Star Wars Outlaws Review

While not everything works as well as intended in Star Wars Outlaws, the game is one of the most refreshing projects to come out of Ubisoft in a while. The world beautifully merges together across spanning planets and an interconnected space. The missions and padded content felt rewarding and incredibly deep. Not to mention the Star Wars love here is undeniable.

I honestly went into Star Wars Outlaws worried about how much “Ubisoft” I would see in the open world. As a studio known for copying and pasting the same mechanics across different maps, I was worried Outlaws would be a good story layered under rinse-and-repeat, and if anything, monotonous activities. I was wrong.

Almost everything in Outlaws feels hand-crafted. Each planet is diverse in locations to explore and treasures to find across all sorts of scenarios. Be it grappling to the top of a peak in Toshara to find a pair of pants or exploring the dark caves in Tatooine to uncover a Blaster upgrade. Every planet felt like a new opportunity to spend hours exploring.

To its strengths, the world carries the story in Star Wars Outlaws too. Even during the most drawn-out moments, I felt fully immersed in the world and thoroughly enjoyed all the Star Wars fandom put into the project. I won’t spoil much here but any keen-eyed fan will pick up on dozens if not hundreds of throwbacks to the comics, series, games and movies. It is a love letter to fans even during those tired moments.

A standout mission saw Kay sneak into Jabba’s Palace to take back something his goons stole from her. I remember scooting around the corner and the giant structure appearing in front of me. It was difficult to not sit there and admire the craft. Admiration was soon followed by excitement once I pulled up to the side entrance and began creeping through its halls.

What I am trying to say here is that Star Wars Outlaws is first and foremost a Star Wars game. Its authenticity is undeniable and even if you jump in for the Star Wars and less for the unlikable Kay, you’ll have a good time. Ubisoft crafted a wonderful journey here that spans new and familiar locations. No matter how adverse you are to the series, I bet you’ll enjoy soaring through space, participating in large-scale space fights, landing on Tatooine, jumping on your Speeder and driving off into the sun-baked desert.

With that being said, Star War Outlaws does have a central focus beyond its incredible world. The game follows Kay, Nix and ND-5 who get roped into pulling off the so-called “biggest heist in the galaxy”. In order to do so, Kay needs to recruit some help from aliens and people she knows from across different planets. Of course, this is always easier said than done and the story is fleshed out across various missions while trying to recruit these masterful Outlaws.

Star Wars Outlaws introduces some interesting new faces alongside some familiar ones. As Kay explores these planets, she also has to “make good” with the various syndicates to benefit from their influence and connections across the galaxy. For example, Jabba the Hutt, who is likely the most well-known face in the game controls the Hutts. Story missions let me decide whether to screw this group over or help them. These decisions would give me a bad rep for the other syndicate involved but unlock new bounties, shops and even explorable locations.

But the other syndicates do forgive you. I just had to spend time focusing on syndicate-specific side missions and trading in various items that helped improve only that reputation. So all is not lost if you decide to be a fan of one group over the other.

In a way, the game kind of forces you to make good with everyone after a while as some items to upgrade Kay’s gear are locked into certain syndicate strongholds. Sneaking in with a bad rep would cause a never-ending assault against them and is virtually impossible to win. Even driving through their held areas of the map would result in dozens of them chasing me down.

The syndicate reputation system is a cool mechanic. It is a bit confusing to understand at times and the locked-out features often feel pointless. However, it does play into Kay’s outlaw personality even if it doesn’t change the outcome of the story.

Sadly, it doesn’t always work. I remember finishing a mission with Jabba where we agreed to work together. Meaning the syndicate would work with Kay. I walked out of his palace and was immediately hunted by his goons who were just a room away from him. They chased me down, relentlessly shot at me and made it a pain to return to him to complete missions.

Keep in mind that the “agreed to work together” was story-based and the prior mission automatically gave me a bad rep regardless of how I played the game. So there was no way around this. I often found similar moments in other missions. Surely the guys shouldn’t want to kill me on-site if I am working with their boss?

When I wasn’t doing syndicate favours, I was creeping into Imperial strongholds to steal data, having shootouts with pirates and gambling the night away playing Sabbac. There’s a lot to enjoy in Outlaws. So much so that I spent dozens of hours on a planet completely forgetting that there was a space area above me with its own locations and missions.

Kay does feel limited when it comes to her abilities, however. She is armed with a blaster and some throwables. She also has Nix who can be instructed around the game to perform various things. Be this opening a vent, setting off a canister to explode, picking up a weapon for Kay to use or attacking an enemy so Kay can run past or knock them out.

Sneaking is as generic as you would expect. Enemies are dumb as rocks and don’t feature any sort of standout advantages over AI from twenty years ago. I spent most of my time going in loud. This meant targeting alarm systems so the group couldn’t call in reinforcements. I would then shoot everyone, blow up explosive barrels and use weapons I found to my advantage.

I also felt like shooting and action was the more natural way to play Star Wars Outlaws. Sneaking is fun and all but it gets tedious, the AI are horrible and Kay “knocking out” a Stormtrooper with her bare hands by hitting them on the head is incredibly unrealistic. Thankfully, the gunplay feels great. Kay’s Blaster can switch between different shooting modes with some enjoyable playstyles. I did wish she had more weapons, however.

Taking down an entire group of pirates while advancing into their HQ to steal their already-stolen loot felt like the most outlaw thing I could do. It works and is likely the best way to play Star Wars Outlaws. That does mean Nix took the backseat but hey, I didn’t want the gameplay to rely on a pet regardless of how cute he is.

My biggest takeaway from the game is likely its world (or worlds in this case). These locations are so dense with detail that I have to praise Ubisoft for building them. The cities alone are masterpieces layered with shops, people to talk to, things to discover, mini-games to play and so much more. I often made an effort to fast travel less because of the feeling I would get driving across the planet. I would pull up to a city, get off my Speeder and make my way through the alleys, bustling food markets and canteens to speak to the person instead. The sights and sounds that came with every trip were unlike anything I have seen from Ubisoft.

But it isn’t all praise. Star Wars Outlaws does struggle with character development. Namely, Kay. She is just boring as hell. As much as the game tries to push her past and make her likeable, I wrapped up the game without caring at all about the character. There’s just nothing happening here for me. I tried.

Then there’s performance. Star Wars Outlaws is rocky on PC. While it is one of the most visually captivating games I have played and demands a PC that can deliver that, I encountered dozens of game crashes. In a one-hour session, for example, my game would crash 7 – 10 times. Sometimes I would load my save and the game would crash before it even gets past the load screen.

As a result, I wasted a lot of time redoing stuff because the manual save option is locked most of the time. This would be when turning in missions, speaking to an NPC to get a new mission or just walking to my objective. I suffered from crashes mostly while in a town. However, the game crashed outside of towns too.

I also tried my best to prevent these crashes. I disabled all advanced graphics options and upscaling. Keep in mind I do have an RTX 4080 SUPER so it wasn’t as if my rig couldn’t handle it. If you’re playing this on PC just be warned.

Apart from some fixable technical issues, Star Wars Outlaws is a good game. Sure, it might not tell the most serious story in the galaxy and some mechanics feel a bit underdeveloped but there’s more to enjoy here than not. I enjoyed how grown-up the world feels the most. Gone are the towers and boring side objectives Ubisoft has padded into previous games. Instead, the world feels fleshed out and inspiring.

This Star Wars Outlaws review is based on a code sent to us by Ubisoft. The game launches on 30 August for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Early access through the Gold, Ultimate Edition and Ubisoft+ starts on 27 August. You can pick up the game starting at R1349.