Star Wars Outlaws review: a flawed but enjoyably roguish heist epic that gets the small things right

Star Wars Outlaws promises to shake things up in the galaxy far, far away. There’s no sight of the Jedi and every mention of the Rebel Alliance is met with a smirk, an eye-roll and a thrown insult. The idea of living out your ‘scoundrel fantasy’ in the same universe as Han Solo, Bobba Fett and Jabba the Hutt really is an engaging one. It’s also a pitch Lucasfilm has tried and failed at time and again, from Star Wars Bounty Hunter to the unreleased Star Wars 1313.

The marked difference with Outlaws is everything you do and experience in the game has been funnelled through the belief in bringing to life the cut and thrust, double and triple betrayals of living your worst-best life in Star Wars’ underworld - waistcoats and shooting first are optional.

The setup is suitably lowkey for a game of grand hustles. Loner and petty criminal Kay Vess dreams of escaping the slums of Canto Bight (the casino world from The Last Jedi), and after a heist goes wrong she escapes on a stolen but damaged ship, the Trailblazer, which turns out to be special - for reasons.

With a target on her back she needs to fix her newly acquired ship and flee, a simple plan made more complex by a series of unfortunate run-ins with the syndicates of the Outer Rim, and the need to assemble a crew to take on one last heist.

Star Wars Outlaws brings stealth back

Billed as the first open-world Star Wars game, the simple story setup is an excuse to be shamelessly unethical in this famous universe. This means a focus on shooting, hacking, gambling, treasure hunting, stealing, bartering, dogfighting and stealth. Indeed, that last one really is the main focus. While Outlaws is an open world game, with an upgradable speeder bike for exploring each world, when the main-side-and syndicate quests get going, anti-hero Kay Vess gets sneaking.

The pull of Outlaws is not simply how it manages to build a believable mix of open worlds, four main planets and Cantonica, to lose time in, but Ubisoft has managed to make one of the year’s biggest blockbusters a stealth game. Outlaws doesn’t simply have occasional stealth, it revels in, and celebrates, the art of silently stalking enemies in a variety of creative ways.

Kay and her pet Nix, an adorable dog-like creature that’s essentially a slobbering grin and googly eyes on four legs, can work together to set traps, take down enemies, break locks and hack computers (using an inventive rhythmic mini-game and a take on Wordle). New gear, upgrades and abilities grow Kay's arsenal of options and come the end of the main campaign she will be able to dominate a room of Imperial Troopers with a mix of Nix attacks, traps, hacked turrets and stealth takedowns. Or, just scurry past the lot of them making swift use of vents and secret routes for a satisfying non-confrontational escape.

Kay can also tap into her inner-Tomb Raider to ledge-leap, swing, and scurry up craggy mountains, explore wrecks, sneak about Imperial bases and, in one fan-baiting moment, slide into Jabba's Palace. For the most part Outlaw’s platforming is nicely done, but it can feel a little stiff and occasionally Kay can simply not register with a ledge of surface, resulting in a fall to her death and a restart.

Ah yes, restarts. Stealth games are notoriously trial and error and Outlaws is no different. You’ll often want to experiment with the tools in Kay’s arsenal or explore a risky platform leap for the tease of a hidden treasure, but one false move will result in death, and poor checkpointing can mean being sent to the start of a mission. Worse still, on a number of occasions, Kay randomly restarted the other side of the entire map, meaning a lengthy speeder bike ride just to try again.

Unfortunately there’s a further downside to Outlaws’ stealth, the game’s AI isn’t exactly playing with all its marbles. It’s very easy to noisily punch-out a guard while his mate 10ft away is oblivious. Likewise, when an enemy does find a body their attention wanes in a blink of an eye and everyone goes back to stoically monitoring those flashing lights every Star Wars base is littered with, despite a body being right there.

Yet, out in the open world, the AI can be overly aggressive and eagerly chases down Kay in gangs, on speeder bikes, furiously peppering the world with laser bolts. It also makes for some occasionally frustrating and comically overblown slapstick moments as a crew of Pyke Syndicate goons on speeder bikes will plough into Kay as she’s trying to hear a random character pour out his heart, as you do in open world games.

This is partly my fault, as I've been spending my time aligning with the Crimson Dawn syndicate, and actively working against the Pykes. Venturing into Pyke territory means an instant chase unless I can massage my way back into their good books. Syndicate jobs can be taken at various brokers found in a world's Canteena, and while many are often fetch quests some veer off into larger schemes and you'll often be faced with dialogue choices to double-cross your paymaster.

There's a lot of fun to be had exploring how the world of Outlaws works, and it's satisfying to make choices that can affect Kay's standing in this corner of the universe. Not least because in a world where everyone is bad, there's no such thing as a wrong choice.

