Star Wars Outlaws Review

[Music] hey andd I'm going to need some backup down here as far as Star Wars video games go we've taken countless turns at twirling lightsabers and unleashing flashy Force Powers but Star Wars Outlaw swaggers into the Cantina slinks down into a booth with its holster clip unbuttoned and argues that those are no match for a good Blaster at your side this open world or rather open worlds action game features a level of gun battles and broken promises befitting the legend that is chew's best mate however Star Wars Outlaws essentially delivers a hand solo like experience in both good and bad ways it has some handsome looks and a strong sense of adventure but it's also somewhat scruffy around the edges and is liable to let you down from time to time of course given that its propulsive space Western story takes place in between The Empire Strikes Back and return of the Jedi the actual hunt solo is literally on ice for the duration of Outlaws instead we Step Into The Battered space boots of K vas a cunning Thief raised amidst the hives of scum and villainy in the gambling capital of Kanto bite and accompanied at all times by her adorable pint-sized partner in crime NYX K's quickly shown to be handy with a hairpin lockpick and has an insatiable appetite for Five Finger discounts that looks nice HX although like Dash rendar and pre- Jedi K Katan before her she never really steps out of Han's Shadow and becomes much more than a standin Smuggler with a heart of gold you want it done right you do it yourself what follows is a 20-hour string of Reckless rescue missions and Shady underworld dealings as Kay and Nick's Chris Cross their way around four main planets and the pirate riddled spaces between attempting to unite a squad of like-minded criminals with the aim of pulling off a major Heist and a raising the Bounty placed on Kay's head by The Crime Boss SLO this casino owner serves as Outlaws primary antagonist and seems suitably callous enough you must be SLO your friends abandoned you but is neither as outright evil as Emperor Palpatine nor as quietly menacing as Grand Admiral thrawn and is kept at a distance for the most part and only ever encountered in the occasional cutscene you're going to have to do better than that even so outlaws' story is a consistently entertaining Quest and one that takes K through some recognizable spaces and some entirely new all while cutting deals with countless colorful CRI including this Surly solest mobster on a Kea who has the audacity to deal out orders to you while putting his feet up on a desk made out of his own Carbonite encased brother he took my eye but I took everything else while her end goal may be considerably smaller in scope than say blowing up a death star the environments Kay's entertaining Saga unfolds in are surprisingly large to be clear this isn't no man's Skywalker so you don't have the freedom to Circle each planet and land wherever you choose however with the exception of the comparatively more compact City setting of kajimi outlaws' sandboxes stretch out far and wide and contrast with each other nicely from the iconic arid Sands of tne to the Lush rainforest of AA whose network of rivers is handily transformed into shortcut making highways once you unlock the upgrade for your Speeder bike that allows it to skim across the water's surface it's a good thing too that K speeder can be upgraded since it's the only vehicle she's able to steer around while navigating each terrain despite the fact that in Outlaws as many bustling settlements you can see Lance Speers whizzing by saddle jwacs waddling along and towering atst is chicken walking past you can't actually ride or drive any of them compared with a decade old Grand Theft Auto 5 where if you can see it you can probably steal it or last year's The Legend of Zelda teers of the Kingdom where if you can think it you can probably build it Outlaws comes up shorter than Luke Skywalker in a storm Tripper suit in terms of its list of usable Transportation types which is a bit disappointing for a modern open World adventure hang on H Imperials over there Outlaws isn't just about getting from A to B however it's also about breaking into and out of various Imperial bases and crime syndicates headquarters at the behest of the various underworld cohorts that K conspires with along the way name's veric and I've got a real job for you furry friend NYX is vital to these infiltrations as he's basically a space cat drone who functions like a watch Dog's phone you can point him at switches to activate while you remain in cover next the door or to briefly divert the attention of security cameras to allow you safe passage next put on the show among several other useful talents Kay has her own special set of skills when it comes to sneaking her way into each high security facility and I never grew tired of the rhythm-based lockpicking a surprisingly simple yet effective game of Simon says that has to be one of the snappiest and most satisfying ways to open lock doors and crates that I've enjoyed in a while overall however outlaws' stealth is markedly uneven what are you doing you've alerted the station sometimes it's far too easy like when I was able to do the trident tested Assassin's Creed distract and dispatch routine on multiple enemies in the same spot all right distract him [Music] next yet at other times it was wildly unpredictable like when I'd somehow trigger an alarm performing a stealth takedown even though it appeared that no one else was around instead more often than I'd like my efforts to remain hidden would evaporate things would get loud and a number of other problems would present themselves outlaws' combat serves up some solid cover-based shooting with authentic sound effects and Punchy smoke and Sparks with each Blaster bolt impact but precious little in the way of new ideas it's less bad batch and more basic it always seemed to be red Barrel delivery day in every combat Arena that K arrived in and I use these explosive Targets in almost every encounter to thin the Stormtrooper and scumbag hordes there's always the challenge of knowing when to detonate them to take out the most enemies but that's the same thing we've been doing for decades so while it's effective it doesn't exactly make outlaws' combat stand [Music] out these simplistic shootouts can also be brought to a faster conclusion via the use of K's adrenaline rush move which char es up while she's under attack and allows her to slow time and then Mark and execute multiple Targets in one rapid hit firing burst almost identical to the Dead Eye targeting from the Red Dead Redemption series it's useful and satisfying for the most part although I did find Kay would occasionally pump some stylish slow motion blast rounds directly into the cover in front of her rather than the target I had selected it felt a bit limiting