Official Site Review

In this Star Wars Outlaws review, Lee marvels at how Ubisoft’s latest AAA game became an involving and genuine PS5 gaming experience in his 30-hour playthrough.

Lee Brady

Published 26 Aug 2024

With so many AAA games defaulting to the same general open-world sandbox formula, I wouldn’t blame anyone overlooking the chance to collect those Star Wars Outlaws trophies at launch. However, what I did not expect when starting out on this Star Wars Outlaws review was to find one of the best open world games on PS5 so far.

Update: Star Wars Outlaws is now out on PS5 for everyone — check out our review below to see if it's the Star Wars game you've been looking for!

What is Star Wars Outlaws?

Developer: Massive Entertainment
Publisher: Ubisoft
Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Star Wars Outlaws is an open-world sandbox adventure game — one built on the bones of a thousand recent Ubisoft games and just as many Star Wars games.

Eschewing the lightsaber-heavy focus of EA Respawn's recent Star Wars Jedi games, Massive Entertainment's Outlaws has you play as an everyday petty space thief. That means you'll have to sneak around, use your blaster to get out of sticky situations and rely on your axolotl-looking best friend Nix to steal keycards and clear the road ahead.

In terms of Ubisoft's big franchises, it most resembles the Watch Dogs franchise — third-person shooting, crime, and instead of a magical phone that can hack anything, you get an axolotl friend. The main difference between the two franchises is that Star Wars Outlaws' story, characters, and world-building kept me invested where, unfortunately, Watch Dogs never could.

Lee —

Star Wars Outlaws' story is a kid's dream

In Star Wars Outlaws, you play as Kay Vess — a street rat running amok on the busy slums of Canto Bight (the casino planet from Star Wars The Last Jedi).

Kay and Nix.

After a series of fumbled jobs, Kay ends up stealing a much-beloved starship from the biggest criminal in town and getting a “Death Mark” on her head, inviting every bounty hunter in the known galaxy to hunt her down.

To clear her name, Kay dives into the depths of the underworld, and by happy accident, slowly builds a reputation as a lucky, reliable outlaw. This earns her the attention of the mysterious criminal Jaylen, who hires her to form a team and pull off the biggest heist ever against the very same guy she stole her ship from.

While it takes a little while to get going, and you might lose patience with Kay’s bumbling around in the game’s early hours, Star Wars Outlaws gradually builds into a captivating cinematic tale. Kay's slow transformation from out-of-luck kid to the leader of a ragtag group of weirdos feels remarkably well handled, and I’ll admit the game surprised me when I realized I actually cared about the lead, her pet, and her new friends.

The heist movie premise gives the game a perfect structure to expose us to every layer of Star Wars' seedy underbelly. Before long, you'll be as used to all the backstabbing and backroom deal-making as Kay ultimately becomes a crook, making it all the easier to focus on your reward and get into the spirit of the game's roleplaying. It's the kind of expansive Star Wars experience I would have killed for as a kid.

Will Star Wars fans like Star Wars Outlaws?

If you’re even a moderate Star Wars fan, you’re going to get a lot out of Outlaws. The game is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, so it's naturally packed with references to the movies. You've got confrontations with Jabba the Hutt and Qi'ra (Emilia Clarke's character from Solo), shout-outs to General Grievous and the Mandalorian, and you can even play a few rounds of Sabbac with Lando Calrissian.

However, more than its references, Star Wars Outlaws will impress long-time fans by nailing its setting better than any Star Wars game I've ever played. Every intergalactic race and droid can be found in these cities bartering and trading their way around — all of which are overseen by four main syndicates and, of course, the Empire.

Traces of the Clone Wars.

Each quest and contract exposes you to a little bit more Star Wars lore, whether it be the customs and culture of one specific race or a little part of the plan that the big players are cooking up. The game does an incredible job of convincing you that you're part of a massive, interconnected web, and that web just happens to be made up of neat Star Wars stuff.

Having enjoyed the recent Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor games, I find that Outlaws forms the perfect PS5 counterpart. The games mirror each other much like the two halves of Empire Strikes Back — the Jedi series shows us the high fantasy appeal of Luke Skywalker's story, while Outlaws shows us the intrigue and peril that come with your average Han Solo and Leia adventure.

