Star Wars Outlaws - Third-Person Opern World Action/Adventure - Video Gaming

Kay Vess, a down on her luck thief and scoundrel from Canto Bight, gets involved in things she never wanted to be a part of. To regain her freedom she only has to steal 157 million credits from one of the worst crime syndicate bosses of the galaxy who has put a death mark on her.

Review

Star Wars Outlaws is the very first open world single player Star Wars game. A curious fact given the long history of the franchise. But Ubisoft are the first to ever create a Star Wars open world designed for single player. This follows after EA lost their exclusivity deal with Lucasfilm. Yet the online narrative surrounding Outlaws is utterly bizarre. The hate and vitriol thrown at this game is, simply put, absurd. And while the Star Wars franchise may not be in the best of places after the very poorly received The Acolyte (the show was a disaster), Outlaws is its very own and very different thing. If you need to know one thing then this: Outlaws is a love letter to Star Wars fans, made by people who apparently love Star Wars, for people who love Star Wars. Nothing about this game is remotely political, there are no agendas, there is nothing "woke" to see here. Whether or not you'll like this game will be ultimately determined by your own preferences but do not ever, under no circumstance, let your opinion of the game be impacted by some of the absurd takes on the game you can find on YouTube or social media. At least watch some unedited gameplay footage, even better if it has no commentary, so you can get an unfiltered impression. My review will of course also aim to give you an impression, but this will be my opinion of course.

Binary Sunset

To allow you to better gauge my own opinion of this game I think I should tell you about my own preferences and what games I like. This should provide you with some perspective. I love open world games, always have. I have played most Ubisoft open world titles, various Assassin's Creed games, all three Watch Dogs titles, Ghost Recon Wildlands. And whatever you think about Ubisoft themselves or the gameplay in their open world games one thing is, in my opinion, absolutely true: if any game publisher has studios that know how to create believable and great looking open worlds it's Ubisoft. San Francisco in Watch Dogs 2 looks fantastic, it is a superb recreation of the city, a city that lives and breathes. Assassin's Creed Unity, much ridiculed at launch because of various bugs and other things, has a stunning version of revolutionary Paris, the city is filled with citizens, the game has impressive crowd dynamics, Paris itself is simply beautiful and it is once again a city that lives and breathes. Victorian London in Syndicate is just impressive. And even the open worlds that are not limited to just one city are always beautifully designed, be it Assassin's Creed Origins or Odyssey, ancient Egypt and Greece are recreated pretty faithfully and simply look stunning. The worlds feel alive, real, they are, as far as the environment goes, "immersive". Gameplay is a different matter, but here I simply talk about open world design. And hardly anyone does it better than these Ubisoft games.

The open world(s) in Outlaws are very pretty and immersive

Open world games I greatly enjoyed include titles such as Red Dead Redemption 2 (probably the gold standard in this genre), Ghost of Tsushima (one of the prettiest games ever), AC Unity, Odyssey, Black Flag and Origins. I also almost exclusively play single player games, I do not like MMOs, I rarely, if ever, play online, the genre I like the best are story driven single player games. It doesn't always have to be open world, semi open or even more or less linear games like Uncharted, God of War or Last of Us (at least the first one) are other titles I greatly enjoy and which I think are some of the absolute highlights in this genre. If anyone of you remembers my Jedi Survivor review you will know that I did not particularly enjoy that game. To me it was unimmersive, it felt like a theme park after closing time, the world design was contrived, you never for a second believed that any of this is "real". And other than Koboh and Jedha, which were semi open world planets, all other locations were just linear corridors. I am also not the world's biggest fan of soulslike games and their, at times, contrived and arbitrarily difficult gameplay, the kind of game where you need to hit an enemy 20 times whereas enemies either one hit kill you or only need two or three hits to take you down.

Meet the MVP of this game: Nix!

With all of that out of the way you should be able to put my review of Outlaws in perspective. So Outlaws, based on the basic premise, is just what I always wanted from a Star Wars video game. It's an immersive, story driven single player open world game. Now the only question is if Ubisoft delivered or not. Various Ubisoft open world games have been critized in the past for what I dub "Ubisoftisms", that is a super busy map with at times hundreds of question marks or chest symbols, a lot, and I mean a lot of busywork, you collect feathers, you collect minerals, some of the games are veritable collectathons, now in defense of all this, this was all optional, not required to actually play and complete the game, but at times people felt it's overwhelming. Another criticism was often the repetitive nature of the gameplay. I think Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the perfect example here. The game has something like 800 collectables in total, which is just insane. On top of that you need to pacify/conquer all the English regions. And the game can easily outstay its welcome, when you realize after your 10th region that there are still more regions waiting for you and the gameplay loop in each and every region is the same. Other Ubisoftisms are "tower climbing to reveal the map", capturing outposts and at times prioritizing quantity over quality, i.e. some feel Ubisoft games can feel bloated. Another criticism is that the games hold your hand too much, telling you exactly what to do and how to do it. In fact, once you revealed a region on the map, all the points of interest were marked on your map, you could click on it on your map and just go there, the entire process is pretty brainless.

