Star Wars Outlaws Review: Thrilling Adventures & High Stakes Makes Life On The Run Quite Exciting

Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft have brought the next episodic adventures to a galaxy far, far away with their latest release, Star Wars Outlaws, which has been touted as one of the year’s most anticipated releases. This was expected, given that the Star Wars name is attached. The action-adventure game immerses players deep into the criminal underworld that’s rife with opportunities, Credits, and enough intrigue worth sinking one’s teeth into.

Both developer and publisher are no slouches when it comes to conceptualizing massive open-world environments, given their successes with popular franchises like Assassin’s Creed, The Division, and Far Cry, and Star Wars Outlaws looks to be their crowning achievement. After spending several hours digging into the game’s story, exploring the vast planets, and investigating how the gameplay systems and features work to immerse players, Outlaws is certainly looking to be their most ambitious project to date.

The Galaxy’s A Stage For One Lone Scoundrel And Her Merqaal Companion

Touted as an “open-world” game, Outlaws had already intrigued avid Star Wars fans, such as myself, courtesy of multiple trailers highlighting the game’s expansive environments, intense dogfights and speeder chase sequences, bare-knuckle fights, and a few familiar faces.

It’s no shame that the developer was largely inspired by classic espionage and heist films, which can be felt in every corner of the galaxy from unique gameplay features and mechanics, intriguing characters, climatic hijinks, and the core narrative themes that solidify Outlaws’ identity ahead of its release.

Following a known Scoundrel from Canto Bight, Kay Vess and her trusted companion, Nix, try to survive the criminal underworld. While attempting to make a name for herself, she gets roped into one of the biggest heists across the galaxy, attracting the attention of multiple syndicates and the Empire itself.

Along her journey, she meets intriguing characters who grant her access to valuable intel and highly sought-after Experts. She visits new and familiar planets, each boasting some amazing environmental and level design that all contribute to the game’s identity and narrative themes and decisions.

These culminate in one incredible sequence of events determining whether the freedom she seeks is worth surviving for based on her reputation across the galaxy, her experiences, and the abundance of support she gains from allies and acquaintances.

Star Wars Canon: To Be or Not To Be?

Pivoting slightly away from the heart of what makes Star Wars an exciting gameplay experience, players have naturally wondered how the events impact the known Star Wars timeline. While keeping this brief, there have been confirmations from the game’s developer in a post of when the events of Outlaws occur; it was never elaborated on whether it’s considered to be canon to the Star Wars timeline.

The developers confirmed in a handful of interviews that Outlaws occurred during the Age of Rebellion, during the one-year period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. The game’s narrative pivots away from the galactic battles between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, placing a spotlight on a corner of the galaxy that doesn’t get too much screentime: the criminal underworld.

It’s been confirmed that a few notable characters like Q’ira, Jabba the Hutt, and Lando Calrissian are set to appear in Outlaws, along with a carbonite-frozen Han Solo. It’s safe to assume that the developers are making conscious decisions to stay close to Star Wars canon but still leaving many unanswered questions to its canonical history, which hopefully an answer will be confirmed around the game’s release.

Likewise, we get to visit familiar locations like Cantonica and Tattooine and new locations developed specifically for the game. It may be a while until Lucasfilm finally reveals the canonical fate of Outlaws. We cannot confirm whether Outlaws will be entered into the Databanks as part of this space opera franchise as canon, as the spotlight on the galactic criminal underworld is a wonderful narrative decision for players to explore. 

All Systems Go, Rogue Scoundrel!

As we set off on their epic scoundrel adventures with Kay and Nix, I found a few of the game’s mechanics deeply intriguing, which developer Massive Entertainment put their unique touches on. These mechanics and systems are core to our experiences in-game as every moment, small or large, changes the narrative and exploration in a few interesting ways, like entry to inaccessible areas and discounts from merchants, for example.

Firstly, the game doesn’t quite have a Skill Tree system; instead, it introduces the Expert system that allows Kay to acquire unique skills and rewards through upgrades that can greatly benefit her in combat and exploration. The Expert system essentially finds Kay acquiring intel on a handful of NPC specialists in various trades, who offer valuable skills such as fast-talking out of tricky situations, lockpicking, slicing, and more.