that K can only permanently carry her Blaster and grenades in her inventory alert but weapons dropped by enemies can be picked up used and discarded once they're out of ammo however what really irks me about outlaws' approach to secondary weapons is how much it goes out of its way to make you drop them do a melee attack drop your weapon crawl into a vent drop your weapon climb a wall or a ladder drop your weapon who programmed this RoboCop drop it if I pick up a sniper rifle it doesn't seem unreasonable to expect that I should be able to carry it with me up to a high enough vantage point to best put it to use it's especially annoying given how often I was hit and killed instantly while behind cover by enemy snipers in elevated positions simple and reheated as it generally is I definitely warmed to the combat a bit more as time went on particularly once I was able to upgrade my blaster with a couple of alternative shot modes that effectively gave me three weapons to swap between even if they were all coming out of the same Barrel still at no point did this combat system ever feel as flexible or as fun as the best games in ubisoft's own Far Cry series and fight started to feel pretty repetitive outside of the rare encounter with probe droids or the one-off scrap with a rankor having said that I'll take the basic on foot combat in Outlaws over its awkward Speeder Bike fights any day since this is Star Wars Outlaws also features space combat and rarely could I ever emerge from a light speed jump in case Trailblazer ship and not crash headlong into a dog fight that felt authentic to the films you know it'd be nice to visit a planet that isn't a war zone once in a while slinking off to bully some Tie fighters did offer a nice way to blow off some steam every once in a while as a break from all the face Toof face skull duggery down on each planet's surface nice although I didn't invest too much in the ship modifications since the modest challenge presented by my orbital opponents didn't ever seem to increase to any noticeable degree Jaba right one of outlaws' most interesting and novel features is its Syndicate system which reminded me of the reputation system used in the outer worlds basically you can't really complete a quest over the course of the campaign without pissing off one of the four main crime families in order to please another you want to uh make a move cozying up with one cartel might get you cheaper prices at a merchant you're on side with how about you let me take this off your hands and I'll throw in a good word for you but it'll also rob you of the ability to move about freely within the headquarters of another gang you've slighted hey you got anything interesting in the back do I know you it's worth pointing out that this isn't Mass Effect none of the numerous decisions I made seem to make a significant difference to the overall outcome of the story but they did effectively make me feel like a truly dirty rotten scoundrel as I continually re-evaluated my allegiances in each deal I made so that it would best suit whatever my motives were at the time okay Manda you got a deal for example before I started exploring the surface of Tatooine I made sure that I'd wormed my way into the good graces of the Hut Syndicate since jabas goons control large sedes of its map and I wanted to ensure that I could explore it thoroughly without drawing too much unwanted heat being able to explore unimpeded is Paramount because Outlaws does such a great job teasing you with secrets to find or opportunities to pursue in an extremely organic way as you move through its four main worlds I found two perfectly good converters in the alley behind the club almost every Cantina conversation EES dropped on or discarded data pad I read pointed me towards some new treasure to seek out or gambling tip to take advantage of and it always felt like I was gleaning some illicit information rather than just being spoonfed chores to complete as is the case in so many other open World Adventures he hangs around the back alley next to the market where outlaws' Quest design really excels though is in taking seemingly innocuous side objectives and spinning them out into exciting multi-staged Adventures that regularly took me by surprise like when a simple trip to collect a certain object in MOS Eisley took a series of sharp twists and turns and suddenly I was sliding deep into the bowels of a sarac pit we're going in next and then thrust straight into an exciting escape from a huge sandworm it's the Lively left turn stretches like these where Outlaws really shines by stringing together countless Star Wars references and Uncharted style moments of spectacular action and adventure and there are plenty of quests like this that I've undertaken and likely many more that I haven't even found yet however in order to enjoy moments such as these you've got to take the rough with the smooth especially since as of launch the PlayStation 5 version of Star Wars Outlaws that I played is plagued by more irritating bugs than a Deo bar camping ground over the course of the journey I saw countless graphical glitches speeder bikes crashing to a halt trying to go over jumps or small hills or just randomly teleporting entirely crucial Mission prompts not appearing and forcing checkpoint restarts and countless occasions where the dialogue audio just dropped out completely hey there that's just a few of many examples so if issues like those sound like they'd forc pull you out of the Star Wars Universe it might be best to let Ubisoft blast them off Outlaws as Hull like a bunch of cable chewing Mino before you pick Outlaws up up blasters aren't going to do anything to this thing it's ironic that K ship is called the Trailblazer since there's actually not a whole lot of ideas in Star Wars Outlaws that haven't been done in other action and open World Adventures instead it's quite like the Millennium Falcon a bucket of bolts held together with repurposed parts and prone to breaking down but at its best it's more than capable of jolting your pleasure centers into Star Wars fan hyperspace a clever syndicate system brings real weight to almost every task you choose to undertake some of which have truly creative Quest designs that can often conjure up some genuinely stunning blindsides having a pal like NYX at your side the entire time not only adds an extra Dimension to Kay's fairly generic Smuggler character but also gives her an enhanced set of abilities but even he can't quite make outlaws' stealth and combat feel any less rigid or repetitive and the odds of avoiding the many glaring technical issues present at launch is approximately 372 20 to1 never tell me the odds okay fair enough for more IGN reviews check out our verdicts on black myth Wukong and Fallout London and for everything else stick with IGN let's get out of here indy5 acknowledged k