Outlaws is a love letter to the original trilogy and all Star Wars fans

With Outlaws it is apparent that Massive Entertainment (who created the Division games) listened to all the feedback and decided to create the least "ubisofty" open world ever. In fact, Outlaws is in many ways the least hand-holding Ubisoft open world game ever. While you do get three pretty massive open world planets and one much smaller city you can freely visit during the game, the fifth location, Canto Bight, can only be visited during certain missions and is otherwise inaccessible, Massive Entertainment decided to avoid bloat. The game does not have countless collectables, it doesn't have a plethora of treasure chests, you do not need to collect dozens and dozens of minerals or scrolls or data discs. The map in this game will also not tell you where things are. The map will of course reveal where structures are, cities, towns or other locations, but you do not know what they are, what is waiting for you there. You need to go there to find out what it is. The only question mark you will ever see in this game appears on your unintrusive compass, once you get close to a location you have not visited yet, a question mark will alert you that something is nearby. But here's the thing: the map will not tell you where these locations are and what they are, you are meant to explore the planets and pay attention.

Kay, much has been said about her looks... and she looks perfectly fine during normal gameplay

Massive also did away with an overabundance of outposts or locations in general. But the locations you do get are more meaningful. Which means each major open world planet has one large town, and two or three smaller settlements, each planet has a couple, two or so, major Imperial installations and unlike in the Assassin's Creed series, you do not liberate or conquer anything here, the Empire will not go away just because you murdered everyone in an Imperial base. What you are supposed to do is to freely explore, to have fun, to do whatever you like. Any open world stands or falls with its open world activities. And Outlaws does not reinvent the wheel here, but neither does it need to. You will come across NPCs here and there who may offer you a quest, you will find syndicate or Imperial outposts with guarded treasure and it's up to you to decide if you go in guns blazing or try to sneak your way in so that no one will ever know you were even there. At times you find treasures hidden in the environment and you need to figure out how to get from A to B and you even need to figure out where the treasure is exactly in the first place. At times you pick up rumors either by reading datapads or by simply eavesdropping on NPCs in towns and these rumors will mark the vague overall location of something, but never pinpoint the exact location. So you know where to generally  go, but once there, you need to not only find your way, you need to figure out where the treasure may be in the first place. This is a huge departure from previous Ubisoft games. And even Jedi Survivor had a vastly different approach. Once you unlocked certain upgrades for BD-1 all the chests, all the scrolls, minerals and data discs where marked on your map. Not so in Outlaws. But it never gets annoying because a) if you just explore you will eventually find something and b) the number of treasure chests is greatly reduced. In fact, some of the most important and most valuable loot - and loot in this game is upgrade components for your ship, speeder or blaster, outfits, credits of course and some crafting materials - is hidden away in vaults. Each syndicate headquarter and the major Imperial bases on all the planets have the most valuable treasure. So instead of offering you yet another collectathon like in Survivor, where you just go from map marker to map marker and maybe solve an environmental puzzle to gain access to a chest, the most valuable chests here require actual gameplay. Because the treasure is guarded you need to figure out a way to get to it and with the syndicates you need to track down three keycards first wich unlock the vault. With Imperials is is "easy", you can blast them all if you can stand the heat, with the syndicates it's more complicated. For one the game does not allow you to use your blaster in towns, so you can't shoot your way to a treasure, and the more important factor is that you do not want to annoy the syndicates.

Each syndicate controls various territories or districts. Valuable loot is always waiting for you there.

That brings me to the factions in this game. The game has four major crime syndicates and of course the Empire. The syndicates have a reputation system, and you, being the total rookie that you, as Kay, are at the beginning, start out with a "poor" relationship with all of them. It's entirely up to you then if you want to be in good standing with the syndicates or be their most hated person ever. But of course there are consequences. If you are in good standing with a syndicate you can freely move through their controlled regions and districts. Each planet has certain areas that are under either syndicate or Imperial control. If you do not have at least a good reputation with the syndicates they will open fire on Kay when she enters one of their controlled regions. And if you annoyed a syndicate so much that your standing is terrible, they will begin to send hit squads after you, relentlessly. You do not want that. Another perk is that good and excellent reputation not only grants you access to syndicate territory (but not the restricted areas!), but certain syndicate vendors now sell better stock to you, outfits or components. And they even send you gifts, each syndicate has an outfit set as reward for Kay.

The Imperial disguise outfit is a reward from the Pyke syndicate

So being in good standing with the Syndicates has its perks and makes the game a lot easier, but especially early on it's not that easy to be in good standing with everyone. Most missions that involve the syndicates, be it story missions or contracts, will inevitably annoy a rival syndicate. And this will lower your reputation. So you need to choose wisely, especially in the early game. Later it will be not that difficult to be in excellent standing with everyone. The game offers you radiant contracts, i.e. the game has a never ending supply of contracts and when you succeed you gain reputation, and some contracts do not involve a rival syndicate. Contracts are either about infiltration, plant a listening device, steal something, smuggling, transport goods from A to B, either with a time limit or you get attacked by bandits or a rival syndicate, and some of those either target space pirates or Imperials, which means if you do those contracts you will only gain reputation. And as the game progresses your reputation will never be a problem anymore and the entire syndicate angle of the game takes somewhat of a backseat, to a degree, they are still involved in various missions on all planets, but even if you annoy a rival syndicate then you will be in such good standing that your reputation may drop from excellent to merely good, something you can easily repair by doing contracts for them. Another thing is that the syndicates are mostly their own thing and not as much connected to the story. The ending is impacted a bit, but not massively so.

Sabacc is a lot of fun in this game

Let me briefly return to the open world. Other activities you can do are speeder racing, think the horse races against an opponent in Red Dead Redemption 2, you race someone from A to B. Then there are various minigames. Sabacc, which has its own questline even, is the major feature here. This game is just fun. On top of that you also have retro arcade games, a space shooter, a swoop racing game and another game where you need to guess where a sylop card is. The arcade games have retro late 1970s vector graphics and while easy to learn are super hard to master. You can crack the highscore in this, but even after close to 85 hours I have only come close to being in the top 5.