Additionally, some Experts provide unique upgrades for her Blaster, speeder, and her ship, the Trailblazer, that can make her one of the most resourceful yet dangerous Scoundrels in the galaxy. By using the intel received, she must follow the leads to track down these Experts before completing their relevant missions to unlock their expertise.

But while it seems like smooth sailing on the surface, it does lead to some interesting encounters with various syndicates that Kay and Nix must blast their way out of. The Expert system is a unique take on an overused feature, making exploration less tedious and bland, and we rarely see such shake-ups in long-standing mechanics.

This refreshing take on a prolific feature not only enhances the game’s main narrative and supporting themes but also makes the life of a Scoundrel more exhilarating by tracking down specialists across the galaxy far, far away. Another unique feature is the Reputation system, which, according to a ComicBook interview with Associate Narrative Designer John Björling, aims to provide ample opportunities for player agency.

Designed to balance player agency and explore Kay’s story, the Reputation system focuses on the core syndicates as it determines how much they can trust Kay by maintaining a level of faith and goodwill through the multiple decisions she will make to please one syndicate and upset another. By performing various jobs for every syndicate, Kay earns herself reputation that not only gets her “in their good books” but opens the window to unique job opportunities and rewards as a sign of faith. 

The Reputation System takes precedence throughout the main storyline across the quests, where Kay has to make straightforward or challenging decisions that directly affect her reputation with these syndicates. These will appear as dialogue prompts for Kay to decide which syndicate to increase their reputation while displeasing another or not having much influence at all, which can create some unexpected results later in-game.

The Reputation system is, as the developer clearly states, how “Kay’s reputation reflects how much a syndicate trusts her,” but another somewhat related unique gameplay feature is the Wanted system. It’s through this system that players can fall into some intriguing scenarios. Pushing the limits on the game’s difficulty or playstyle, the Wanted system took inspiration from Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise and connected it with the game’s reputation system

As Kay gains the trust of the various syndicates featured in Outlaws, this will gain the attention of the Empire and its Imperial forces, which could have Stormtroopers on her tail should she cause mischief and chaos across various locations. Creative Director Julian Gerighty elaborated on the Wanted system in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, where he revealed that there are six levels to the Wanted system, which could have severe consequences should Kay continue “doing crimes.”

These include having Stormtroopers chasing Kay and Nix, and should they retaliate, well, good luck trying to fend off the most elite forces the Empire has to offer —  Death Troopers. Unfortunately, the highest Wanted level not only attracts Death Troopers as Gerighty reveals that something “even worse" could happen, which only the most dastardly players are likely to taunt.

The combat system is where things get interesting, offering a straightforward cover-based shooter that leaves room for innovation without getting too complex. There are plenty of stealth quest sections throughout the game, the earliest being Mirogana, where the developer could’ve fleshed out the cover-based system more effectively beyond crouching or hiding.

It would’ve been a good addition to have an animation or a button/keybinding option to allow Kay to snap behind obstacles to take cover, as crouching or hiding behind objects can leave her being spotted and make her vulnerable to attacks. The same can be said with takedowns when hiding in tall grassy areas, as the takedown animations could’ve been more satisfying to watch, but a simple punch and the enemy being taken down is quite unsatisfactory.

On the subject of weaponry, the VM-19 Heavy Blaster is her primary weapon, which comes with three modes to switch between: a standard Blaster mode, a Stun mode that can aid her in stealth quests, and the Ion module that can destroy tough obstacles and deplete shields. Granted, Kay can gain access to other weapons; however, only temporarily to clear through areas, complete objectives, and eliminate challenging enemies that her Blaster otherwise won’t be able to accomplish.

It feels quite unfortunate that the temporary weapons can’t permanently be locked for Kay to access throughout the game, given that her Blaster can, at times, not be as effective to utilize in combat, especially when fending off mobs of enemies or Stormtroopers in areas where no explosions can be set off and of course in stealth quest sections. Perhaps a saving grace is adding Nix into the combat system as Kay can give Nix a few commands during combat, like attacking nearby enemies for Kay to quickly dispatch them, detonating barrels for AoE attacks, which I thoroughly enjoyed the most, or protecting Kay while healing with Bacta Vials.

