Star Wars Outlaws: An Unedited, Stream-of-Consciousness “Review”
So this is the first attempt I’m making at doing this review thing, this “review thing” being writing up some thoughts about a game once I finish it. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it, but it would be nice to have an archive of my thoughts on games I’ve finished so that I can have something to go back to and give me some motivation to finish more stuff. I love having a lot of data and thoughts about something that I can look at.
Anyway. I “finished” this game a few months ago at this point, so there will be some hindsight here. There are a few DLC packs that I’ll pick up at some point that will inevitably pull me back in though, so I’m not finished with it forever.
In short: I thought this game was great. It was basically everything I wanted from an open-world Star Wars game. I loved Kay, Nix, and ND-5, and basically every other character that gets recruited to the crew. A lot of them were standard archetypes, but Star Wars thrives with standard character archetypes. ND-5 almost immediately feels like he’s trying to fight companionship with Kay, and I love that. I also appreciate that Kay isn’t necessarily Han Solo (rogue with a heart of gold). She’s kind of like the middle ground between Han and Dash Rendar in that she’s out for herself, but she’s got a good heart and her circle expands around anyone she connects with. But she clearly isn’t all in for the Rebellion or anything. All that helps her stand out. Her backstory with her mom had its moving moments as well, though I almost wish that she’d left her cut out completely and didn’t bust her out of jail. I get that that’s the nice Star Warsy ending, but I just love it when things end badly I guess. I don’t know.
The gameplay was basically everything I’d hoped for. The locations were beautiful and very close to the perfect size, and the worlds were full of crap to do without feeling like my entire map was covered in quest markers. There were spaces for me to just ride my speeder and enjoy the scenery without getting accosted by Stormtroopers, but the action was never too far away when I was ready to jump back in. I do wish there were a few more planets to visit, but I think that’s more of a me thing than an issue with the game. There was so much to see on each planet that asking for more might be a bit insane, but I’m such a sicko for that galaxy and the more of it I see, the better. At least I got to run around on Tatooine! Truly beautiful. I loved every second.
On a related note, the production design was near perfect. All of the worlds felt unique while also feeling incredibly faithful to the Original Trilogy. Some of the best work in that department that I’ve seen in a Star Wars game in the modern era.
The combat was very fun too. I was bummed to see that you were limited to Kay’s pistol as the only persistent weapon, but all of the different modes were not only sufficient to trick me into feeling like I had more weapons, but they also kept combat fresh. Sometimes I wanted to use the explosive shot exclusively, but switching to the standard auto blaster was just the better move. I didn’t love the ion mode, but I never do. It was useful for puzzles at least. Personally, the most glaring thing the game lacked for me was some sort of Far Cry-esque weapon system where you use resources to unlock different weapons and different attachments for them. That’s basically my favorite type of video game system, so I was saddened to not see it here. Picking up an E-11 and getting to use it until it was empty kind of only added salt to the wound. THAT SAID: picking up disposable weapons was always fun, and now there’s a blaster based on a VSS and that can only be a good thing.
While I’m complaining, I’ll mention that the space sections weren’t my favorite either. I liked the interior of the Trailblazer, but the exterior just didn’t do it for me. It felt like I was flying a bus. The controls were fine, but I just didn’t find it that satisfying. And I frequently felt like I was getting absolutely ravaged and had no way to evade enemy fire. Maybe that’s a skill issue, but it made some of the dogfighting segments drag on a little longer than I would’ve liked. However, the idea of having your own ship to fly around and explore the galaxy in is a great one. I might’ve liked a few more places in space to land and explore, though.
I’ve seen a lot of people write off the stealth sections of this game as being too finicky or difficult, but even before the patch where the developers “fixed” that, I never had too many problems with it. There were one or two missions where I definitely had to restart a few times, but I love stealth games (another dormant Ubisoft IP in particular cough cough) so the challenge and eventual payoff was rewarding to me. I’ll always default to the “sneaky archer” in games anyway, so skulking around and pistol whipping Stormtroopers is basically in my DNA. I got a ton of mileage out of the stunner setting on Kay’s blaster as well.
The story felt a little predictable, but not in a bad way. This is the type of game where the value expands so far beyond the story anyway that it isn’t a deal-breaker. I was just happy to have something competent with good characters. The twist with Sliro and Jaylen got me, though, and that was a fun development! It was interesting enough that Sliro was ISB, so the family drama was just the cherry on top.
The Syndicates were one of the best parts of the game for me, though. Specifically Crimson Dawn. I kriffin’ love Crimson Dawn. As soon as I knew my girl Qi’ra was in the game, I basically signed my life over to them. And I hated any time that I had to complete a faction mission that would affect my standing with Crimson Dawn. But the faction missions that didn’t affect my standing with other factions? Great. Not all of them, of course, but I just love a good faction system I guess!
I basically wrote the Pykes off immediately in solidarity with the tribe of Sand People they wiped out in The Book of Boba Fett. Fuck the Pykes.
Long story short, I loved this game. I’ve got around 40 hours in it, I think, and I look forward to going back to it sooner rather than later. Writing about it makes me wanna go play right this second, but I’ll abstain so that it’s that much sweeter when I do revisit it.