Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws is a mess. It was a mess at launch and it’s still a mess. Despite being a huge Star Wars fan I didn’t buy the game upon release because it was clear that it wasn’t ready for primetime. It’s still not where it needs to be. Let me explain… The game was marketed as an open world stealth game. Originally, if you were discovered the game would reload the checkpoint with no way of salvaging a bad situation. Post numerous patches, upon discovery you can now shoot your way out of trouble. The problem for me is that the gameplay loop isn’t very good. In fact, it’s barely adequate. You can approach enemies from behind and punch them in the side of their helmeted heads with your bare fist and one-shot knock them out. Everytime, and without breaking your hand. It’s immersion breaking. Why didn’t the developers give Kay a stun stick, a weapon in the Star Wars universe perfectly suited to the gameplay? Kay herself is a likeable protagonist with questionable 1980’s mum hair. It really is quite hideous. Unforfortunately while we can change her wardrobe, ship, speeder, and weapons, we cannot change her hair. Upon rendering a foe unconscious you cannot pick up the body and drag it into cover. You’re forced to leave it there in the open, risking detection. This is frankly unbelievable. Hiding unconscious bodies in stealth games goes back decades, it’s a basic staple of the genre. Somewhere along the way, Ubisoft, the creators of the greatest Stealth game ever made (Splinter Cell Chaos Theory) forgot how to make a stealth game. Another example of poor stealth gameplay is the pistol Kay is forced to rely upon and upgrade if she’s to survive in a harsh galaxy. It has a stun setting. Unfortunately Kay’s stun pistol doesn’t work like any stun weapon you’ve ever ever seen in a Star Wars movie, game, or television show. This one can only fire a single shot before requiring an inordinate amount of time to recharge. And you can’t upgrade it. While you can certainly crouch behind cover you can’t hug it or pear around corners or over walls. It’s all very basic stuff. When you’re detected by an enemy, (and you will be detected by enemies) and the inevitable shootout commences your puny pistol will be found wanting. But fear not, if you play for many hours in this frustrating manner you’ll eventually be able to upgrade it into something half useful — just in time for the credits to roll (if you’re not into grind and you elected to stick to the premium tier storyline. Side tangent: What is it with modern AAA games that hold back the fun until you’re many hours deep into the game? Why make the player frustrated with their lack of abilities and equipment when you could let them enjoy the game they bought immediately? Star Wars Outlaws makes matters even worse by neglecting to offer a New Game Plus mode. So if you want to reexperience the story again some day you have to do it without your upgrades. Of course, you can pick up weapons from fallen foes but for some reason they all have barely any charge to them. Meaning, just as you start to enjoy yourself the Ubisoft fun police will show up again and take it away from you. Time to look for another blaster you naughty rapscallion! There’s a rhythm based hacking mini game that allows you to access locked doors, storage chests, and computer terminals. It isn’t very fun and quickly becomes tedious. My recommendation is to turn off this mini game in the accessibility settings. Being a scoundrel you’ll naturally come into contact with the scum of the galaxy and will need to balance a reputation system with the various criminal syndicates. Unfortunately there isn’t any long term consequences for your actions. Steal from a Hutt, shoot up his palace, and leave the seat up in his refresher? No problem, just do a few jobs for his majordomo and all will be forgiven. At the time of this review I’ve played 38 hours of Star Wars Outlaws. In that time I have completed the primary quest line, all the expert quest lines, and a smattering of other miscellaneous bits and bobs as well. Yet bizarrely, my co-pilot keeps talking about a heist as if it’s still in my future when I dealt with it hours ago in the main story. That’s just one of numerous bugs I’ve had to deal with in this half-baked game. The game refuses to save my graphical settings. I contacted Ubisoft support and followed their advice but the issue continues to plague me. Using the speeder gives me massive headaches. It can be resolved by toggling off various settings in the graphics menu but I have to do that on every boot because the game refuses to save my preferences. Then there are the crashes, and on occasion, scenes won’t trigger. I’ve had to read Reddit threads on multiple occasions to find ways to progress the story and jog the game into working. Sometimes I’ll call my speeder and it will fly past me and into a tree, rock, or some other piece of the environment. Let’s talk about the graphics for a moment. Character bodies, ships, weapons, and environments look very good. The faces do not. NPC’s look like they were designed for the PS3 era. It’s shockingly bad. Bumbling about on Tatooine was a personal highlight of mine. The level of detail and authenticity on show is truly incredible. Unfortunately the other worlds on offer, while looking very good, don’t elicit the same level of joy, wonder, and nostalgia. One of them is from The Last Jedi. It makes sense for the story, but why on earth bring up those unhappy memories? Another is from a disastrous Disney era novel that was so bad it became a literary meme. (The writer was fired by Disney after arguing with fans on social media and behaving in a very unprofessional manner) Enemies tend to respawn as well. Something you will do often is infiltrate an enemy base. You’ll work your way stealthily around the compound, taking out the guards as you go. You’ll reach your desired objective but you’ll realise that you need a keycard to bypass the door. You backtrack through the compound but now those guards you disabled moments ago are now back at their post and they haven’t even raised an alarm. Other than being incredibly immersion breaking it’s annoying. What if I want to collect all the treasures on the base? Why can’t the game keep your actions in memory at least until you’ve left the base? Performance has been very good for me but then it should be, I have a very capable PC. I’ve been playing with all graphical settings maxed out on Ultra, 4K thanks to DLSS upscaling set to ‘Quality’ and frame gen x2 enabled. Great stuff. Unfortunately Ubisoft couldn’t be bothered to officially support the Steam Deck. And why oh why do I have to read a health warning EVERY SINGLE TIME I BOOT THE GAME?! I can’t skip it or check a box that says I acknowledge the risks and move on with my life. No, I have to endure that wall of text every time I sit down to play the game. Another thing to note: Ubisoft Connect is present in this game, and as expected, slows down loading times considerably while offering nothing of value. And why doesn’t it full screen? Silly little box that isn’t even centered. In the year of our Lord, 2026 this is ridiculous. At least their egregious launcher remembers my password, something many of their other games do not. I will say this in the game’s defence though: the characters and story are very good, and despite the less than exciting worlds to visit the game does offer plenty of authentic Star Wars feels. What this game needs is a Cyberpunk 2.0 level redesign. The underlying game is very good, but the gameplay needs reworking. Here are my top 5 fixes that are desperately needed: Add the ability to hide bodies Implement true, modern, cover-based mechanics Speed up the recharge of the stun setting on the pistol (or at least allow the purchase of alternative stealth weaponry) Keep player actions in memory while in enemy bases Provide more stealth-based attacks and equipment 6/10

