Welcome to our review of Star Wars: Outlaws, the latest Star Wars game but this time made by the capable developers from Ubisoft.
IF YOU’RE WILLING TO TAKE THE RISK, THE GALAXY IS FULL OF OPPORTUNITY!
Experience the first-ever open world Star Wars™ game, set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Explore distinct locations across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, a scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix. Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates as you join the galaxy’s most wanted.
Explore an Open World with New and Iconic Locations. Explore distinct locations with bustling cities and cantinas. Race across sprawling outdoor landscapes on your speeder. Each location brings new adventures, unique challenges, and enticing rewards if you’re willing to take the risk.
Experience An Original Scoundrel Story. Live the high-stakes lifestyle of an outlaw. Turn any situation to your advantage with Nix by your side: fight with your blaster, overcome enemies with stealth and gadgets, or find the right moments to distract enemies and gain the upper hand. Embark On High-Stakes Missions. Take on high-risk, high-reward missions from the galaxy’s crime syndicates. Steal valuable goods, infiltrate secret locations, and outwit enemies as one of the galaxy’s most wanted. Every choice you make influences your ever-changing reputation.
Engage In Dogfights As You Travel the Outer Rim. Pilot your ship, the Trailblazer, as you engage in thrilling dogfights with The Empire and other foes. Find the right opportunities to chase, evade, and attack to get the upper hand. And trust me when I say, you will need that upper hand as almost every decision you make, will influence your relations with one of the present factions in this game. From double crossing one faction to joining them in a next mission, there is a lot of depth in this game and before you know it, you are knee deep in shit with one and almost worshipped with another.
Star Wars: Outlaws will test both your best stealth skills, your attack patterns, and your ability to parkour all over the place. In a way the game is similar to many others out there, I am thinking Uncharted for one, but it is a lot more built on the premise of how you work your way through the intrigues and the missions you run. From helping a mechanic grab new parts to helping a criminal escape. There really are a ton of missions and the more you advance, the more advanced missions you unlock, as to be expected.
What kind of sets this game apart is that it pretty much gives you spoilers on how to play, yet in many cases, you can ignore them. Like there is this one mission I had where you were asked to infiltrate a camp and set loose some imprisoned animals. The game told you to infiltrate and sneak your way in, which I obviously ignored a few times and went in guns blazing and got my ass handed to me a few times, but I also made it all the way up. What became clear was that enemies seemingly respawned every single time the alarm went off. This freedom to do the missions as you please is one of the big pluses of the game and I really enjoyed experimenting with those different approaches to solving missions.
When it comes to fighting, Star Wars Outlaws works with a tried and proven system of overheating guns, which is in itself something I do like. It is predictable and with the visual queues on screen, I just kinda wished the throwing of grenades was somewhat easier. Combat takes a lot of inspiration from older Ubisoft games too. You can tag multiple enemies for example to take them down in slow-motion, reminding me of those glorious Splinter Cell days. Combat feels pretty intuitive and offers a surprisingly wide variation to keep you on the tip of your toes. What I didn’t like however, was the hacking system simply becauset the R2 button is not sensitive enough to play time-sensitive pushes but, when you dig into the settings, you will find an easier way to solve them and eliminate this annoyance. A true lifesaver, this would have been a full point deduction, to be frank, in its default version it really is bad.
That being said, it is also the worst part about the game as it is actually an amazing game. Aside from the occasional going out of bounds when you are merely following the straight line to the next target instead of following the roads, this is a pretty good game. It is all in the details, from an astounding landing sequence to an overall desolate feeling of being on an actual Star Wars planet, you know, the ones prior to Disney putting their hands on things feels like a welcomed homecoming in an epic franchise.
Star Wars: Outlaws actually also excels in one aspect, which is the intrigues. Nothing better than getting the tough choices of whether or not you want to betray your employer in exchange for some weirdly awkward different reward. One that is actually really more rewarding on paper. Where do your loyalties lie in such a case? Are you loyal to a single faction or just after a payday?
In conclusion, Star Wars Outlaws is a very good experience and quite frankly, it was way better than what I was expecting beforehand. It plays well and it just looks the part.
