Star Wars Outlaws Review - Among Thieves

If there’s one constant modern Star Wars can attest to, it’s the continued cultivation and success of its video games. The last several years have seen a solid portfolio of titles that expand the known Star Wars universe, whilst remaining true to form all while rivaling the live-action output in the same franchise.

Those seeds continue to be sown with the release of Star Wars Outlaws, as Ubisoft and developer Massive Entertainment step up to the plate with an all-new action game in an attempt to make their mark on the playing field. This time, it’s open world and it won’t be focused on a Jedi story, as many of Star Wars games were wont to do.

Star Wars Outlaws is promising a new adventure where you take on the Han Solo-esque role of a scoundrel and trek through a galaxy that isn’t as black and white as it first seems.

As someone who has always been keen on Star Wars as a video game medium, Star Wars Outlaws caught my eye because of that type of pivot. Here we were going to play as someone who isn’t a Force user, who must rely on cunning, stealth, and blaster skill to get by.

Being able to play as a normal person in a fantastical galaxy far, far away certainly has its appeal. But how does it hold up in practice? Let’s dig in.

As with most Star Wars games, Star Wars Outlaws is a narrative-driven journey across many hours, told through quests, cutscenes, and the various worlds you’ll visit in an era between the films Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

This story introduces Kay Vess, a young woman just trying to scrape by, taking on odd jobs as a thief in an effort to secure her own freedom. Star Wars Outlaws kicks off her journey with a grand heist and this sets the stage for much of what comes after.

Kay is tasked with sneaking into a high-stakes vault in the series' familiar location of Canto Bight, a city renowned for its wealth and entertainment. The goal? A massive vault with riches untold, but sneaking in won’t be easy. She’ll have to use every tool available to her, along with her trusty sidekick Nix, to pull it off.

As this opening sets the stage for Star Wars Outlaws, so too does it kick off the opening to the greater journey Kay will have in the shadow of the Empire. With a bounty on her head following the events at Canto Bight, she has nowhere to go but up – literally, as she makes her way to other planets, encounters the galaxy’s various syndicates, and puts together a crew worth heisting with.

It’s a world-spanning narrative with plenty of twists and turns with one lesson that really sticks: you can’t trust anyone. It’s a lesson that I ultimately came to appreciate because it kept the story fresh, and it kept me on my toes because it wasn’t always obvious just who was on Kay’s side or not. Much like the live-action series Andor, there’s a lot of depth crafted in both the individual stories, as well as the larger politics at play.

The story of Star Wars Outlaws is well-woven into its main quest and all the secondary quests that make up the game world. Things like local lore and discovering new locations are fed into the living planets Kay gets to visit as a form of organic storytelling.

It’s also bolstered by its unique cast of characters. For example, there’s Kay herself, whose no-nonsense attitude isn’t dampened by her situation; Nix, her companion and beloved family member; and ND-5, a droid from the Clone Wars era who is surprisingly fleshed out in a positive way.

All these different parts come together to frame an exciting adventure that never loses its spark.

This of course plays hand in hand with the action-adventure elements of Star Wars Outlaws. The gameplay loop is established early on, and I found the gunplay controls quick to pick up and get used to, along with the addition of the sidekick Nix, who can aid with specific tasks out in the field.

Most of Star Wars Outlaws will have you fighting, sneaking around, and exploring by land or space. They’ve really outfitted Kay here with a number of abilities, including gadgets such as grenades, as well as melee combat to help her get around and through conflicts without the use of a lightsaber or Force abilities.

The gunplay is pretty standard but becomes bolstered by the various upgrades that can be installed on Kay’s blaster. This includes expansion to various blast types including plasma, ion, and power.

Plasma, as the name suggests, fires standard plasma bolts and can be upgraded to improve accuracy, add rapid firing, and more. Ion fires off ionized particles and is great against enemy droids or enemies with shields. Power charges a heavy plasma blast that can take down armored enemies or help get through certain obstructions.

It’s a simple setup, but it’s effective in how you can choose to customize each upgrade, as well as the collection of different guns Kay can pick up during exploration. My only gripe is she doesn’t keep any of them beyond her own blaster, and it was sometimes tedious to have to pick dropped weapons back up after interacting with a door or other item in the midst of combat.

When in doubt, Kay can just punch a guy and that’s plenty satisfying on its own. The formula largely doesn’t deviate much other than that, and your mileage may vary depending on the number of hours sunk into playing the game.