I REALLY like this game. I like the characters and the stealthy playstyle, but I simply CANNOT recommend this game. After a while, the side missions become repetitive, and the open world feels very empty. Unfortunately, having a bad relationship with certain syndicates has absolutely no impact on the main story—people from those syndicates treat you the same way whether you have an excellent reputation with them or when they’re literally sending kill squads after you. The cherry on top is that there’s been a bug in the mission "The Droidsmith" for two years now that prevents you from completing the main story, you literally cannot finish the game without using another bug to get around the problem. This bug has existed for TWO YEARS NOW!!! So no, I don't think the game is worth the full price, nor do I think it's worth buying on sale. I mean, it’s fun, but that’s about it. I simply can't recommend a game that is so poorly optimized and leaves in a bug that prevents you from finishing the game.

This is an odd game. On one hand there are elements of it that are brilliant, and on the other hand there are some baffling decisions and so many missed opportunities. Lets start with the good stuff: The atmosphere is incredible, I genuinely think this game captures the "feeling" and art direction of being in the star wars universe better than any other star wars game. The locations are believable, the scenery is fantastic. The story is somewhat predictable, but decent, there are a couple of moments of genuine tension though and I was surprised/impressed that they pulled it off. I really enjoyed the way that leveling up works in this game. Its almost a hybrid of Oblivion and Gothic, novel, creative and I think it works very well. The minigames (which are normally awful) are actually decent imo in this one, slicing and using the data spike, the nix food minigames are meh, but cute, sabacc was fun. Reputation system is decent, its been done before but the implementation here is solid and makes sense. Exploration in the game is pretty well done, and you can chose how much information to be given in order to complete objectives. The sound design and sound track are excellent. Nix is very cute. Now the bad: The combat is poor. Its generic and one dimensional. Thankfully the forced stealth sections were removed, but stealth in general in the game is rather basic, which is a little odd for a game which focuses on stealth. But by far the biggest issue for me is the lack of open world systems to actually allow you to be an outlaw. You cant hold people up, you cant shoot people in towns, there is no direct stealing or fighting or anything which an "outlaw" might do that isnt scripted. It can be fun to play an overpowered character provided that you can actually do something with it, but the game just doesnt give the player any sandbox tools to actually play as an outlaw. The only thing you can do is just play through missions, and there are a few NPCs which Nix can steal from, but thats it. In conclusion if you're after a game that genuinely makes you feel like you are in star wars, and you're more interested in a simple action game with a clear narrative path but thats set in a larger world then Star Wars Outlaws is a very good game, but if you're after deep RPG mechanics and the sandbox elements that you would expect in a well fleshed open world game, or if you need high quality combat to really enjoy a game, then maybe give this one a miss, or pick it up on a sale. In general for me the good outweighed the bad, but it definitely depends person to person.

Lots of bugs in this title on PC, I haven't even gotten of Toshara, the door to the shipwreck wont open, progression shopper. Work around is to go waaaay back to a previous save and lose all the equipment, reputation that I have earned. This is my final straw with Ubisoft, they just landed in the "no buy zone". Im not going to waste days of work to work around a bug that should not even be there. What is the expectation for me? Run into another showstopper down the line and have to repeat more gameplay all over again? No game is that good. Whatever producer signed off on this issue needs to go work as a receptionist. And I WILL trash Ubi through word of mouth to most of my gamer friends. Inexcusable.