If, like me, you like most of the Star Wars films and really liked 2018's Solo, then you should have no problem falling in love with Outlaws. If you find your preferences a little more particular than that but have fancied the idea of hanging out in Star Wars' underworld, I still think you'll get a lot out of this one.

Will non-Star Wars fans like Star Wars Outlaws?

I’m dead certain that if you aren’t a fan of Star Wars yet, Outlaws has the potential to make you one.

Nix.

If you're worried that all the details of the existing Star Wars universe will go right over your head and leave you confused, don't panic. While there is a cornucopia of details in the game for fans to mull over, the easy-to-follow heist movie plot and identifiable cast of characters helps players keep focus on what really matters.

Sure, big names and factions will get introduced as you play, but if you're ever in doubt, follow Kay Vess' lead. She's not one to get hung up on details; she has her eyes on the prize at all times. She's the perfect protagonist for this adventure — she's lived here long enough to not freak out when a guy with a bug's head starts talking to her, but not long enough to know how best to cozy up to Jabba the Hutt if she wants to cut a deal.

It makes it easy for newcomers to see the universe from her perspective, to allow it to feel overwhelming, while still making it easy to push forward for the next payday. After ten hours, you'll know all the big contractors in the local cantina, which rigged space horse to bet on in the corner of the room, and how to play (and cheat) at Outlaws' version of poker, Sabbac.

Some of your gang.

Before the journey's over, you might just find yourself queuing up those movies to see what all the fuss is about.

Star Wars Outlaws' gameplay is its weakest element

You may have grasped in all this time that I've said a lot about Outlaws' worldbuilding, and very little about Outlaws' gameplay. That's because, unlike the game's presentational aspects, the gameplay is just serviceable. Not bad, by any stretch, but hardly spectacular.

Star Wars Outlaws' gameplay is split across three core modes: shoot-outs, stealth sections, and space battles. The first two modes are tethered together with remarkably safe platforming segments that refuse to challenge the player beyond 'figure out what you can jump on next' or 'look for the vent you need to open.'

At the start of the game, I had plenty of mixed opinions about all three gameplay modes. The shoot-outs in particular lacked a visceral punch, with Kay's blaster fire landing upon Stormtroopers like several damp towels to the face.

The stealth lacked options; you could hide or get caught, and once caught, there was very little to do other than to just start blasting. The space combat also felt rather stripped back and simple, tasking the player to overcome its disorienting controls and little else.

However, later on, I found a lot more depth lurked in at least two of these modes. As your blaster improves and the game throws more enemy types at you, I found shoot-outs to be a lot of fun. You're tasked to make on-the-fly decisions and encouraged to keep moving around, and it helped build the sense that I was a scrappy space bandit constantly getting caught up in tricky situations.

Prepare to blast some Stormtroopers.

Stealth also becomes a little more interesting as you unlock new abilities. Having your space axolotl Nix distract multiple enemies and learning how to sneak back into cover using your raw charisma helped open up the possibilities considerably. It still falls quite a bit short of the fluidity we've seen in other stealth games like Metal Gear Solid V or The Last of Us Part II, but it's not bad.

Star Wars Outlaws — Trophy Tactics

One of my favorite things about Star Wars Outlaws is its trophy list, which runs the gambit of being involved without becoming tedious. It’s one of the rare times a Ubisoft sandbox has offered a full world to explore, yet stops short of demanding you see so much of it that you get bored.

Most of the trophies are tied to fun events, like cheating at a game of Sabbac against Lando Calrissian or enjoying all of the minigames where Kay and Nix share some street food. If you’re mildly invested in the world, you’ll likely unlock most of these on your path towards the story’s finale.

One of the late-game trophies that will challenge you asks players to destroy each faction's capital ship without taking hull damage. With the right upgrades and patience, this should be perfectly doable, but do expect a bit of trial and error. Everything else should be easy pickings, and you can play the game on any difficulty you like, so enjoy!

Then there's the space fights which, admittedly, never really got good for me. To the game's credit, one final showdown near the end of the game's story really did a great job of making me feel like a cool space pilot in a Star Wars movie. However, your ship always lacks a certain impact, and I took it as a small blessing that space combat is easily the smallest chunk of the three core gameplay modes.

Still wanted.

All-in-all, Star Wars Outlaws is a jack of all trades — it does a lot of different things decently, but never quite managed to do any one thing particularly well. However, once it kicks into gear, Outlaws manages to be on par with most major PS5 games.