The arcade games can be a massive time sink if you want to crack the highscores

But Sabacc is the real star here. What I love particularly about Sabacc in Outlaws is that unlike the poker or blackjack games in Red Dead Redemption 2, it involves you much more. You see, Kay is of course a scoundrel, so of course she will try to cheat at Sabacc. And as you progress through the story and the Sabacc questline Kay will become more and more proficient at cheating, and she will also pick up new tricks. So while you can play fairly, if you like, the game really encourages you to cheat your way to the top. You can get Nix to spy on your opponents who will then tell you what hand they have (he chirps and Kay apparently understands this), you will eventually learn to double draw cards and Kay will  even get magnetic dice. The thing is: depending on what table you play the cheats are more or less difficult, all of them involve quick time events and if you fail your opponents will first get suspicious and if you fail too often they will outright ban you from a table for a certain time. So you need some skill. All in all Sabacc is a lot of fun and requires you to be much more active than in your standard poker or blackjack game, and it's also so much more fun than the holotactics game in Survivor where you simply watched your units take on the opponent. It's not quite Gwent from The Witcher maybe (that is peak card minigame!), but it's very close.

At times you feel like a tourist on Tatooine

Talking about quick time events: Some people hate them with a passion. Outlaws has various QTEs . Lockpicking is a rhythm mini game, as mentioned all of the Sabacc cheats are QTE based and the adorable street food mini game where Kay and Nix share a meal is nothing but QTE - but Outlaws is one of the most gamer friendly and accessible games I have ever played. In the options you can freely choose what QTEs you want. If you hate lockpicking you can disable the QTE and Kay will automatically pick locks. If you hate the wordle like slicing minigame you can disable that too. In fact, you can disable any and all QTE based minigames and have Kay auto resolve them all for you instead, if you so choose. So if you, say, love the rhythm lockpicking mini game (in my opinion a novel and really fun take at lockpicking) you can have the QTE enabled here, but if you hate wordle or slicing you can disable that. And if you find that the QTEs for Sabacc are too punishing (some higher level tables make it a bit difficult) you can disable the Sabacc QTEs and Kay will always successfully cheat. The difficulty settings are pretty user friendly in general, you get sliders for enemy health, your own health and other things and you can adapt the difficulty to your own liking very easily. The game can be as punishing or easy as you want it to be. Of course it will never be a soulslike game, if you want punishing or very challenging combat Outlaws is not really it. Even though syndicate hit squads and the Imperial wanted level 6 can be pretty challenging.

You need to sneak a lot in Outlaws

And then I want to mention the most important aspect of the open world. That Star Wars feeling. This is Star Wars. In fact, I would say this is peak Star Wars. No game before has come ever so close in recapturing the spirit and essence of the Star Wars galaxy, to make it a real place, something you feel immersed in. The game has three major planets, Toshara wich was newly created for the game, Akiva which was, I believe, mentioned in a book or so, and then the goat of all Star Wars planets: Tatooine. While I think that Tatooine in live action has been played out, we've been to this planet a lot in the movies and shows, it's something entirely different when you travel there and see it all for yourself. While Toshara and Akiva all feel like genuine Star Wars, Tatooine adds nostalgia and that "I can't believe I am in Chalmun's cantina" feeling. At times you do feel like a tourist on vacation. I can tell that as an almost lifelong Star Wars fan it was quite something to see a fully realized OT era Tatooine in Outlaws. Yes, I went to the ruins of the Lars Homestead (you need to find it yourself, the game won't tell you where it is), I saw the binary sunset standing in the same place as Luke, I strolled through Mos Eisley, which has been fully recreated for this game and of course Jabba's Palace is also in this game. As are various other things. It's glorious. If you are a Star Wars fan you cannot deny that Outlaws perfectly captures the look and feel of the Star Wars galaxy. And one of the criticisms some fans have had for years has also been listened to: whereas much of Disney entertainment and even games like Survivor or Fallen Order ignored the "traditional" OT races, Outlaws has lots and lots of Twi'leks, Quarrens, Sullastans, Rodians, Weequays, Trandoshans etc. The aliens are everywhere. Of course humans are the still the most numerous, as in the movies, but the OT aliens here are always very present and very visible.

The "cursed" booth in Chalmun's cantina

While the game is surprisingly light on actual cameos, only Lando Calrissian, Jabba and Bib Fortuna are somewhat more prominent OT characters in this, Tatooine especially is filled with easter eggs and references. When you first enter Chalmun's cantina you can see two people standing at a booth, and one of the aliens says that this booth is cursed, that they should not sit there, because anyone who does will meet an unfortunate destiny. And of course it's Han's booth and in all these years (roughly three years since A New Hope, shortly after The Empire Strikes back) no one ever bothered to clean up the scorch marks on the wall. Now where Outlaws does fall short is that the the open world, as stunning as the design may be, is not as interactive as I'd like. Kay can't sit down, she can't order drinks, she can't sit at the bar, she can't eat, she can't even sit in her own chair or couch on her own ship. Sure, this is not essential to gameplay, but it would add a certain touch. I mean, who wouldn't want sit where Han sat?

