Going into Star Wars Outlaws you could tell that there was alot of people who were looking forward to this game. Yet whether it was the Ubisoft aspect, the trailers, or something about the way it was presented you could feel that there was a collective “Is it going to be good” or “It doesn’t quite look like a home run” stank that was around the game. I was a reserved doubter as well. After all, right now there is a saying “Ubisoft swims in 7’s.” For those of you who don’t know that means they Ubisoft often puts out games that are reviewed as good, but most people see them as the same formulaic style of games that Ubisoft has put out for years now. They put out what the young folks might call “Mid” games. Even as a hardcore Star Wars fan, Star Wars Outlaws had that “Mid” stank to it. So with all that said, is the Star Wars Outlaws indeed “Mid?” Is it a good Single Player Experience? Should you play Star Wars Outlaws?
The Narrative:
In Star Wars Outlaws, you play as a down-on-her-luck outlaw named Kay Vess that just can’t seem to come up in this Empire-ruled galaxy. She gets wind of a heist that leads to her going on a grand adventure to pull off another heist.
While the story starts off slowly, you do warm up to Kay Vess as the game goes on. If the story was structured a bit better I could have seen this character becoming a new favorite of this beloved IP instead of likely having a future as a cult classic. As you progress, you do meet the side characters many of which have personalities that fit well together and with the Outlaw theme that this game is going for. It is a shame that we don’t quite get enough of these characters.
Overall while Star Wars Outlaws isn’t the worst story that we’ve seen in this IP, it isn’t the best either. If you enjoyed Stars Wars: A Solo Story, then you are likely to enjoy this game’s main plot as well.
The Gameplay:
An aspect that wasn’t talked about enough in the build-up for this game, is that there is a lot of Stealth required in this game. That alone isn’t a bad thing, but it wasn’t advertised as a stealth-heavy game of this magnitude. I’ll talk more about the stealth a bit later (Spoiler Alert: It isn’t good). Stealth isn’t the only thing you’ll do in this game. Most of the time, you’ll be sneaking around areas, hacking computers, picking locks, and blasting your way out of sticky situations. All this would be a blast, but each of these aspects feel like they are ok, but not good, and for sure not fun. To be fair, as you power up in the later half of the game, the game does become more enjoyable. If you can survive bad gameplay for 10 hours it does get better.
The gameplay feels like a collection of Ubisoft Studios traits mixed with some mechanics that you’d see from Tomb Raider, Starfield, and Uncharted. The 6 to 10 hours that set the stage of the game before the trend of showing the game title are sluggish, dull, yet they showed potential. That is the biggest sin of Star Wars Outlaws, the game’s initial impression is such a hard hurdle to overcome that easy to want to dip out before you get to the aspects that are good.
There’s an incredible amount to do here. Brokers are constantly handing out missions, from transporting cargo across the city to taking down TIE fighters. Each of the four rival crime syndicates in the game has hidden bases and vaults on every planet, packed with treasures and valuable intel just waiting to be plundered. Plus, as you cruise around on your speeder bike, you’ll get challenged to races by other riders. There are parts of the gameplay that give off the “we’ve got Uncharted at home” vibes. Another qualm that many are going to have with the gameplay aspect is that it doesn’t take long before you experience all the contract side missions. Afterwards, the game feels massively repetitive. These are the Broker quests that I mentioned above.
On the flip side, flying through space using your ship is really fun. This aside from the mini-game Sabacc (More on that later) is the best gameplay aspect of the game. You can upgrade your ship and customize the looks as well as the defensive hull and weapons you want to use. It is important to do so because you’ll often be engaging in dog fights that make you feel like you are in a Star Wars movie. If the other aspects of gameplay was as good as the space combat then this game as a whole wouldn’t have been Mid.
Additional Pros:
I like how seamless the cutscenes to the gameplay are. You get the story and get into the action quickly. In fact the game as a whole feels cinematic, this is partially due to the game’s cutscenes some of which are amazing to witness, and the default screen ratio looks like most movies as opposed to a video game. If nothing else this game is the most cinematic and immersive Star Wars game that I’ve ever played. It feels Retro Sci-fi, with a bit of the realistic jank that you love with the series.
Like many open-world games nowadays there’s a card mini-game that you can play throughout multiple locations. The one is Star Wars Outlaws is called Sabacc and it is utterly fantastic. It is a mashup of Goldfish and golf in that you are trying to have the lowest hand each round, and dice. You play against three others and the table and the last person who still has their chips wins. There’s a fair amount of strategy to the game, and the risk/reward balance is top-notch. The mark of a good card/dice/board game mini-game in an open world is if people would buy and play it separately and Sebacc is so fun that I see it thriving as its own game.
Another aspect that deserves praise is the sound designs and the game’s score. You can tell that there was a lot of love and care put into making all the actions and environments sound like they came right out of the Star Wars shows and movies. The ships soaring through space, the blasters, the speeders, and all the other sounds you hear sound like they should it a Star Wars game. The soundtrack might be the best overall aspect of the game. There’s a mix of music that is vintage to the series and original soundtracks that hits hard with orchestral scores that feel natural in a galaxy far far away.
Cons/Flaws:
The Stealth gameplay is utterly abysmal. The enemies often see you like they have Superman’s x-ray vision even behind crates and even walls. To make matters worse the NPCs are ridiculously stupid and forget about you quickly. It’s unrealistic and immersion-breaking.
The game is a tale of two sides when it comes to the visuals and graphics. There are times when this game provides eye candy in its various environments and planets. The water looks great with ray tracing that allows light to shine off the water. The areas around Space are great looking as well, with each system having its own look and feel.
Then there are times when it’s ugly enough to wonder if it’s a AAA game. The non-storycentric NPCs for example look like generic models from two generations ago. Seriously though there are a fair amount of NPCs that look like Watch Dog Legion reskins or Ps3 generic NPCS. Neither is a good thing for a game coming out in 2024. The hair in this game is a crime against all things good in this world. It’s a nitpick thing for sure, but the hair on almost every character in this game is so laughably bad that it is often immersion-breaking.
You can tell that this game was made by the team who made the Division games because a flaw of that series is how spongy the enemies are when taking damage, that is sadly a trait that Star Wars Outlaws inherited. Due to the enemies being damage sponges shooting in this game is lackluster and even when you nail shots it never feels satisfying.
I also ran into a litany of glitches, ranging from NPCs clicking in and out of walls, a glitch where my main character earned cosmetics disappeared, one where they disappeared and they put them into the case on the ship, and the worst one was when I was walking and creeping through the grass and a speeder hit the shit out of me and yeet’d me clear across the map. I went from Empire territory all the way back to the launch bay across the map.
Overall/Should you Play Star Wars Outlaws Review:
As a game, this feels more like Star Wars: A Solo Story than Rogue One. The highs are never quite realized and the potential is never realized. Throughout my entire playthrough I kept thinking what would this game be like it it was made by a 1st Party Sony studio? That’s not a good sign, but despite that I found myself having fun with this game. Star Wars Outlaws feels like a guilty pleasure game. It isn’t good, but it’s fun, it isn’t high quality, but it is quality enough that it scratches the itch. Star Wars Outlaws isn’t the dream Open World game. Its flaws are many and it’s potential is ultimately unrealized, but if you can live with a middle-of-the-road game that does just enough to keep you invested then perhaps Star Wars Outlaws is worth your time in this adventure in a galaxy far far away.
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