When everything does go wrong, whether on a mission, bartering with a syndicate or out in the open world, Kay will need to pull a blaster and shoot her way out of a bad situation.

Here the game stumbles again, a little. Blaster combat can feel stiff and functional rather than truly satisfying; enemies soak up laser fire while two shots and Kay’s dead. Dropped weapons can be picked up on the run, but really nothing improves on Kay's all-purpose blaster. While gunfights look visually appealing, with smoke, sparks and blaster bolts illuminating the screen magnificently, it's surface level, and behind the graphical spectacle combat feels lacklustre.

Things improve in the late-game once Kay’s blaster has been upgraded, so you're able to hot-swap between rapid fire, bolts, electric shots and more, giving gunfights a new tactical lease of life. It means once the main campaign is concluded and the worlds of Tatoonine and Toshara are teasing you back to explore, there's more fun to be had from gunfights.

It's all about loyalty for Star Wars Outlaws

You will persevere too, because Outlaws is more than the sum of its many parts. And yes, those parts may be co-opted from other Ubisoft games, a bit of Watch Dogs 2 here, a smidge of Assassin's Creed there, and a dash of Massive’s previous game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, in Outlaws' world design and mission structure. But when it all comes together you’ll find yourself spiralling into Star Wars’ underworld, because taken as a whole, there's a lot to enjoy.

Behind the core stealth gameplay that dominates the missions are layers of ideas that build Outlaws’ complex world and make it a memorable place to simply immerse yourself within.

There's room to explore the small area of space above each planet for treasures, unusual side quests and shootouts with pirates and TIE Fighters. Back in the surface you can hunt for lost loot, pick up random jobs, enter high stakes card tournaments and loose all your earnings on the track. Naturally, this being a game of scum and villainy you can cheat - whether that's getting Nix to spy on your rival's card hand or collecting intel on which horse will win the next race (of course they're fixed).

Governing how you experience the worlds of Outlaws are the syndicates. As mentioned, which you side with has a blunt effect of how aggressively they treat Kay in the open world, but it can be more nuanced. How a syndicate views Kay, favourably or negatively, will in turn affect the kind of missions you can take on, what areas of a city you can explore and what rewards will be offered. The influence of the syndicates, and Kay’s relationship to them, is genuinely felt and gives life to this corner of the galaxy.

Often missions will cascade into one another and even main quests will offer up compelling reasons to go off the beaten path. Or a new upgrade to Kay’s blaster, speeder bike or core abilities will demand a detour to scratch an itch to find a map’s secret. But be warned, there are some surprising things lurking out in Outlaws' worlds, including something large hiding in the dunes.

This leaves little breathing room to stop and dwell on those moments of AI lunacy or one of the many bugs that could hinder the immersion, whether it’s a missing asset in a cutscene, a looping audio clip or a rebel leader who comically continues to bob, weave and perform an 'ocular pat down' even when debriefing Kay.

Fundamentally, Outlaws oozes charm. Visually the Snowdrop engine delivers striking moments of beauty that will have you reaching for the Photo Mode every minute. Whether it’s yet another smoky canteen drenched in neon or a sweeping moon-framed Tatooine vista, there’s always something to make you stop and take in the visuals.

Massive has opted for a widescreen cinematic ratio to present Outlaws action, which helps sell the scale of the space opera and evokes a subtle filmic quality. Each scene is loaded with effects, too, including chromatic aberration, lens flare, and a layer of grit and grime across the lens to really rub home the hustle and bustle of Outlaws' complex universe.

And when Massive is not delivering the big moments the dev lets you relax and quietly enjoy this corner of the Star Wars universe it’s built. Taking time to eat with Nix at a droid-run food hut turns out to be a delightful mini-game, while leaning at the bar not only means you can take in the atmosphere but a lead or two could be eavesdropped; some juicy intel to use, sell or barter.

There's a moment when I'm out in a small diner in the middle of nowhere, some random jangly music playing on the jukebox, the hum of conversation and the clank of plates, and there's a guide telling Kay his life story. He doesn't want money, he doesn't want a thing fetching, he simply wants to unload his problems, and Outlaws clicks with me: it's a game of small moments, of telling stories in a corner of the Star Wars we've rarely seen done well before.

Star Wars Outlaws does so many of these small details so well, anchored by its syndicate system, the drive of exploration and a heartfelt hero who's story is compelling enough to drive you to its dramatic conclusion. Everything builds into a compelling whole, and in turn brings to life Star Wars' underworld in an enthralling way. Is Star Wars Outlaws perfect? No, definitely not. But few rogues and scoundrels are.

Verdict

There are clear problems, but Star Wars Outlaws is more than the sum of its (many) parts and successfully brings to life an often overlooked and wonderfully roguish part of the galaxy far, far away.