The game has gorgeous visuals

But all in all the open world here is a triumph from a design perspective, there has been no game before that recreated Star Wars so faithfully and realistically. One thing I would improve upon are some of the random open world activities. While exploring on your own and stumbling on a bandit hideout, stealing from syndicate outposts or creating mayhem at the local Imperial outpost are all very much fun, other radiant events like bandit attack on civilians, steal Imperial goods from a bandit outpost (while the Empire is attacking them) or a syndicate raid on bandits are a bit simplistic and can become repetitive, since you will raid the same location several times over if you do all of these (entirely optional!) events. But this is a minor gripe. Just exploring, finding places, finding NPCs with a story to tell or a quest to give is fun. But when you walk the streets of Mos Eisley, or any major town really, you feel like you are inside the world of Star Wars. It's not quite on the level of Saint Denis in Red Dead Redemption 2, nothing really is, but it comes very close.

Space also looks gorgeus and flying around is simple but fun

So as far as the open world is concerned I think it's not only very beautiful, contrary to what some claim online that game definitely has not "PS3 graphics", it's a treat for all Star Wars fans, this is peak Star Wars feeling, nothing I have ever played comes even close to the worlds in Outlaws. Exploration is generally fun, you are not bombarded with bloat, what you find is almost always meaningful and helps you directly. The outfits in this game are also not all just cosmetic, they offer very useful perks, so what you wear makes a difference. But even better: the game has transmog built in from day 1, so you can pick whatever outfit you like based on the perks, and then choose the look you love. The attention to detail in this game is outstanding. On Tatooine Kay will get sweaty, on the tropical world of Akiva Kay will be damp and her hair will become somewhat matted, on Kijimi snow accumulates on Kay and on Toshara, a very windy place with grassy savannah, wind tears at Kay's hairs. On top of that you find many small details here and there, things were you can tell people who know and love the original trilogy made this game, it just makes exploration fun. A few words about traversal: Kay uses her speeder and with upgrades it controls pretty well, but at first handling is not that great. Other than that Kay uses the trusty Lara Croft / Nathan Drake traversal system. And for me the traversal was very reliable, I virtually never missed a jump. Traversal in Outlaws is easy and unlike in the Jedi games not a chore or unforgiving. And yes, the gameplay options allow you even to disable the yellow paint that marks certain rock walls etc. But what about the most important thing of any game? Character and story?

Kay and Nix are fun

Much has been said about Kay in certain online circles. Screenshots proving how ugly and manly she is circulate online. Let me put it straight: for some inexplicable reason Outlaws has a real problem with (ingame) cutscenes. I do not know why, I cannot tell you how exactly this is happening, but in the ingame cutscenes Kay can at times look weird, dorky and off. Sadly, Outlaws drops the ball when it comes to facial animations. They are "ok" at best in certain scenes, in other scenes you wonder why anyone at Massive saw this and said "yup!". Some ingame cutscenes have pretty bad lip syncing and the facial motion capturing is off. And inevitably and witout fail certain folks took screenshots from those weird cutscene moments complaining about how ugly the character is. The thing is: cutscenes are a very small part of this game. 90+% of the time you see Kay in normal gameplay, and here she looks perfectly fine. And Kay as a character is simply fun. Yes, making her basically a Han Solo Jr may not be overly original, but there are only so many archetypes in fiction and in Star Wars you can choose from. We've had Jedi galore, Kay is a normal person in a dog eat dog world, trying to survive. Kay is immensely likable, she's witty, she's fun, she's also adoringly bad at lying and especially early on pretty naive and basically bad at everything. But Kay will pick up skills, will learn things by doing them and Kay is basically what fans of Star Wars have wanted from any female character in Disney Star Wars since forever: Kay is not perfect, she has flaws, she makes mistakes, she messes up, she has an actual character arc, she's likable, she's not a girlboss and throughout the entire story of the game, despite all the - at times - bad things happening to her she never entirely loses her faith in certain people or droids. The game hammers it into you basically from the beginning: no one in this game is your friend, they are all in it for themselves, they will screw you over if it suits them, they will throw you to the wolves if need be. And while Kay at times muses "ah, maybe character XYZ likes me", her droid companion ND-5 constantly reminds her that no, they do not, they just use Kay. In fact, ND-5 constantly reminds Kay that he himself is not to be trusted, since he has to follow orders. Kay is, in my opinion, the BEST female Disney Star Wars character to date. Likable, relatable, with lots of positive qualities, but also with flaws and anything but perfect. In fact, she and Merrin from the Jedi games are by far the best female characters in Disney Star Wars. And both were not created by Lucasfilm. Which should tell you what the real source of the problem is. That certain people online have unparalleled hate for Kay would almost be comical were it not so tragical.

Bestest boi ever

The other major character in this game is Nix, Kay's "pet", more like a friend though. He's a "merqaal" a very rare species. And yes, he's cute. Super cute. The usual accusations can be thrown at him if you know nothing about the game. But unlike the porgs or various other cute things in Star Wars Nix is a real character and essential to the game. BD-1 in the Jedi games is also ok, but pales in comparison to Nix. While BD-1 has limited usefulness in the Jedi games Nix is integral to both the story and the gameplay in Outlaws. Nix is your trusted buddy, your best friend and you make use of him all the time here. Nix has a "sixth sense" ability, in universe he has feelers that allow him to sense things, so he provides Kay with a "wallhack" ability, you can see the faint outlines of nearby characters. You do not have to use it if you hate wallhacks of course. But apart from that Nix is your buddy in combat too. Nix, who is best described as a space cat-dog hybrid creature, can... steal things from enemies, including quest items, he can fetch you bacta vials, weapons, grenades, he can, eventually, trigger grenades on the belts of enemies (which is just hilarious), he can disable alarms, he can create diversions by playing possum right in front of enemies or cameras, so they are distracted, he can, in open combat, ferociously attack enemies, giving Kay time to take them out or to take out another enemy first only for Kay then to deal with the guy Nix is clinging to. In short: you will use Nix all the time. In theory you don't have to, but the game will become much, much more difficult without using him. BD-1 doesn't even do 10% of the things Nix does. So while Nix is as cute as any pet can be, he's also super fun, super useful and in my opinion the best sidekick ever. Other than R2-D2. And the game added so many small details to Nix. Kay can point her blaster at him, say "bang", and he will play possum. Showcasing how Kay trained this with Nix, so he knows how to distract enemiess. Nix gets jealous when Kay feeds the wildlife or pets it. Nix will, like any good space cat-dog, leave gifts for you on the ship, crafing materials or valuables, Nix loves riding the speeder and he has the time of his life when Kay activates the boost, you never even really see it ingame, only in photo mode, but the devs put it in just for those photo mode moments.