How Outlaws cured my Star Wars fatigue

Look, all I can say is that I did not expect to fall in love with this game. If there are two things in the world that I am absolutely exhausted with right now, it’s Ubisoft-style sandbox games and Star Wars.

I'm tired of the former because it dominates gaming today, leaving other styles gasping for air and attention. This open-world style of game infects everything, from the average PlayStation Studios title to even big games in other genres like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Elden Ring. It's easy to get tired of exploring open space if you play PS5 games regularly.

Sure is plenty of trekking in this Star Wars.

Meanwhile, I'm tired of the latter because, wow, have you tried talking to anyone on the internet about Star Wars lately? I've got Star Wars fatigue, but not because Star Wars has worn me down — talking about Star Wars has. Solid efforts by creatives to tell fun stories in this universe get constantly stamped on by the miserable and the loud, and it makes supporting Star Wars in any public space exhausting.

Between the open-world fatigue and the general Star Wars fatigue, I felt ready to pre-emptively dismiss Outlaws before I had given it even one second to breathe. Yet, the game cleverly got me past both problems, and it did so through the power of game design.

Outlaws makes a few decidedly excellent changes to the Ubisoft RPG format. For example, the game wisely plays with how the player usually unlocks abilities in these games. Rather than having you grind your level up to unlock new skills, Star Wars Outlaws does away with the level system entirely. Instead, you simply complete quests to unlock the parts or skills necessary to expand your abilities.

It's such a simple change, but it brilliantly keeps the player's attention on the world and what all they can do in the game, rather than on arbitrary numbers that they get for mundanely trudging along.

Then there's the faction system — an ingenious addition to the Ubisoft formula that helps keep every contract interesting, if not outright meaningful. As you complete quests, you'll earn or lose favor with one of four crime syndicates, each of which owns a chunk of land on each planet.

When you're in with a syndicate, you'll get new quests from that faction, exclusive items, and free access to their territory without getting shot. When you're on bad terms with a syndicate, they'll shoot you on sight, snub your trade, and if they really don't like you, they'll occasionally send a hit squad out to kill you in the open world.

Most of the syndicates.

This unexpectedly makes a real impact on gameplay, as it makes it a lot harder to complete certain missions if you have to stealth your way through the territory of a faction you're not on good terms with. If you're like me, this might prompt you to take on a few kindly missions for a syndicate just to get in the good books long enough to make one bigger mission a bit easier down the road.

Sure, you can just get every faction to hate you and blast your way through the entire game, but then you'll lose out on some special jobs and interactions. So, it benefits you to take the system seriously, get invested, and play "the game."

Soon, you'll find yourself roleplaying an outlaw with their own reputation to think about, thinking about the day the Hutts will catch up with you and collect like they did with Han Solo.

Hear this guy out for a trophy.

I found this system incredibly effective at getting me invested in the open world, curing me of my usual open world fatigue. Then, in turn, because I was invested in a fun Star Wars world, I found my Star Wars fatigue lifting. Before long, I found it remarkably easy to remind myself that Star Wars is good. Its world and its lore and its characters and its politics are fun and engaging and full of cool ideas.

It's easy to get down about Star Wars — it's admittedly a pretty easy target. It's too old and too well-known to not upset people constantly by changing things. Yet, it's also too big to have any real voice or tell any meaningful story. However, by diving deep into its own slice of the universe, Star Wars Outlaws feels completely like its own thing, free to breathe life into the series on its own terms.

If you like the idea of an open-world Star Wars game that manages to feel personal, then you should definitely check out Star Wars Outlaws. Also, if you just want to take your love of Star Wars offline and enjoy it somewhere away from its loudest detractors, it also does a really good job of giving you that too.

A great adventure awaits.

Summary

Star Wars Outlaws could have easily played things a lot safer and coasted more on the appeal of the Star Wars franchise. However, with some clever twists to the open-world game formula and a lot of care and attention given to narrative design, developer Massive has managed to create an essential AAA Star Wars experience on PS5.

* TrueTrophies was provided a code for Star Wars Outlaws Ultimate Edition on PS5 by Ubisoft — this version granted additional cosmetics but made no significant changes to the core gameplay experience. Lee played Star Wars Outlaws for roughly 30 hours, completing the story and unlocking over half the trophies.

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