OUR RATING: 9/10
Star Wars Outlaws revolves around Kay Vess, a petty thief who grew up in the gambling paradise of Canto Bight, on the planet Cantonica. Her life takes an abrupt turn when she gets involved in a burglary at the home of Sliro Barsha, the leader of the Zerek Besh syndicate. The burglary does not go according to plan and Kay ends up in the hands of this dangerous leader. With the help of her companion, the merqal Nix, she manages to escape and not only that: she even manages to reach Sliro's ship and escape. Sliro then places a huge bounty on her head, forcing Kay to find a way to remove the 'Death Mark' that Sliro has placed on her. Sitting in the recently stolen Trailblazer, Kay prepares the hyperdrive for a jump at light speed to... 'wherever', according to our main character.
'Wherever' turns out to be Toshara, where Kay parks the Trailblazer, which is temporarily in her possession, with a rough landing. With the help of mechanic Waka, she goes looking for parts to fix the ship, so that she can fly further. That takes a while, because there also appears to be a lot going on on Toshara. This is also where Star Wars Outlaws really begins and where the main issues that the game revolves around quickly come to play a major role. Kay Vess, with her contempt for the law and buyable moral values, is very interesting for all kinds of factions, who are happy to work with her. As a petty thief, Kay is also always looking for self-enrichment, while her hunt for specific parts is also a motivator in this case. On Toshara, it is the Crimson Dawn and the Pyke Syndicate who rule the underworld. In addition, and this is something you have to take into account everywhere, Kay lives in a time when the Galactic Empire is in charge of the universe. Star Wars Outlaws is set chronologically between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, so the planets Kay visits are technically controlled by Empire soldiers.
With the Hutt Cartel and the Ashiga Clan, you will also encounter the other four major factions a little later, with Zerek Besh as a kind of fifth criminal faction, although you cannot cooperate with him. After all, their boss has declared you dead, so there are no chances there. The battle between Kay and Sliro is also an important part of what shapes the rest of the story. At a certain point, Kay has to look for specific characters to add to her crew, in order to make another attempt to get into Sliro's vault. How that works exactly and what kind of obstacles it all entails, we will of course not tell you, but believe me when I say that Star Wars Outlaws has quite a few nice surprises in store for you in this area.
With the bonuses mentioned on the previous page and the better weapons and gear you can earn, we have already built the bridge to the gameplay. Star Wars Outlaws is a third-person action adventure with a strong emphasis on gunfights. It even comes close to being a third-person shooter, although the game has perhaps too much exploration, puzzle elements and room for a stealth approach.
Let's start with the latter, because I have revised my opinion a bit compared to what I played in June at Ubisoft's Forward event during Summer Game Fest. At that time, I had the idea that it is almost impossible to carry out a mission completely stealth. It certainly didn't work then and I remember thinking: "How are you ever going to do this?" Well, it is certainly possible and it helps to be a bit more accustomed to the possibilities that Kay Vess has. Nix plays an important role in this. He can distract, attack or confuse enemies by setting off explosions in the vicinity. Furthermore, it is mainly a matter of seeing which enemies you can take out without any problems and which are in the field of vision of other soldiers. If they see a body lying there, they will still sound the alarm. At least, they try to. As soon as you see a red icon that starts to fill up next to an enemy, he is busy sounding the alarm. At that moment you can still prevent him from succeeding, as long as you manage to take out that enemy within a few seconds. This way you can continue your stealth approach if necessary, as long as you take out the enemies in your immediate vicinity without raising the alarm.
However, the situation in which you attack a group of enemies from cover is the one that occurs most often in the gameplay. Kay can pick up all kinds of weapons from soldiers, but you usually have to rely on her own blaster. You can modify it in various ways and the way the weapon behaves also depends on that. Kay Vess can also set the blaster to Plasma, Ion and Bolt. In Plasma mode, you shoot the normal lasers that blasters usually shoot. Ion ammo is mainly effective against droids and energy shields and in Bolt mode you have to charge a shot before you let it go, in order to deal a lot of damage in one go. This type of ammo also plays a role in some puzzles. For example, you can use Ion ammo to power machines: they then start working and open a door, for example. With your Bolt shots you can blow up rocks to open new paths.
The battles in Star Wars Outlaws are generally not exceptionally difficult. Droids can be tough, if you forget how weak they are against Ion shots, but otherwise I had little trouble defeating the groups of enemies I encountered. You will certainly encounter enemies that can deal quite a bit of damage. If you don't take cover quickly enough, they may well defeat you, but usually it's the other way around. In any case, the cover system works similarly to that in many third-person shooters and is therefore fine. Aiming is not too difficult, partly due to the aim assist that is enabled by default. You can disable it if you want, but since this is not a game designed to test your skills as a gamer to the limit, I didn't really see the point of it. Star Wars Outlaws benefits more from a smooth gaming experience than an artificially inflated difficulty level.
Unfortunately, this is also because the game occasionally makes it unnecessarily difficult for the player. Star Wars Outlaws is a great game in many ways, but it certainly also has its flaws. For example, enemies can notice Kay or Nix at times when they shouldn't be able to, for example because they are behind objects that block a direct line of sight. It also happens sometimes that buttons that correspond to a takedown suddenly lead to a loose blow, which suddenly puts you in a firefight, which wasn't necessary at all. You also sometimes see the AI that is responsible for the behavior of other characters do strange things. These are incidents and they rarely cause major problems, but it is a shame.
Besides fighting, Kay is busy with all sorts of other things. You race on your upgradeable speeder through all sorts of landscapes, talk to all sorts of characters or try your hand at a game of Sabacc. That intergalactic card game was quite addictive by the way. I dare not say to what extent it is entirely based on skill, but I did not pass a single Sabacc table without playing for a while. It is also good to know that you can speed up the actions of the card game, i.e. the animations of players who perform their actions during the game. I only discovered quite late that there is an accelerated mode. That is nice, because at the standard speed it gets quite annoying after a while to always wait for your turn.
Another part that comes back from time to time is the part in space. After all, you have the Trailblazer at your disposal and that is a spaceship with which you can easily enough take on all kinds of enemy ships. You can also upgrade the Trailblazer, so that your weapons become a bit more powerful. Flying is quite basic. It would have been nice if this could have approached the level of dogfights of the old Rogue Squadron games, but this is simpler. You notice this, for example, because your ship is sometimes straightened out if you have been turning a lot, as if it matters what is above and below in space. Shooting at other aircraft works quite easily. If you fly even slightly behind someone, you can go into chase mode and you almost automatically aim at the right spot. This also feels a bit too easy, but again, I didn't necessarily want to be tested to the limit in this game, so that didn't really matter.
The game looks nice, the planets you visit are diverse, the setting is nice and the story is also fine. The production value is bursting from the game. However, the system around the reputations that Kay has per faction becomes less interesting after a while and I noticed that after a while I no longer felt like doing all the extra activities, but just wanted to continue with the story. This is partly because the structure, in which you do separate mission after separate mission, becomes a bit repetitive after a while, especially if your interest in the reputation system decreases. All in all, Star Wars Outlaws offers a nice adventure with no Jedi or soldier in the lead role, but with a slightly more original angle, while making optimal use of the recognisability of the Star Wars universe.
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