Nix loves driving fast!

Unlike BD-1 Nix is much more integrated into the story as well. Without giving away too much, since this is, in my opinion, one of the best story quests im the game, Nix will be taken away from Kay at a certain point. Anyone who has seen John Wick knows what happens next, no, Nix will not die, but Kay can become Jane Wick here and go after the bad guys who have Nix. And in this mission the absence of Nix is sorely felt, he really is super useful in all situations, but this one time Kay has to do things all on her own and free Nix.

A certain crime lord may be involved

So as far as the two main characters are concerned, Kay and Nix, the game is on point. They are fun, they are very likable, Nix is not a gimmick and Kay is a flawed, but lovable young woman who had to fend for herself ever since she was 12 and her mother abandoned her just like that, leaving her only a blaster and a casino chip. The other character of note here is ND-5 the BX battle droid companion Kay picks up after a few hours. He's some kind of chaperone, tasked by Kay's mysterious benefactor who hires her to rob the vault of the person who put a death mark on her. Since Kay successfully infiltrated the mansion before she seems to be perfect for the job. And to make sure she doesn't mess around Kay's mystery benefactor puts ND-5 by her side, he has the order to kill Kay should she try to screw the benefactor over. ND-5 is the most fleshed out of the other story NPCs in this game. He also is deeply involved in the story, in fact, the climax of the game is about him really, which kind of surprised me at first, but in a good way. And I want to say this: where Red Dead Redemtion 2 is a very tragic tale of betrayal and loyalty, where Survivor is basically the same thing, Outlaws, despite all the betrayal happening here, and Kay gets betrayed quite a few times in this, is - at its core - a very wholesome, positive and feel-good game. Again, think A New Hope and the victory celebration after all the strife. Outlaws ends on a super high note, it all comes beautifully together and when you have finished the campaign you will inevitably feel good about the events that just unfolded on screen. And this is another of Kay's endearing qualities, like Luke in the original trilogy, who never lost faith that his father can be saved, Kay never gives up on certain characters in this game. And it pays off.

You rarely go on missions together in Outlaws

ND-5, as a clone wars survivor, has scars of his own, and he's the only NPC that gets more of a personal quest. Kay has to find a way to repair him, his old programming at times takes over and ND-5 could become a lethal danger to all. So Kay, ND-5 and the droid expert Gedeek (another story NPC Kay picks up along the way) enter an old clone wars droid factory. Only for this to become so much more. But sadly, most other story NPCs in Outlaws do not get this treatment. There are "experts" Kay can track down, who will impart knowledge on Kay. In fact, finding those experts is how you gain new skills or perks in Outlaws. There are no skill points, no experience levels, nothing. Since Outlaws is all about immersion, the way Kay gains new skills is by finding experts, this in turn unlocks certain gameplay challenges (the usual, 15 headshots etc) and once Kay succeeds at them a new skill is unlocked. I quite like this system, it feels more "real", as Kay gains skills by actually doing things. Said experts have one initial quest, you need to retrieve something for them or help them out of a pickle... but after that they basically do not matter anymore, you barely interact with any of the experts anymore after the initial mission. Then there are the story npcs, the crew Kay needs to assemble for the heist. Those have elaborate story missions before they can be recruited. But for most parts of the game they do very little, there are no loyalty quests, they don't offer side quests, you can barely even talk to them, only sometimes. Only in the final (linear) act that takes about 3 hours you go on missions together, you interact more. But before it's mostly just Kay and Nix... occasionally ND-5 will accompany Kay, rarely so, the others almost never. Which is a bit unfortunate, other than ND-5 most story characters will feel more like set pieces, this is a far cry from how you interact with characters in Red Dead Redemption 2, where you can go with Lenny to Valentine to have a drink too many, or go fishing, rob homesteads or just play dominos with them. You can't do any of these things here. And I wish Kay had more interactions with her companions.

The characters look great in Outlaws, even if somewhat tired most of the time, this is Crimson Dawn contact Eleera

In fact, while all the story missions in Outlaws are fun, you do not play the game for the story for most of your time in the game. Here it is similar to Red Dead Redemption 2 once again, where you, as Arthur, could ignore the story for large stretches of the game and just do your thing. This game wants you to do "your thing" as well. And since exploring the three major planets is a lot of fun it works. But unlike in RDR2, you simply lack those character moments with most of your crew. Sure, you get banter on the ship, while in hyperspace etc. but it's not on the level of interaction you get in RDR2, where you felt you get to know each NPC like a friend and when it hits home when Lenny is gunned down. That being said, that story is your typical heist setup. Think Solo. Kay gets hired by a mystery man, she then has to assemble a crew, and of course each of those is in dire need of help. One of the potential recruits screws over Kay big time, these things happen. And ultimately Kay will break into the bad guy's mansion... only for the game to pull the rug from under you and the inevitable twist happens, but in my opinion it's a good twist and suddenly it's about so much more and something entirely different. All in all the story is "ok", nothing to write home about for much of the game. The non linear nature of the game does not allow for a more structured narrative, you only get a structured narrative in the linear final act, once you enter the final act you can also no longer explore the open world, it's all story missions for the last three hours or so. I would say the story is on the level of Solo. Perfectly fine, the ending is very good, in my opinion, and the pay-off is worth it, but before the final act the story is more like an afterthought. Each individual story mission is fun, but it lacks the narrative depth of games like RDR2.