Buy it on sale, not full price. Chill vibes, very nostalgic Star Wars feel to it, definitely enjoyed my playthrough of this. No Jedi stuff, so don't go in expecting that. Think more Han Solo romping through criminal underworld. Nothing about this game is award-winning or exceptional, but nothing is bad either. Ubisioft played it safe with this one, and its's enjoyable enough to play in between other games.

This game deserves very little of its hate. It's the Han solo simulator of my dreams. Only replace Han with a girl and Chewy with a small axolotl dog.

Yeah honestly this game was awesome. Sure it's got some generic bones, some restrictive and clunky gameplay structures, and writing that ranges from decently solid to barely serviceable, but dang man. It's fun to play, and there are so many creative and interesting gameplay systems at work here contributing to the overall experience of being a rogue scoundrel in the Star Wars universe. It's fun to get into the good graces of one faction so that they're easier to steal from, and then after backstabbing them having to watch my back on the planets where that faction has a strong presence. It's fun to fast talk some imperial guards until my pet can sneak up and tackle one while I hurry and stun blast the other. It's fun to get upgrades "because I know a guy" that's directly relevant to the skills I'm developing. It's fun to play sabaac for like, hours. I played so much sabaac. I straight up just listened to some audiobooks and played hours of sabaac. The sabaac is pretty dang good, honestly. It's fun to escape a planet where I'm wanted by the empire by hitting the hyperdrive and fleeing to another system. It's fun to roleplay a kid and her pet that are in so far over their head but absolutely won't stop talking a big game anyway. It's fun to bet on horseraces that I know are fixed. It's fun to eavesdrop on smugglers whispering about where they hid their last big score, and then go steal that score. And it is so, so fun to explore the beautiful environments that these artists created, that are seriously the highest quality examples of Star Wars cities brought to life in a video game that I've ever seen. The environments really deserve their own paragraph. Each of the four planets, plus the couple odd black market space stations, are so beautifully designed and so much fun to explore. They capture the best parts of the Star Wars aesthetic better than I've seen it done almost anywhere else. The jungle planet was just jaw-droppingly gorgeous from one side to the other. Tatooine felt like the most faithful rendition of the planet I've ever seen, including tiny outpost towns overseen by one sheriff and the Mos Eisley Cantina, perfectly tucked away in a seedy corner instead of being advertised like it's the main attraction (as I've seen in plenty of other video games). I really have a tough time picking a favorite between the planets and cities they give you to explore, and the only thing I want from Massive is just more. More planets, more cities, more places to explore, and if the new environments can hold a candle to what Massive has already created here than it will be better than the maps of entire video games I've played. It's really a shame that Ubisoft shut down dreams of a sequel to this game. This game was great, far from perfect but an absolute treat for anyone that ever thought Han Solo's gig looked fun. If their first try was this fun, a sequel might have been something close to a truly perfect game. I wish upon a star that Ubisoft reconsiders and greenlights Massive to give us some more.

Credits are rolling as I write this. That's in itself says a lot about the game to me already, seeing my ginormous library with (mostly) unfinished games. This genuinely took me by surprise. Play it slow, walking around and listening to the random conversations, immersing in the world. The game has a great atmosphere and beautiful level design for most of the villages, towns, camps and cities. Especially the markets and cantina's (relax, play a game of Sabacc), such nice details and little set-pieces. Was great just walking around the Star Wars Universe and taking everything in. Outside civilization, you find beautiful landscapes to bike/explore, lots of well-written side-quests and intel to retrieve (to upgrade abilities, for cash, reputation with the syndicates, etc;). Just don't get caught clearing each map for the collectables and small treasures. Get back to the main quests in time before you burn-out (something I tend to often do). Not a huge fan of the platforming and jumping/climbing around. After a while you really start to wonder: "Who the hell placed all these convenient and totally handy things for me to leap from". It's the main thing I always grow tired of in the Ubisoft games. It's great fun once in a while, like to break in or out of fortresses, but it's really just ALL THE TIME. Also, vents. Don't know how to proceed? Look for a vent or up for something to grapple. The slicing mini-games are also 'meh' (timing and memory), I turned them off after the first few hours. Combat and ship combat are decent. I eventually modded the pick-up weapons to have 999 ammo so I could just blast if I wanted to blast. And common, an A300 or E-11 has to cool down after 3 seconds of firing? Let me have some fun! The progression system is sometimes a hit and a miss. New abilities/shooting modes are cool, the smaller upgrades for those are more tedious and create busywork. Cool story and well-written, almost got emotional at the final scene meaning I actually cared for the crew. Sound design and sound track are excellent. Highly recommended.

See below what i copied for my steam return request i run on a 3 strikes and your out policy when i buy AAA games, first glitch was NPCs T posing at random (not a huge deal but still a bit annoying), second was falling through the map and dying from rooms not rendering right, and the 3rd was the character randomly going into combat stances because enemies were not loading in right and appearing out of thin air during important sequences. I only got to play for 20 minutes because the other 35 minutes of playtime was loading screens or restarting the game because it was stuck in a loading screen. It is a shame because i had been really hopeful for this game when i saw it.

I unironically like this game more than any of the recent Assassin's Creed games. Very good.