Review: STAR WARS OUTLAWS Sneak Attacks with Charm and Thrills

At the end of August Ubisoft released Star Wars Outlaws. The game has you play as the rogue Kay Vess as she tries to make a name for herself in the galaxy between The Empire Strikes Back AND Return of the Jedi. The game is available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, and while Ubisoft provided me with a PC copy of the game for this review, all thoughts below are my own. If you want to play, you can pick it up at your favorite retailers, including GameStop (affiliate link).

Experience the first open world Star Wars™ game, set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Explore distinct locations across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, a scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, alongside her partner Nix. Fight, steal, and outwit the galaxy’s criminal syndicates as you join the ranks of the galaxy’s most wanted.

I was honestly a little hesitant to play. Outlaw at first because one or two trailers I saw didn’t impress me. It was mostly just a lot of animation that looked weird, but recently I started playing Jedi Survivor so i got excited about playing another one Star Wars game. My last note before I get to the main review is that I have not played any of the Outlaw on my Steam Deck; it was all on my gaming PC with the following specs:

• Processor – AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

• Graphics Card – AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT

• RAM Memory – 32GB 3600 MT/s

• Resolution – 1440p

I want to start the review by saying that I don’t think that Star Wars Outlaws It’s a perfect game, but I had a blast playing it. On my PC, I started with the High graphics preset and it ran really well even after a little tweaking to improve the visuals. While indoors, it was normal for me to hit 130-150+ fps and while outdoors, I was able to maintain somewhere in the 90-100 fps range with the occasional dip into the 70s or 80s. I could probably tweak things more, but I decided it looked fine and I’d rather play the game than get sucked down that rabbit hole. I found it interesting that the game defaults to a 21:9 aspect ratio, but you can adjust it to Fill Screen if you prefer. I agree that 21:9 looks more cinematic, but I also felt that it made everything a bit too small on my 16:9 monitor and so I played mostly on Fill Screen. Another tip I have is to go into the settings and unlock the frame rate for the cinematics. By default, they play at 30fps, which is disappointing in my opinion. I wish there was a lock at 60fps as an option, but unlocked was fine because those cinematics would often fall between 70-90fps minimum. My only graphical complaint (and a minor one at that) was that I thought a lot of the hair would range from just okay to terrible throughout the game. During the cinematics, the hair actually looked really good.

Overall, the controls for Outlaw they are really good. You can use a mouse and keyboard or a controller, so pick your poison. I personally preferred the mouse and keyboard for everything except vehicles. Whether it was the speeder or the spaceship, I found that the controller was much more comfortable to use for those. This is always a frustrating thing for me. I wish vehicles were more comfortable to use with a mouse and keyboard in all games.

The audio in Outlaw It sounds really good in my opinion. The sound effects are solid, the voices are good and I really like the theme song. I really have no complaints about the sound. They did a great job.

I haven’t finished the story, but I enjoyed it. Without giving away any spoilers, you end up on the wrong side of a syndicate as you try to leave your home on Cantonica and survive and make a name for yourself with other syndicates in the galaxy. Now, one thing I’m a little disappointed about is that after about 9-10 hours, I’ve only been on two planets: Cantonica which probably makes up the first hour (that might be generous) and Toshara. I haven’t gone crazy with side missions so I was kind of hoping I’d have been to at least one of the other worlds like Kijimi or Tatooine by now. According to HowLongtoBeat, I’m probably about a third to halfway through. I just wish there’d been a little more movement between planets (I’m not counting an Imperial outpost you have to sneak into).

One thing that surprised me a little Outlaw is how stealth is the key to the game. I’m used to and I like games where there is a stealth element like Assassin’s Creed. However, most of those games don’t force you to be stealthy. If things get out of hand, you’re usually able to fight your way out of the situation. In Outlawit’s not always an option. Sometimes you can, but it can often be difficult because you’re not meant to be shooting your way in. There are a lot of times where if you can’t be stealthy, then you have to restart from the last checkpoint. I think it really fits thematically and in an age of games where stealth is encouraged but not required, it’s nice to have a new game that focuses on stealth.

There are many other things I like in Outlaw. I enjoy playing Sabacc. I like how reputation changes and how gaining favor with one union can cause you to lose favor with another, adding a layer of politics. So far, I haven’t encountered any characters that I thought were poorly written or unlikeable.

One of my pet peeves is that when you’re running around, there are certain spaces where you automatically slow down, like in cellars. It’s just a little frustrating when you’re trying to hurry up and turn in a quest or pick one up and suddenly your movement slows to a crawl.

Now I want to talk about the crown jewel of Outlaw: Nix. Nix is ​​a merqaal and a companion of Kay Vess. He is the best little guy in a Star Wars video game. Not only is it adorable, but it’s also very useful. You can tell Nix to perform a variety of actions like picking up items, opening doors, flipping switches, stealing from NPCs, attacking enemies, and even distracting them to make those stealth missions a little easier. All of this pales in comparison to the greater interaction with Nix. You can pull out your gun outside of combat and if you look at Nix, Kay will say “pew pew” and Nix will play dead. It’s definitely one of the best things to come out of video games this year.

Star Wars Outlaws It’s a fun game with a new story for Star Wars universe. I personally like the gameplay and the characters. Aside from the hair, the game looks nice and I feel like I’m in Star Wars. And of course, the game has Nix who I would die for. I can’t say the game is worth $70 for everyone, but what I will say is that I genuinely think it will be worth it for some. If your situation doesn’t allow for it or you’re really hesitant, I would definitely recommend picking it up when it goes on sale.