Tag Archives: Star Wars: Outlaws

It’s time to review Star Wars Outlaws. The stats tell me I spent 84h30m in this game since launch. And I enjoyed almost every minute of it. Yes, I like this game. No, I LOVE this game. It’s all I ever wanted from a Star Wars video game. It’s an almost perfect recreation of original trilogy era Star Wars, open world, several planets and you get to see and experience many of the most favorite locations you can think of.

And on top of that the main character Kay is a relatable, very likable woman who is flawed, not perfect, makes mistakes, but perseveres, learns, trains and gets better and never gives up hope. I would say she’s – with Merrin from the Jedi games – by far the best female Disney era Star Wars character and quite honestly one of the best female Star Wars characters in general. Do not believe the hate for her.

And while the online narrative surrounding the game is outright bizarre I urge you all to please forget about all what you may have or may not have heard for a moment and to just see the game for what  it is. The very first open world single player Star Wars game. Set during the original trilogy, shortly after Empire Strikes Back and before Return of the Jedi, it offers what people are asking for incessantly these days: good old escapism. In Outlaws you can forget about it all and imagine what it’s like to live in the Star Wars galaxy. In one word, it’s “fun”.

If you want to know more please read my review of the game, there are no real spoilers in my review, I have no story spoilers at all, so it’s safe to read for all people, just click here or on the image below.

Disclaimer for the certain few… no, I am not on Disney’s payroll (it would be hilarious to even suggest it), no, I was not invited to Disneyland (I wish!), no, Ubisoft does not even know I exist, so they never sent me a review copy, in fact, I paid for the game with my own money.

It feels like home

Today is the global rollout for the early access of Star Wars Outlaws. In the US early access begins at midnight on the East Coast and 9 pm on the West Coast. Other time zones accordingly.

In Europe early access begins at 23:00 local time in the UK and 24:00 (midnight) in Central Europe.

In Australia you can play earlier than in other parts of the world, early access begins also at midnight local time, which means Aussie fans can already play this game (it’s 4:45 am in Sydney as I write this).

So the US / America is one of the last territories to get access to the game, expect spoilers if you use social media.

The review embargo was lifted earlier today and most reviews by YouTube gaming channels that matter (i.e. who I think just focus on the game itself, not some agendas or politics, channels like ACG, Mortismal Gaming etc) are mostly positive, virtually all reviews say Outlaws 100% nails that Star Wars feeling and that the open world feels very alive, some are not as much in love with the stealth focus in this game, but most reviews I watched gave it something in the range of 7 up all the way to 9 out of ten. Only one reviewer (Youtuber MrMattyPlays) absolutely hated his experience. Mainstream gaming websites gave outlaws something in the 7-8 range as well. But I never read reviews by them anymore and just ignore them entirely.

I have pre-ordered the gold edition, I will play the game in a little more than three hours from now. I guess I’ll sleep again next week then. Expect a full review on JTA once I have fully finished the game. So probably over the weekend or maybe early next week. Outlaws is apparently a much leaner game than previous open world efforts by Ubisoft (looking at Assassin’s Creed Valhalla here), if you beeline the main campaign you can finish the game in something like 15-20 hours, a full run where you do everything will of course take considerably longer, probably something in the 50 hour range.

Did you pre-order either the gold or ultimate edition to get early access? Will you buy the game at all once it’s in general release come Friday?

Ubisoft dropped their brand new story trailer for Star Wars: Outlaws today! Release date for the open world (galaxy…) game is August 30th!

The trailer tells you about the basic setup, Kay crossed some underworld bigwig and yet another scoundrel wants her to steal something from him to buy her freedom. But the trailer also hints at being more to Kay than meets the eye… The trailer is mostly about the very basic setup, we also know now when the game is set: between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Which means Kay could cross paths with a few famous people in her adventures… In fact, one (technically speaking two) are already seen in the trailer, Han in Carbonite and Jabba, whom Kay meets on Tatooine.

Ubisoft will offer three day early access if you buy the ultimate or gold edition of the game which will also come with the season pass. I remember a time when early access aka “beta testing” was free… now it’s a privilege. Anyway… in my opinion the game looks very, very promising, Ubisoft can be accused of many things, but open world design is usually their forte, even if recent missteps like Skull & Bones were pretty disastrous, but if Outlaws is anything like the Assassin’s Creed / Watch Dogs / Far Cry games (only with better (side) quest design and less repetitive) this could be the Star Wars game people have been looking for.

Are you interested in Outlaws? Will you want to play the game? Click through for the trailer!

They REALLY love Tatooine…

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UPDATE: as promised Ubisoft released a 10 minute video with actual gameplay footage today! I added the video! Click through to learn more!

This is where the fun begins?
The Star Wars You Tube channel dropped a story trailer for the upcoming Ubisoft open world Star Wars game ‘Outlaws’, scheduled for release in 2024! And a gameplay trailer is going to be released tomorrow, meaning the game must be pretty far into development!

You will play as Kay Vess, a female scoundrel. But she’s not alone, she has an animal companion named Nix and chances are you will meet other friends in the game. While there are no details yet it seems there won’t be the option to create a custom character, which is usually standard for most open world games, one prominent exception is Red Dead Redemption and of course the Assassin’s Creed games by Ubisoft. Chances are also that you won’t even be able to change Kay’s appearance, similar to how Cal Kestis is a fixed character in the Repawn games. Also, since everything is canon, according to Lucasfilm, they may have wanted Ubisoft to create a canon character they can, in theory, also use for other media like books or shows.

Outlaws will be set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Are you excited for an open world Star Wars game? Say about Ubisoft whatever you will but their open world design is usually pretty great, now they only have to rein in their usual shortcomings like map markers for 1,000,000 chests and 500,000 fetch quests.

You can watch the trailer after the jump!

Kay Vess with her animal companion Nix

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