These moments are very rare in the game

That brings me to gameplay. People who have never played the game have much to say about it online... "Kay only has one blaster, how boring", "Stealth is bad!". Yes, Kay has, technically speaking, this one blaster. But: said blaster will eventually have eight different modules plus a stun shot Kay always has access to. In actuality Kay has access to three (four, with stun included) blaster modes at all times, and you get all the gun archetypes you'd expect: Kay has access to a pistol mode, SMG, rifle, grenade launcher, shotgun plus ion / energy modules for droids, shields and electronics. In short: Kay has all the exact same weapon types as Arthur Morgan has in RDR2, plus the SMG and energy options. No one ever complained bitterly about the guns in RDR2 or the combat in that game. When Outlaws plays very much like RDR2 as far as gunplay is concerned. Outlaws even has the same bullet time "dead eye" mechanics as RDR2. Only difference is Kay does not need to carry three weapons around, two on her back, one in her holster, her blaster can do it all and you can change modes on the fly. Gunplay is perfectly fine. Headshots are more lethal than body shots, I did not find enemies too bullet spongy, only Death Troopers are a tougher nut to crack.

You play the game mostly for the feeling to be in Star Wars, the story only becomes the focus towards the end of the game

So combat is fine, considering Outlaws is not a shooter. The only thing I cannot understand at all is the decision by the devs to not allow Kay to freely aim on her speeder bike. You do get attacked while on the speeder bike here and there, but you can't shoot freely, instead you must build up adrenaline until Kay can unleash the Outlaws version of dead eye and auto kill enemies. I do not get this decision. You should be allowed to shoot freely, if you want to do that you need to stop and dismount and shoot while on foot. Much was also said about stealth, how it is both super difficult and stupid at the same time. There is a not very steep learning curve in the game. Yes, stealth is required in many story missions, there are those missions were you must not sound the alarm, which means you can kill everyone as long as they don't have the time to radio for help or to sound an alarm panel (Nix can take care of all that for you), other missions reset you to checkpoint if you are spotted. Many complain about this. And forget that RDR2 let you fail missions and reset your to checkpoint all the time, yet few people moaned and complained about that as much back then. Anyway: while stealth is important in the game Outlaws does not have several of the things you are maybe used to have in other stealth games. There is no mini map where enemy positions are marked. There are no vision cone indicators, not even an eye symbol like in Skyrim. Kay can use her macrobinuculars to mark up to 12 enemies though, then an icon will display where they are at all times, but still no mini map of course. No, Outlaws, in an attempt to feel real and immersive, even makes the stealth gameplay "real", or as real as it can be, given this is still a game. So you merely need to a) pay attention to the NPCs you can see, if they are looking in your direction they will usually see you if you come out of hiding. There are also patrols, but they all follow a pattern. The game wants you to be patient, to observe your surroundings and to use Nix a lot, he has the wallhack ability, he can distract enemies so you can sneak by, he even helps you taking down enemies. You can take down enemies even in the strictest stealth setting. But no one must see you. I failed the first major stealth section three times before I understood how the game works. After that I found stealth to be easy and fun. Yes, it's not as easy at times as in other games with mini maps etc, but if you just behave like a normal sneaky thief would and observe everything before you act, stealth is not an issue at all. That being said, the devs have seen that gamers struggle a bit in certain missions and in patch 1.1.2 they have tweaked the difficulty for certain stealth sections, to make them even easier.

Perfect stealth!

And about the AI: at times the AI is pretty smart, they will try to flank you, they will react to dead or unconscious buddies, in fact, sometimes they may even sound the alarm if they find a body. Kay cannot hide bodies away, so this can become a problem if a patrol stumbles upon a fallen comrade. They will see you if they look your way and you knock someone out. Once the Imperials are alerted they will sweep the base and they will be thorough. If you think hiding in a room will work you are wrong, stormtroopers or other enemies will open doors and investigate rooms. Once the enemy is suspicious something is going on things can become very tense, but also a lot of fun. But I love stealth and sneaking is my preferred method of infiltrating basess. Stealth in Outlaws is more of a puzzle, you need to figure out when and how to take out enemies if you cannot avoid them altogether. You will need Nix. Kay can easily take out three or even four people at once if you plan it all very carefully. If you have always hated stealth or sneaking this game will not change your mind though. Much was also said about Kay knocking out stormtroopers left and right. Yes, it's silly. But yes, it's a game. And let me tell you something: knocking stormtroopers out is as unrealistic as Sam Fisher choking people unconscious, it does not work like that in reality. Still, the entire debate could have been avoided if Kay would use a taser or baton. Kay even gets a taser eventually (if you find the expert and bother to unlock the skill), but she only uses it on certain enemies, not all. Still, this is such a minor point that I do not get the outrage here. It's a game. In fact, I believe the devs know this (how silly it is) and just went all in with Kay knocking out folks left and right. It's hilarious really. But the most important thing is: it does the job.