While Nix has more involvement in combat and exploration, Kay’s melee capabilities are also another grey area, as it’s mostly utilized in close-quarter combat to silently takedown opponents approaching or when a couple of punches are needed. Granted, Kay’s melee capabilities aren’t greatly emphasized as the game doesn’t want us to get into literal fistfights with every enemy we encounter, but it could have been an aspect for when a Blaster isn’t needed; the fists can be an option.

At times, combat can sometimes be a hit or miss; however, one of my favorite in-game experiences is minigames, which Outlaws features enough not to overwhelm players completely. The Slicing and Lockpicking minigames are complete standouts in Outlaws, with both adding enough complexity that it doesn’t drop players out of immersion completely yet take some practice perfecting.

Lockpicking is a rhythm-based minigame where Kay has to successfully break into caches, inaccessible areas, and vaults using a Data Spike by listening to the audio and repeating it on beat to unlock. It takes plenty of time, patience, and focus to get it right in a few attempts, which won’t penalize players for getting it wrong; however, lockpicking happens in real-time, and if enemies spot Kay, a shootout will occur, leaving players with the option to take down enemies and lockpick later or just tank the damage.

The Slicing minigame does penalize players, as this hacking activity requires more patience and puzzle-solving expertise to decipher codes to access encrypted data at computers and stations. With only five attempts before the alarms are triggered, Kay won’t be rushing against time; rather, her ability to successfully hack through sections gets more challenging as the game progresses, but there are certain tools she can acquire from a hacking expert to make this minigame less frustrating.

Is The Scoundrel Life For Us?

My time spent with Star Wars Outlaws deeply rekindled my appreciation and interest in the Star Wars IP since my first experience watching The Phantom Menace in theatres. As the years went by, gaining access to the Original Trilogy films and other media affirmed just how many more stories have remained untold and corners of the galaxy that have yet to be explored and discovered.

While Lucasfilm has made a concerted effort to give these stories, characters, and worlds precedence, recent events have shown that despite much interest among the majority of Star Wars fans, these stories get shunned for being too different or not occurring within the most prominent eras —  between the Fall of the Jedi and the Rise of the First Order.

Granted, events of Outlaws fit well during the Rebellion, but with an emphasis on the criminal underworld rather than grandiose conflicts between the Empire and the Rebels. Its identity makes it stand out for being different from the stories that have been told, and it’s a huge risk for Massive and Ubisoft to undertake.

Gameplay-wise, being a Scoundrel shouldn’t be this exciting to experience; it has plenty of intrigue and suspense that doesn’t divert too far away from what we previously know and love while staying true to its essence of being a major Star Wars project. Its approach to storytelling is quite appealing and refreshing, adding much complexity to an already dynamic environment.

Most of the game’s narrative themes are explored in the main questline, while side quests, faction quests, and a vast majority of NPCs will give Kay opportunities to expand the world and unlock more opportunities to earn some extra Credits and find new secrets. One thing that Star Wars Outlaws has accomplished is making players feel fully immersed in its world and making them feel important in this astounding galaxy.

This is evident through the game’s exploration component, allowing Kay and Nix to roam the planets freely on foot or speeder, interacting with environments full of color, life, and personality that have captured the aesthetic and energy of Star Wars. However, its technical components did have me running into a few performance issues with environments taking too long to load or glitching when speeding across locations.

Even when adjusting the graphical and video settings, I noticed a distinct tear that I ultimately gave up trying to resolve and progressed with the story, hoping to fix it at some point. This also led to hanging screentime, especially during pivotal moments in quests; one, in particular, had me using stealth tactics around a territory I had a poor reputation for, and while the inputs weren’t as responsive at the critical moment, the screen left me (and Kay and Nix) hanging until we got caught.

Heavily emphasizing exploration and discoverability with its open-world environments, linear narrative formula, refreshing take on gameplay systems, and unique approaches to combat, Star Wars Outlaws gives players a distinctive perspective into the galaxy far away.

Exploring this new corner of the galaxy through a Scoundrel working her way from being an unknown to one of legend, albeit her missions going sideways, encountering dangerous foes, entangling with the syndicates, and having the Empire watching, life on the run certainly is appealing and remains faithful to the world created by the visionary mind of one George Lucas.