Drifting into the outskirts of town, I step off my speeder bike and saunter towards the checkpoint manned by a pair of Stormtroopers. Acting as natural as a wanted smuggler can, I shuffle past and make my way to the local watering hole, weaving through the scum and villainy. Bumping shoulders with Twi’leks and Rodians, I approach the Sabacc table with an outward confidence that masks my nerves. Placing the highest bet possible, I proceed to bluff my way through three rounds before my credits are exhausted and my ego is shattered. I’ve left an impression on the high rollers on Toshara, just not the one I was anticipating.
Since 1977, the Star Wars franchise has expanded from a single sci-fi film to a multi-medium goliath that rests as a cornerstone of pop culture. With close to 50 years’ worth of films, tv series, comics, toy lines, video games, regrettable cross-promotional products, and books, there’s a Star War for just about anyone vaguely interested in science fiction. It’s somewhat surprising then that Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have managed to find a slice of the galaxy that hasn’t yet been charted.
I recently visited the Ubisoft Sydney Office to go hands-on with a substantial four hours of Star Wars Outlaws, Massive Entertainment’s upcoming third-person action-adventure game. In that time, I blasted through story missions, explored the open world, and engaged in enough side content to pull the ears off a Gundark.
While it seems hard to believe, Outlaws is the first Star Wars game to focus on the silver-tongued antics of a smuggler instead of a Force wielder or enlisted trooper. Searching the stars for a way to pay off the price on her head, Kay Vess is thrust into the often-brutal galactic underworld, forced to adapt to her new life or lose it. Alongside her adorable companion Nix, Kay aims to go full Ocean’s Eleven, putting together a crew to pull off a heist that’ll bankroll her freedom and brighten her otherwise bleak future.
My session opens with our newly minted criminal in a bind, running from a wronged gang with a ship that’s in desperate need of repairs. Accepting help from a local Rodian mechanic, Kay is tasked with heading into the nearby town to make some credits to pay for parts, but not before getting into a scrappy gunfight. Such is the life of a scoundrel among the stars. Sliding behind cover and popping up only to make expert use of my blaster, I immediately recognised the slower and weightier gunplay that made The Division’s combat so satisfying.
With the wannabe bounty hunters dealt with, I took off towards the settlement, but not on foot. Riding a speeder bike is a Star Wars fantasy that is seldom found in games, so I relished the opportunity. Aside from being accosted by more ruffians wanting to make a buck off Kay’s head, cruising on a speeder bike is the perfect way to enjoy Toshara’s scenic views. Dense with plant life and sweeping lakes, the landscape is otherworldly and genuinely stunning. Across my handful of hours with Outlaws I was consistently impressed not only with the fidelity of its locations, but the designs that felt new and exciting, while still being undeniably Star Wars.
The same can be said for the populated settlements on Toshara. Littered with retro-futuristic gizmos, gadgets, and scrap, bustling with various alien races going about their shady business and patrolled by the boys in white, the moon’s largest outpost was immediately readable as a space within the galaxy but fresh and inviting too.
I spent the next few hours diving into golden path missions to further the story. The half-dozen objectives gave good insight in what to expect from the full launch: shootouts, stealth, and exploration.
Wearing a holster and carrying an iron makes Kay look the part, but she’s handy with the steel and earns her keep. Combat is largely cover-based, with Kay able to switch between two firing modes to deal with different sticky situations. The regular blaster fire deals damage, while the Ion shot is used to break through shields and take down droids. Once charged, you can also use an ability to slow time, mark enemies and level them in one clean sweep that would make John Marsden proud.
Grenades, environmental hazards, and weapons that can be pilfered from downed foes deepen combat encounters, but the core mechanics are solid enough to keep gunfights exciting on their own. Towards the end of my session, I got to tickle an upgrade system that’ll further alter your blaster, but I didn’t get enough time to properly unpack what this will mean for the final game.
On more than one occasion, I was able to approach situations with a bit more tact, choosing to avoid open conflicts entirely. Stealth is your usual bag of tall grass, human-sized vents and patrol patterns, with Nix joining in to add some variety. You’re able to command your Axolotl-like friend to distract or engage guards, allowing you to get the drop on them or at least close the distance. The linear nature of most missions means that environments are chock full of approachable angles, giving you ample choice of how to get from point A to point B.
Our third part of this force triad is exploration. While you won’t be scaling mountains ala Breath of the Wild, Outlaws does look to include a healthy dose of platforming, climbing and swinging, all without reaching for the yellow paint. Scrambling up walls and repelling into old reactors is entertaining when wandering around the open world, but it also allows for some verticality in combat scenarios. Why wade through a whole hangar off Stormtroopers when you can shimmy through a vent, climb a grate and manoeuvre past dormant TIE Fighters instead.
My mainline journey eventually took me off world and into an Imperial space station. This gave me an opportunity to pilot Kay’s…liberated ship, the Trailblazer, as I made my way to the occupied hangar. You won’t be parallel parking this hauler in Mos Eisley anytime soon, but controlling the ship in and out of combat is easy and effective, with dogfights being simple-yet-entertaining stopgaps between objectives.
Once I felt content with my story progress, I jumped back on my speeder bike and took out into the open world. If Toshara is any indication, the collection of slightly smaller biomes will be adorned with enough side activities to keep you jetting around, but, crucially, not swamped with Ubi’s trademark checklists. The major side quests are tied to upgrades, incentivising you to take the road less travelled from time to time. The one I embarked on had me spelunking through a windfarm within a cave system that would not pass an OH&S inspection. The exploration-heavy mission rewarded me with a booster for my bike, which I haphazardly used too often, mainly to my own detriment.
My time with Outlaws drew to a close with a mission that takes place later in the game’s narrative. The mission itself is an archetype we’ve seen before, with Kay sneaking into a Crimson Dawn compound to retrieve an artefact on the planet Kijimi but playing through the sequence let me take some of Outlaws’ little systems for a spin. The hacking, otherwise known as interstellar Wordle, and the rhythmic lockpicking are both fun enough on first interaction, but I’m not sure I’ll want to visit the New York Times website each time I need to access a locked terminal.
Pulling off the Kijimi mini heist is all in an attempt to cozy up to the local crime syndicate, something integral to Outlaws’ entre campaign. My time with the game is brief when you consider it will likely be a 25-hour+ experience, but I did witness the interplay between the four syndicates and it has me intrigued. I was faced with various choices that would gain favour with one faction, while damaging another. The extent of this system is unknown at this stage, but balancing your allegiances to best suit your own interest is a proposition that has me interested. That said, how could you pass up a chance to get in good with Crimson Dawn?
More than anything, this hands-on preview proved to me that Star Wars Outlaws isn’t another soulless open-world game wearing a Halloween costume. The combat, exploration, and various systems that hold it together don’t innovate in any extreme way, but I can’t deny how much fun I had getting into strife on Toshara. Perhaps most importantly though is that Outlaws isn’t quite the “Uncharted in space” experience that some of its earlier trailers seemed to indicate. Outlaws feels like Star Wars, and it feels good to be back.
Star Wars Outlaws releases on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC on August 27.
