In a galaxy far far away, Star Wars has been making fans go nuts for almost 50 years at this point. With a far ranging line of products that extend beyond the overall hugely successful movies, it’s not always that everything turns out great. And that’s pretty much the case for Star Wars Outlaws, the newest videogame to be released bearing the license.
Developed by Massive, an internal studio at Ubisoft, the game put you in the shoes of Kay Vess, an up and coming agent in the criminal underworld of Star Wars. With every new job, Kay learns what’s necessary for one to become a dazzling scoundrel, much like franchise’s star Han Solo did during the novels, comics and even the film that explored his backstory. It’s cute to see her skirt her way through it all in a clearly trial and error manner, much like Solo, with a similar sense of humor to boot.
The game takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, a period where bounty and fortune hunters were at their highest, a prime point in the canon for some of the best story content could potentially crop up. As Kay, you have to deal with a number of criminal organizations and balance your relationship with them as your interests align, all the while skirting around the still mighty Empire. That means you’ll take jobs for just about everyone for the right price, and take advantage of the corruption that stems from greasing the cogs to run the galaxy’s biggest players.
As with the usual brand of scoundrels in Star Wars, it’s hard to pick apart the good from the bad when it comes to the many bosses you’ll be coming across in the game. Whether it’s the shifty leaders of the Crimson Dawn, or his royal slime Jabba with the Hutts, it’s up to you to figure out who’s worth being cozy with from the ones you’ll be stealing from behind their backs.
Differently from other Star Wars games where power is the ultimate fantasy, as you play as Jedis and other supremely powerful beings, Kay in Outlaws is just a human and isn’t made out to be an one-girl-army at any rate. The game rewards you for going in and out quietly, and for that, it certainly works, as there are a number of stealth options at your disposal.
The main one is her partner, a cat/dog thing called Nix, who she uses as an extension of herself, sending it to activate switches, pick up items, and most importantly, attack and distract targets. Nix is incredibly useful and continues to be as you progress through the game, unlocking new skills for it. It also plays a substantial role in the story and your interactions, as Kay’s best and more than not only real friend, who she talks to all the time.
Another aspect that’s worth keeping up with are what could be called ‘team members’. They’re basically people you meet throughout the galaxy who can offer you lines of abilities that once you do a certain number of activities, much like achievements, granting you incredibly useful skills to use in the game. One example is the hacker, who Kay befriends partway into the first major planet she visits, who after getting saved from the Imperials, gives you access to a whole bunch of gadgets that come into play when trying to be sneaky.
All that isn’t to say you can’t just go all guns blazing. It just makes things way more difficult and is obviously not the route the developers had in my for Star Wars Outlaws. You do have access to a serviceable cover system and are able to upgrade your blaster along with the rest of the gear in order to make it stronger and more flexible, mainly giving you the means to deal with both fleshy and mechanical enemies, as well as pick up bigger weapons that they drop, but it’s apparent from the very get go that the most rewarding – and coolest, really – path is the quiet one.
As for the world, well, worlds, the game takes place in, you get your pick of all the Star Wars archetypes we’ve seen in movies, cartoons, comic books, and other videogames. There’s an ice planet, jungle, fire, urban, and mixes of all of them, and to be honest, they’re downright impressive to jump around in, filled to the brim with NPCs and both illegal and legal activities to partake in. You’ll even touch base at Tatooine, so you can check it off your list of do’s for a Star Wars game as it wouldn’t be one without getting tons of sand in your boots.
Luckily, for as big and crowded as these are, you have the means to get around them quickly with the help of a customizable and upgradable speeder with which you can discover landmarks and their quick travel points as you land on new worlds. Conveniently, you can call it to your side at the press of a button, much like the more recent Assassin’s Creed games. As for those, besides your ride, there are more similarities to Ubisoft’s core franchise in other parts of Outlaws.
That sure is the case for the way you conduct quest lines during your time playing. Taking a play from Mirage’s book, you get to sleuth around the galaxy in search of clues that come in all forms, like eavesdropping on people, stealing key items, reading the right datapads, or simply stumbling upon them as you explore. Missions are layered in a way that requires you to do the grunt work, and in most cases they are fun enough to do and are smartly put together in a way that makes you feel clever for solving them.
What doesn’t work quite as well comes in hand-in-hand with the scope of the game. Knowing that Star Wars Outlaws is supposed to be set in a supposedly gigantic multi-planet spanning universe such as that one, its structure starts to feel all too familiar rather quickly. As soon as you get the ability to fly your own starship, the comings and goings in space start pointing towards some of the issues in this game: having a unique feel and experience to each location you land and start causing a ruckus at.
Plenty of other Star Wars game have suffered from this issue: The Old Republic, the MMO, with its online-only multiplayer design getting shoehorned into just about every single one of its locations, to the newest release previous to this one, Jedi Survivor, which had a similar problem of having tacked on traversal and progression that just felt a bit too artificial at spots. And that’s a problem that’s inherent to these being videogames as there’s only so much one can do without requiring years of implementation, not to mention the cash.
For what it is, Star Wars Outlaws goes through its motions well enough. If you’re the sort of player who easily gets lost playing open-world games and loves to see tickers go up and down depending on what you do in them, as well as constantly having to deal with upgrading equipment by farming and buying parts, this is likely one of the better ones out there. Coupled with the license and the treatment of it in the form of the game’s excellent visuals, voice acting, and score, it makes a decent enough case among the hundreds of games released so far this year.
The game doesn’t do anything particularly new, though, and if that’s not an issue for you, there’s plenty to do and see in it, and for as formulaic and repetitive as it might be, having the chance to play a role that’s rarely seen in Star Wars in game form as what’s in store for you as you start Outlaws, it’s certainly the main draw for fans of the source material. On the off chance you don’t particularly care for Lucas’ baby, then you’ll find little to set it apart from the dozens of others like it. It’s downright hard to please everyone, that’s for sure.
