Star Wars Outlaws is the most Star Wars a Star Wars game has been since Star Wars Galaxies
When I first fired up Star Wars Outlaws, I was looking forward to getting stuck into two of my favourite hobbies: being disappointed by Ubisoft open world games and being disappointed by Star Wars. Well, Ubisoft, you've really screwed up my plans this time, haven't you? Because Outlaws is a very good time and a very good Star Wars game.
The Disney era of Star Wars has made it very easy to dunk on the galaxy far, far away, but Star Wars has still inspired a heck of a lot of great games. Few of them, however, have truly made me feel like I'm inhabiting the galaxy of the original trilogy.
Dark Forces was an amazing Doom clone full of Star Warsy-looking corridors. TIE Fighter brought the dogfights to life. KOTOR 2 was an impressive, philosophical dissection of the Force. The greats all adapt and explore specific slices. But only Star Wars Galaxies (RIP) dropped me in the setting of the films and just let me soak it all in. Until Outlaws.
Outlaws actually goes even further in giving us an authentic Star Wars playground. In Galaxies, anyone could be a Jedi. Initially the journey to Force mastery was a long and laborious one, but by the NGE update you could start your game as an acrobatic space wizard. Here's your lightsaber, go have some fun. Despite the era during which it was set, the free-wheeling Jedi bullshit was very much drawn from the prequel trilogy. Outlaws, though, which is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, isn't interested in Force-wielders.
Jedi light
Kay Vess lives in a galaxy where there's only a faint glimmer of hope and no magic. She's a scoundrel making do—hitting up cantinas and hanging out with ne'er do wells. The wide open spaces she races through on her speeder are majestic and full of tourist-trap vistas, but the cities are dirty, busy, lived-in places where every nook and cranny builds this tangible sense of place. A real place.
Outlaws has a grounded vibe that I think a lot of adaptations forget the original trilogy also boasted—especially A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back. Back then, using the Force meant being able to jump super high and choke a subordinate. Mostly, they were films about a likeable group of buds getting into scrapes. Spin-offs, sequels and prequels have tried to make Star Wars more high falutin, and I feel like a lot of us fans have been only too happy to buy into that, as if to justify the importance we place on the series. And that's fine! Star Wars can and should be more than one thing. But god do I crave the simplicity of the classics.
Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have captured all the fun, the japes, the cheekiness, and in doing so have given us something that feels pure Star Wars in the best possible way. It's charming and silly and isn't putting on airs—a roguish romp where you can punch stormtroopers and piss off crime bosses.
And damn does it look the part. When I'm sauntering through settlements, I default to a walking speed normally only ever used by developers recording gameplay walkthroughs and trailers. You know the one. I just want to stroll and take in all the sights. All the incredible, tiny details. The messy market stalls, the holo-tables displaying fathier races, the little hole-in-the-wall boozers. There's just so much bustle and life, it makes each hub feel huge and rich even though they're pretty compact spaces.
Coming from a stint in Jedi Survivor, I appreciate Outlaws so much more. Respawn's soulslike series is pretty good. The lightsaber fights are rad, the little robot is cute, and they look inoffensively nice, if utterly forgettable. But holy shit are they boring. Boring people having boring conversations in boring places. They desperately want me to care about the stakes, but I just could not give a toss. And my god, they're so bloody serious. You've got a lightsaber and magic powers, Cal—at least try to have a laugh, mate.
Survivor in particular feels like it's going through a Star Wars checklist—Cantina hangouts, Darth Vader duels, Force puzzles, Separatist droids, Stormtroopers, dark side temptations—but it's all for naught when the bulk of the game just sees you jumping around in the wilderness as some sad ginger lad. The Star Wars stuff feels like set dressing rather than something the game truly embraces. In the end both games are perfectly enjoyable, but they're bad Star Wars games.
Going rogue
By not trying to be more than a fun Star Wars romp, Outlaws also ends up being Ubisoft's best open world in years. As a thief with a penchant for treasure hunting, it actually makes more sense for Kay to painstakingly clear a million icons in search of more loot and collectibles—much more so than a Viking warrior or a Renaissance assassin—but Massive has been surprisingly restrained. You are encouraged to explore rather than being directed towards a million different icons and chests. When you hear rumours about big pay days, you have to actually go searching, reading the terrain and using your map the way a normal person uses a map. Revolutionary!
I've seen some criticisms about the worlds being empty and Massive not making the most of the vast spaces, but I've found the opposite to be true. If you're focused more on the proper quests, I can see how the planets might seem a bit sparse, but I've been taking my time to look for opportunities, listening in on conversations or browsing misplaced datapads, leaving me with a long list of optional objectives. Whenever I hop on my speeder, I have lots of potential distractions gently tugging me in different directions—it's just that they're not always clearly displayed on the map. Thus, I find myself setting off on proper adventures rather than being dragged to specific destinations to just go through the motions.
Really, though, I would have put up with a lot of Ubisoft's usual bloat if it meant getting to experience Outlaws' commitment to and love of the setting. Like the movies themselves, it has a transportative power, kicking me back a few decades to an era when I could enjoy Star Wars without a hint of cynicism.