Star Wars Outlaws review: this is the way

Star Wars Outlaws shouldn't work, but against all odds it somehow does

Ubisoft / GLHF

There’s something strikingly terrifying about the phrase “Ubisoft Star Wars game.” You felt it just then, didn’t you? The fear, the feeling of unease, like something’s just not right. It’s like hearing “tuna and peanut butter sandwich,” there’s something about it that just doesn’t add up. Star Wars has been flailing about for years, and Ubisoft has settled into a groove that seems all too easy to hold onto. The two together had the potential to be disastrous, a tired, exhausting trip through the tropes and tribulations we’ve seen for the better part of a decade. Imagine my surprise, then, when Star Wars Outlaws was not that. 

Opening a Star Wars game on Canto was a bold move. Even the most ardent defenders of The Last Jedi agree that Canto Blight was one of the more lacking parts of that film, and nobody was in a rush to return anytime soon. Massive Entertainment saw the value in it, though, looking through the harsh exterior of fan expectation and finding a soft, seedy underbelly that was the perfect setting for Outlaws. Any planet ruled by Lady Luck is one that’s likely to be filled with those trying to sway her hand, and those without money and influence are left to suffer at their hands. It’s in this blighted underbelly that we find our hero, Kay Vess, a scoundrel with few credits to her name and even fewer morals to sway her. She survives, however she can, but thriving is never on the dimly lit Sabacc table. 

After a heist gone awry, Kay, channeling the voice of Massive’s talented storytelling team, makes a grand statement to a Rebel leader who offers her a place in the galaxy. 

“We’re the Rebel Alliance,” the Rebel says. “So?” Kay replies. 

It’s a rejection of the stories we’ve grown comfortable with in the Star Wars universe. For nearly fifty years, we’ve been caught up in the fight between the Light and the Dark side of the Force. The Rebel Alliance versus the Empire. The Skywalkers have dominated the discussion, but Kay Vess wants none of it. After a lifetime in the slums, she knows that there is no justice in the galaxy, and anyone who tries to convince her otherwise is more of a scoundrel than she is. That bold declaration is Massive and Ubisoft’s way of saying, “Things are going to be a little different, this time,” and somehow, like a heist against all odds, they pulled it off. 

Ubisoft

At the end of the day, Star Wars Outlaws is a heist film in video game form. Kay is tasked with collecting some of the most talented scoundrels in the galaxy to pull off one last job and retire with pockets lined. It’s filled with a cast of wonderful, memorable characters, some strong – if slightly tired at times – writing, and a plot that offers some genuine twists and turns that just about nobody could see coming. It’s a good story, and it’s honestly pretty easy to forget you’re playing a Star Wars game. If not for the occasional appearance of a stormtrooper or an astromech droid, you would be forgiven for thinking it’s entirely original. 

That has its pros and cons. Those going into Star Wars Outlaws expecting everything they’ve seen from the series in the past 50 years might not be too keen on the approach, but I think it’s a breath of fresh air. There are no lightsabers, no cameos, no overt references that hammer you over the head with familiarity and power up your rose-tinted glasses — short of an appearance from Jabba the Hutt and a visit to the Mos Eisley cantina, Massive has shown incredible restraint. It means you avoid the tired tropes, the overzealous pointing at a character you know and love and shouting “Look! It’s Yoda! You know him, right?” It’s exciting, and refreshing, and it is entirely unrepentant in its choice to cast aside the worst parts of Star Wars to do something genuinely new. 

But this isn’t just a Star Wars game, it’s an Ubisoft Star Wars game. And that’s the second part of the equation here: Ubisoft. If you’ve played a couple of the publisher’s games in the past decade and change, you’ll know that it’s gotten a bit stale. You arrive in a new area, you climb the Ubisoft Tower, reveal the overlittered map, and fall into a pit of despair as your eyes are filled with mountains of checkboxes left unchecked. 

Outlaws casts aside the Ubisoft towers. It does away with the littered map. Instead, it takes the mechanics you’ve seen a dozen times before and recontextualizes them. There’s a detective vision feature, as every modern game has, but it’s primarily used to find things for Nix, your trusty cat-lizard pal, to interact with. In that respect, it’s a little bit like Watch Dogs, with Nix standing in for your incredible hacking skills. 

There’s the usual Ubisoft stealth – you’ll spend plenty of time ducking in a patch of tall grass and whistling at enemies to perform a stealth takedown – but you’re welcome in most cases to go in all guns blazing, too. Every mission, with few exceptions, is a mini heist in its own right — you case the joint, you work out a plan of attack, you throw out the plan because a guard noticed you fire a taser at a nearby worker, and you hope to god your blaster doesn’t enter cooldown when you need it most. 

Ubisoft

When the bantha dung hits the turbine, it reminds me very vaguely of Payday 2, where chaos and panic make way for new experiences that guarantee that no two players will ever make it through a mission in the exact same way. It’s absolutely exhilarating, and while there’s not a single mechanic that Ubisoft hasn’t trotted out before, the way it’s handled makes it all feel like they’re brand-new. 

Outlaws is also filled with player choice, but it’s not the black-and-white morality system you’d see in most games. Kay has to keep on the good sides of four criminal syndicates, and when these syndicates are at war, managing to keep them all happy is not an easy task. None of these syndicates are the good guys, they’re all absolutely terrible — but a good reputation is key for a problem-solver like Kay, and if you can’t keep everyone happy, you don’t get paid. Managing these reputations is a key part of the experience, but it never feels like a job. Sometimes you do what’s right, and that makes things more difficult for you in the future, but sometimes you do something objectively kind of crappy so you can live to see another day. The lack of a black or white path through the game is a nice change of pace from what we usually see in triple-A games, and I can’t wait to see how other players’ stories play out. 

That’s not to say there aren’t some minor frustrations, because there are. I’ve experienced a few bugs here and there, and while very few have been game-breaking or even all that annoying, some have caused frustration. A cutscene in the late game repeatedly crashed my game back to the Xbox dashboard, and I ultimately had to skip that cutscene to continue my progress. Other than that, most of my bugs have been visual, with characters T-posing right before a cutscene, or zooming into chairs when they’re not positioned right for a conversation. 

Stormtroopers are as good at climbing ladders as they are at aiming / Ubisoft / GLHF

Some of the mission design feels very slightly unbalanced, too. It’s not a dealbreaker by any means, and can be helped somewhat by the monumental stack of gameplay and accessibility options on offer, but when a mid-game mission has you dying to random attack spiders that you’ve never encountered before – even on the lowest difficulty – it can feel a bit unfair. These missions are few and far between, and there’s no denying that there may be a skill issue at play here, but when they do pop up, it can detract from the overall experience. 

Still, I can’t help but love this game. Star Wars Outlaws looks, sounds, and feels like what a Star Wars game should be, without ever invoking the feeling of “Star Wars”, the multi-billion-dollar Disney-owned franchise. It forges its own path through the galaxy, determined never to step in somebody else’s footsteps, and it does so with magnificent confidence. It’s that confidence that pulls it all together, taking the best parts of Star Wars, combining them with the best parts of Ubisoft, and casting everything else aside. 

Score: 9/10 

Version tested: Xbox Series X|S