Skyrim stealth archers should like this game

A word about graphics: and I'll make it quick. This game looks fantastic. People who want to tell you this has PS3 era graphics are lying or have an agenda. At least on PC the game looks stunning. Better than Jedi Survivor, environments look very real, even the NPCs and major characters have very detailed models. And as far as Kay is concerned, as I said, cutscenes do her, almost no character, any real favor. Outlaws drops the ball a bit in cutscenes with facial animations that are not up to standard. I am not sure this can be improved upon, at least not easily. But 90+% of the game is not cutscenes, and in gameplay Kay looks fine, she's attractive in a "girl next door" kind of way. And her super likable character makes her someone who is easy to like. She has charm. One of the things most female Disney Star Wars characters created by Lucasfilm lack. I would say Kay's very 1970s hairstyle does her no favors as well, but it is very period accurate. Sadly, while the game allows you to dress Kay in a variety of ways, there are no custom hairstyles. I wish they add some in future updates. But to give you an idea about how period accurate Kay's hair is (she must fit in with the 1970s, early 1980s OT aesthetic after all), I will show you a photo of 1970s / early 1980s female British rock icon Suzi Quatro.

Say hello to 1970s hair! To the left you see British rock icon Suzi Quatro.

I find the entire debate about Kay's looks to be pretty inane. Yes, as stated a few times, cutscenes (ingame dialogue) can look weird and funky. In normal gameplay Kay looks fine. If that is what keeps you from playing this game you should maybe rethink your life in general. Fact is for about 99% of the time here you see nothing but her backside. And Kay has a pretty feminine body shape. And a few words about the voice acting; it's absolutely fine. Humberly Gonzales does a good job as Kay, she may not be quite Cameron Monaghan aka Cal Kestis, but she does a good job, in fact, all the voice work here is fine, if only the ingame cutscenes were better.      

Your standard view of Kay for 99% of the game

To give you some better idea about how this game plays... one expert mission required me to infiltrate a huge Imperial base on Toshara to help out a slicer who was cornered. I stealthed my way in, knocked out stormtroopers left and right, I was finally inside the installation, i.e. one of the buildings, when outside, quite a bit away from Kay, a patrol found an unconscious buddy... and they sounded the alarm. Truckloads of Imperials arrived (they never teleport, they actually arrive in vehicles or leave the barracks) and they began to sweep the entire base to search for me. And they did not stop after 3 minutes, they kept searching, which made things pretty intense. Other missions have a healthy mix of stealth and combat, one early story mission where you enter an Imperial space station, requires you not to sound the alarm, so sneaking it is... but then you will be found out (unavoidable for story reasons) and then it becomes a mad dash back to your ship, shooting left and right, you cannot ever defeat the Empire in this mission, their supply of troops is endless, and you eventually have to run for your ship to barely make your escape. All in all this was all pretty much fun, tense stealth at first, all out open combat in the latter half. In fact, both Survivor and Outlaws have a late game mission where you must infiltrate an ISB base. In Survivor you do the usual thing and murder everyone. In Outlaws you are able to maintain perfect stealth and you do not have to kill anybody really... but things are much more tense, because since this is an infiltration mission the Empire must never know you are on the station. Again, I do love stealth gameplay, and this was perfect for me. If you hate stealth Outlaws will not be for you. In theory you can kill everyone here as well though, you just must not alert the station.

Kay can pet almost all animals, there are few dangerous predators in Outlaws you have to kill

About an issue that sadly plagues almost all of modern gaming: bugs. Yes, Outlaws has bugs. Hotfix 1.1.2 was released today. All in all in my almost 85 hours with this game I rarely encountered bugs. But when I encountered them they were at times severe. On PC there are no game breaking bugs, on PS5 there was a game breaking bug, a patch was offered about half a day after release, but PS5 users who had already encountered the bug had to start over. The bugs I encountered were less severe but also annyoing: once (only once and then never again) the game believed I am still in combat when I was not. This was resolved by doing a story mission which always creates checkpoints, no matter what. I quit and loaded that checkpoint. The game will not let you save manually when you are in combat or in any of the regions controlled by a faction. Another time my ship was stuck in an endless hyperspace loop. I could not longer fly to Kijimi. I could fast travel to Kijimi, in fact, you can avoid space altogether once you have visited a planet, and just fast travel there, but I could no longer fly there. I had to reload an earlier save and lost about 20 minute of open world exploration. Other than that there are some minor bugs I encountered. A treasure chest I found would not disable the rumor in my journal, on Akiva Kay always repeated the same line of dialogue after traveling there, it was a line from a previous mission I had already completed. A vendor on Toshara doesn't move his mouth while talking,  But nothing too bad. While this is not an excuse other games had much more severe bugs at launch. It's still nothing that should happen, but the sad reality is that these very complex, very big games will almost always come with some bugs.

I went to Tosche Station, but not to pick up any power converters. Camie left a note on a datapad, but is not in the game.

