How has there never been an open-world Star Wars game? While other games have offered nonlinear environments to varying degrees, Ubisoft’s marketing department really wants you to know that Star Wars Outlaws — developed by Division creators Massive Entertainment — is technically the first ever open-world Star Wars game. An open-world Star Wars game really feels like something we should’ve gotten about 10 years ago. Coincidentally, Star Wars Outlaws also feels like something that we could’ve gotten 10 years ago.
Star Wars Outlaws is a game of two halves. It has multiple brilliant ideas under its belt that remind you why Ubisoft’s slate of open-world games, as bemoaned as they may be by some enthusiasts, are among the best in the industry. They offer a mixture of world design, intertwined systems, and graphical fidelity that few can even attempt to replicate. On the other hand, several parts of Outlaws feel bafflingly dated. It’s simultaneously one of 2024’s best games while also being one of its worst.
Star Wars Outlaws stars Kay Vess, a lovable scoundrel with an even more lovable furry friend named Nix. A job goes wrong, so Kay needs to travel the galaxy and recruit a team of experts to pull off the ultimate heist. It’s as cliche as setups come, but the main plot of Outlaws is really just an excuse to give you a ship and free rein to explore planets at any time in any order.
In addition to the main plot, multiple other parts of the game suffer in service of that fantasy of being an outlaw. Go where you want, do what you want, be who you want. It doesn’t matter if the narrative suffers, characters don’t get enough time to develop, or combat doesn’t deepen enough. You can land on Tattooine without a loading screen, walk into the Mos Eisley Cantina like you own the place, and go steal some upgrade materials from an Imperial Outpost. That’s the fantasy that Star Wars Outlaws is trying to sell, for better and for worse.
The thing is, the game sells that fantasy remarkably well. At its best, Star Wars Outlaws feels like a playable E3 demo. Slowly sauntering into a cantina to accept a contract from a shady broker, the music thumping louder as you pass by bustling Sabacc tables and overhear rumors that can potentially lead to high-paying jobs, it’s just maximum vibes. Outlaws masterfully replicates that signature Star Wars texture that so many spin-offs can only dream of.
That texture extends to combat as well, no matter how mediocre it may be mechanically. Sneaking into an outpost, narrowly avoiding detection thanks to a distraction from Nix, and then zooming away on your speeder while the alarm starts to blare behind you just never gets old.
The development team absolutely nailed the fantasy of being a scoundrel in the Star Wars universe in all regards, so much so that it’s easy to forget about the middling parts of the game every now and then when everything lines up perfectly. The cracks do eventually start to show, however, and they become much more prominent as time goes on.
For starters, blaster combat just doesn’t feel good, which is baffling given the team behind the game. Massive Entertainment is the studio behind some of the best-feeling third-person shooters of all time. This is the same studio that shipped Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora not even a year ago, and that game made a simple bow feel as satisfying as the strongest sniper rifles in Call of Duty. For Massive to drop the ball so hard on blaster combat in Star War Outlaws is, well, a massive disappointment.
Nix is the shining star of combat, though, and this little fella adds a surprising amount of depth to otherwise shallow shootouts. Nix is essentially the Watch Dogs phone, but for Star Wars. The game places healing Bacta and other resources ever so slightly out of range so you have to rely on Nix to fetch them for you. Nix can also set up targets for instant melee takedowns, creating an opening you so you can reposition during firefights. He can also snag limited-use blasters for you that are huge upgrades over your standard sidearm.
Outlaws’ combat is at its best when you’re not playing it like a regular third-person cover shooter. Kay can only take a few shots before going down, so sprinting around the arena, using Nix to take the heat off you, and scrounging for disposable blasters is the key to success. The game never gets hard enough to require any of that, though. Even the elite Imperial Death Troopers are a complete joke, so you’re forced to make your own fun in Outlaws’ combat sandbox.
All of the shooting and sneaking in Star Wars Outlaws ties into the game’s defining feature: reputation. There are multiple criminal syndicates throughout the galaxy that control different parts of each planet, and your standing with them will affect available jobs, merchant inventories, and whether you’re allowed to freely explore certain areas. There are major choices in main story missions that can drastically alter your reputation with different factions, and taking the time to complete optional jobs to increase your standing is a good idea.
Unfortunately, Outlaws’ reputation system falls flat on its face after the first few hours of the game. Any wrongdoings can be completely undone in a matter of minutes by completing optional odd jobs like theft or smuggling. Not only is it incredibly easy to max every syndicate out, it’s encouraged with cosmetic rewards and other features. The uneasy alliance between scoundrels and syndicates is a key part of the outlaw fantasy, but the reputation system just stops mattering once you learn how it works.
It’s a shame, too, since that’s the core of the game. You’ll be showered with Credits and upgrade materials just by playing the game normally, so reputation is the main reward for going out of your way to do extra content. The freedom of choice is compelling initially, but the allure quickly wears off after you’ve gotten the option to sell to another buyer for more Credits at the end of a contract for the millionth time with the same dialog and everything.
It’s a shame that the game focuses more on being a nonlinear outlaw simulator with its dynamic reputation system and replayable contracts since it has a strong cast of characters at its core, they just don’t get much time to shine.
Kay’s primary partner throughout the adventure is a hardened droid named ND-5, for example. Their growth from uneasy allies to trusted partners should be the emotional core of the story, but ND-5 basically never leaves the ship and you can do the main story planets in any order, so there’s not really a narrative throughline to follow. This effect bleeds into the rest of Outlaws’ narrative, too, and such a character-driven story really should’ve given the crew more time to interact.
Star Wars Outlaws really does shine in some regards, but it feels years behind its contemporaries in others. None of it feels exceptionally special in practice, but Outlaws is a prime example of a game being more than the sum of its parts. Still, some of those parts really hold the entire experience back from being truly excellent. A refined sequel has the potential to be an all-timer, but as it stands, Kay and the crew’s debut outing feels a bit half-baked.
Published: Aug 30, 2024 05:39 pm