An auxiliary system known as Experts does alleviate this a bit by being able to unlock new abilities through normal gameplay – many of which are optional.

While fighting is a big part of Star Wars Outlaws, I was surprised at how big of a role stealth played in, well, pretty much everything for better or worse.

Right from the start, it’s apparent that sneaking around, stealing items, and dodging alarm systems is something Kay will become very familiar with. I found myself taking the time to explore because the game does let you approach these sections in different ways. I failed quite a bit, but it was a learning experience in finding what worked for me.

I did find all the sneaking around to be tiring a ways into the story, and I just wanted to move on to the next part of the action because I was more interested in that than a pale go-around at Metal Gear Solid.

One of the most helpful elements of the stealth game within a game is the use of Nix. He’s essentially the second main character here and an extension of Kay beyond what she can do on her own.

Not only can Nix sus out enemies and context clues in the environment, but he can also be made to do quick actions such as opening doors, gathering items, disabling alarms, and even distracting and fighting enemies. It was convenient to just let Nix go ham and scope out most of an area before I moved or did anything. He’s a great asset, and his loss is very noticeable in the areas where you can’t use him.

Another key tentpole of gameplay in Star Wars Outlaws includes the various vehicles you get to mess around with.

On the ground, Kay gets access to a speeder, which can zip across the terrain at high speed, and later be upgraded during the course of the main story. There’s also a starship she gets a hold of known as the Trailblazer, which too can be modified with extra parts such as turrets and propulsion systems.

This takes us into outer space, where true exploration and combat are realized. It’s not just a glorified loading screen either, there’s plenty to be aware of upon exiting a planet’s atmosphere.

There’s never a dull moment as you’re likely to be confronted by pirates, Imperial forces, or other syndicates jousting for superiority. There’s also an element of exploration with ships looking for rescue, or hidden treasures amongst floating debris.

While controlling the ship can be somewhat tricky at times, I do appreciate that space is more than just a travel point. There’s something particularly satisfying about pulling the analog sticks and hitting the jump to lightspeed after all.

Back on land, the breadth of Outlaws’ open world circles back around as something I considered to really cater to my sensibilities. The variety of quests involving the major syndicates (Pyke, Crimson Dawn, the Hutt Cartel, and the Ashiga Clan) will have you taking on contracts in order to boost your reputation with any one of them and traveling around detailed landscapes to do so.

The reputation system is outlined by your relationship with each faction and dictates how syndicates will interact with you and which areas you can enter without conflict. Reputation can also be lost by doing things such as trespassing or choosing to go against a rival syndicate during a quest choice.

On top of all that, the Empire has their own form of engagement with the Imperial Wanted System. Much like in Grand Theft Auto, getting caught doing crimes against the Empire will put you on their wanted list. That means they’ll be chasing after you with increasing firepower depending on just how much you’ve gotten into trouble.

Kay can clear her name by avoiding detection after a time, hacking computers, and even bribing officers to look the other way. My thoughts on this open-world system are fairly neutral, but it can add a level of tedium with stealth such a big aspect of the game already.

It’s just one of many ways that Outlaws tries to cater to its open-world sensibilities, and there’s a lot in the game to keep you occupied including side quests, mini-games, and unlocking abilities.

What’s helpful too is all these things are largely spelled out – there’s a surprising absence of the typical open-world jank, what with a lot of what Outlaws makes you do feel organic and complimentary to the main quest. That said, there still are the occasional fetch quests that feel like they’re just there to pad time and don't do much beyond that.

Outlaws puts it all together with some amazing art direction and inspired music, and although the character animations do leave a little to be desired, the world is varied enough that it’s a small complaint in the grand scheme of things. I also encountered some visual and performance issues during my game on PC, which will hopefully be ironed out for launch.

Overall, Star Wars Outlaws represents another positive achievement for modern Star Wars in the same capacity we've already seen from the Star Wars Jedi games. While certain aspects like combat and stealth could be more fleshed out to keep things fresh, and some of the side quests more engaging, the story and characters carry a main story that manages to ramp up and stick the landing. I loved spending time with Kay, Nix, ND-5, and the rest of the crew. It’s safe to say they’re a welcome new entry to this vast universe, and if Outlaws proves anything, it's that their story is only just beginning.

TechRaptor reviewed Star Wars Outlaws on PC with a copy proved by the developer over the course of 32 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.