So, is Outlaws something for you? In my honest opinion Outlaws is a love letter to Star Wars fans. The setting between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi allows the game to recapture the most loved period of Star Wars. Kay and her trusty friend Nix are both very likable protagonists. The story, while not really on the forefront or the real focus for much of the game, is your standard heist plot, until it isn't anymore, it all comes beautifully together in the end though and Outlaws has themes that are essential to Star Wars: family, loyalty, never giving up on certain people... and hope. And even though Kay is betrayed several times throughout the story end even though Kay will ultimately begin to use the syndicates just as they use her, she is, at the core, a very decent person with a good heart. She loves animals, she can pet various wildlife here, in fact, in one of the fun details if you feed certain lemure like creatures on Toshara they will begin to follow you around and suddenly an entire flock of these critters is following you...hoping you feed them some more morsels. Yes, Kay is basically inexperienced and more naive Han Solo, but what's most important is that she's fun and likable. And these games should be all about fun. And escapism. And escape you can, you are transported into the Star Wars galaxy like no other game ever did before. KOTOR has the better story and more memorable characters, but when it comes to world design and sheer fun factor Outlaws is vastly superior. The gameplay mix here is combat, stealth, space combat and traversal. If you do not like stealth, if you hate sneaking then Outlaws will not be for you. None of the gameplay mechanics in Outlaws are overly complex. The game is very accessible. But not so easy that it's braindead. The game also requires you to think, the game does not hold your hand all that much, Kay wil not blurt out puzzle solutions, if you do not find a place, then the game will not tell you where exactly it is (but you can find everything if you just explore). Kay can die easily if you become overly confident. The Empire has tons of people at disposal. Once 10 stormtroopers spotted me from afar and came running for me, that was with Kay at wanted level 6, where the entire planet is now on lockdown. And Kay stood no chance, some stormtroopers flanked her and you cannot easily defeat so many stormtroopers in open combat without cover. And yes, in this game stormtroopers can shoot. And they even hit you.

Jabba feels very entertained by Kay, which is why she ultimately survives her encounter with him

Outlaws is the unfortunate victim of a bizarre hate campaign by some people online, it's a love letter to Star Wars fans, it's the most immersive Star Wars game I have ever played. The people making this did their homework and included so many things fans will appreciate. Outlaws is the antithesis to The Acolyte or various other things on Disney+. It's wholesome, it has a very positive message, the story, while not on the level of something we get in RDR2 or so, gets the core message of Star Wars, the people making this know what Star Wars is about. Exploration is fun. The rewards you find are more meaningful than in several other games. Infiltrating vaults to find the best rewards is much more fun than finding some random chest in some random location. Outlaws is about making things seem real, things are supposed to make sense in this game. I had a blast playing this and I do not regret buying the gold edition at all. Outlaws is what a game like Starfield hoped it would be. What good are 1,000 procedurally generated planets with nothing to offer? Here the three open world planets are not just big, but beautiful and with meaningful content that never outstays its welcome. There are only a few enemy bases, but infiltrating them is lots of fun. Some Imperial bases are huge. The game also has an interesting hybrid approach when it comes to the world, most story missions take place not in the open world, but special set pieces you can access via the open world, but the story missions are more like the linear levels you get in Survivor. Only that Jedi Survivor's open world part is pretty lackluster and feels fake. On top of that you get three interesting open space regions, only Tatooine's orbit has few things to offer, but Toshara, Kijimi and Akiva have a sizable playable area in orbit. You get to fight pirates, enemy syndicates and Imperials. And wanted level 6 in space is no cakewalk, especially earlier without various upgrades to the ship. The space combat, like all other gameplay mechanics here, is not overly complex, relatively easy to learn, but not always easy when eventually more than 10 TIEs are swarming you while the Imperial corvette jams your hyperdrive and you need to take the ship out before you can jump. And if you try to escape to the planet, the entire place is now under lockdown and you must kill an ISB officer with a Death Trooper escort so you can wipe the ISB terminal.

The game is beautiful

So in one word: the game is "fun". That Outlaws has become a talking point in the culture war debate is unfortunate and very much undeserved. This game is 100% apolitical, it has no agenda, no "messages" other whan what the OT had, it is, at its core, very wholesome, it wants to make you feel happy and great when you finish the story. And while it's easy being a cynic these days unless you love pulling wings off flies or drown kittens in rivers as a hobby, Nix will be the most adorable and most useful sidekick in Star Wars, other than R2-D2 in the movies.

He truly is the best boi and deserves all the scritches

Anyone who still loves Star Wars, who loves the OT, anyone who likes stealth in games, should be able to have lots of fun in this game and to have a good time. This is entirely removed from anything on Disney+. Just like the two Jedi games are also their own thing, It offers what everyone is always talking about: escapism. Nothing in this game screams "2024". In my opinion, based on my preferences, this is the best Star Wars game I have ever played. Yes, it's better than KOTOR, because KOTOR, despite a great story and characters, has a very barebones world, it's ancient, clunky... Outlaws is the closest you can be to living in the actual Star Wars galaxy. Yes, the game is not perfect, I wish you could use your blaster on the speeder bike, I wish there was more character customization for Kay, the cutscenes can look weird or off, I wish you could board enemy ships in space, I wish the world was a bit more interactive, the story feels a bit unfocused in the first acts because of the non linear nature of the game, also, the game has no new game plus, but with how progression works in Outlaws it may be difficult to implement, since the experts and the challenges are a core element in this game which would be removed if Kay has all abilities in a second new game plus run. But these are, ultimately, just minor gripes I had. Because the game has what matters the most: heart. I will end my review by repeating something I have stated a few times throughout here: Outlaws is a love letter to all things Star Wars and it was made by people who respect and love Star Wars as much as any fan. It's undeserving of all the bizarre hate thrown at it by some people . It's neither a woke disaster nor does it feature some abomination as the main character. Kay is the best female Disney era Star Wars character to date. Immensely likable. And fun. I rate Outlaws 8/10. It's my game of the year so far. MUCH better than Starfield. Better than both Jedi games, based on my own preferences. And no, I was never invited to Disneyland, Ubisoft does not know I exist, I didn't even get a review copy, I bought the game with my own money, because I am a fan of Star Wars who always wanted an immersive open world Star Wars game. And Outlaws delivers.