for any incidental characters who have a few lines. So many times it felt like someone was told “Do your worst Marge Simpson” and they croaked out a few lines before going back to their day job, for the one-off characters. Bug-wise, well I’ve said it enough but I simply cannot play the game anymore after only having Akiva left to visit. I will update this review-in-progress once it’s fixed but for those worried about a progression block, you theoretically could put in 30 or 40 hours on all the other planets, clearing them out, if this happens to you at launch and you’re waiting on a fix. So that’s something, I guess.
Wrapping Things Up
STAR WARS Outlaws is the dream 3rd-person open world title so many of us wanted. It’s big, and fun, and while it has some flaws I have greatly enjoyed my time with it. A massive progression blocking soft-lock is a bit of a bummer and instead of this being a final score it’s going to be a review-in-progress one as I wait to see the rest of the title once it’s fixed.
REVIEW IN PROGRESS - STAR WARS Outlaws
Played on
Xbox Series X (primary) and PC
PROS
- Looks Great
- Plays Well
- Incredible OST
- Tons to Do
- Can Golden Path Fairly Quickly
CONS
- Progression Broke On Me
- Mediocre VO from Side Characters
Pretty excited to play this one. Signed up for Ubisoft + for the first time. Downloading it now (New Zealand).
Good review as always, Jesse.
Sucks to be stuck like that though.
I’ll definitely pick this up sometime, it looks like a great Ubi-game and I happen to love those.
Ill check this out someday. But too much other stuff coming that I would rather play.
A couple hours in and I love this game. Ubisoft nailed the Star Wars vibe.
A couple AI Art images I made for the game…
I played the first hour/intro of the game. It’s harder and harder to be impressed by Ubisoft games, let’s be honest, so it may feel a bit too familiar but they once again nailed the atmosphere, gameplay and look as it is undeniably a stunning game.
Well it looks like another ‘wait for sale/gamepass’ game from Ubi. Was hoping for more, but oh well.
I’ve been parsing through a few reviews, and 7-8 is not a bad score. It’s not a bad game. But the question I ask for me, personally, is it worth $70? When there’s so much else to play out there… I don’t think so. This is going to be a grab it on sale kind of game.
Can always spend the $18 to run through it in a month then run through some other titles too from Ubi+ service.
A ten out of ten from @Doncabesa !
I saw a clip of AI doing absolutely fuck all when they saw the enemy.
The usual folks last year liked to mock Starfield AI and what not, but it was never nearly as bad as this. I am guessing Ubi will patch that.