Star Wars Outlaws Review

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

The Mos Eisley Cantina lived up to old Ben Kenobi’s words, but, more than that, it was our collective first step into a wider galaxy of criminals, bounty hunters and charismatic smugglers. Star Wars revolves around the eternal conflict between the Jedi and Sith, but the stories of those just trying to make their way in the universe are just as engaging, often more so. Developer Massive Entertainment shares this opinion, opting not to use a more civilised weapon, in favour of a blaster and a silver tongue. Touted as a scoundrel fantasy, Star Wars Outlaws is an open-world action-adventure title that largely hits it mark without deviating from the genre hyperspace lanes that we’re all familiar with.

There are rungs to the criminal underworld, and we meet our protagonist, Kay Vess, at the bottom of that ladder. Running small time jobs in the casino city of Canto Bight, Kay and her quadrupedal cutie companion Nix find themselves in desperate need of a score that will settle Kay’s debts. Unfortunately for her, that job involves crossing Sliro, the obscenely wealthy head of the new syndicate on the block, Zerek Besh. The plan falls apart and Kay escapes with nothing but her life, an antique ship, and a death mark placed on her head.

Plunged into thedepths of the galactic underworld, Kay is forced to step up from a common street thief to a wheeling, dealing, gun-slinging rogue if she wants to remove the death mark. Her plan is simple, recruit a team, steal 157 million credits from Sliro’s vault on Canto Bight, then make off like bandits into the stars. The issue, she barely escaped Zerek Besh after the first failed attempt and has crash landed on the moon Toshara.

Toshara is a Massive Entertainment creation, and a pretty one at that

It’s not long before Kay is thrust into the fray and while she isn’t a polished scoundrel yet,  she is handy with a blaster. Soft locking to cover, you’ll pop out to pepper enemies with blaster fire, avoiding overheating your weapon by letting it cool or pulling the trigger at the right moment for an instant cooldown.

Gunplay is rudimentary, but that doesn’t mean it’s not fun. While you can temporarily use a variety of blasters dropped by enemies or found in the environment, such as a Stormtrooper’s iconic E-11, Kay’s blaster is the only permanent weapon in the game. The modular pistol uses three firing modes: blaster, ion, and heavy, each with their own use cases for combat and exploration. Variations on each mode can be unlocked by way of a crafting bench as you progress through the game, impacting fire rate and effect.

Kay’s blaster has weight and a good amount of feedback, but a secondary weapon would’ve been appreciated, if only to keep encounters engaging for a bit longer. Kay does have a quick draw ability that, when activated, slows time to allow you to target up to three enemies for an instant kill. It’s an ability that we’ve seen time and again by now, but it doesn’t stop it from being handy in a pinch.

It never gets old

This Swiss Army blaster also come equipped with a satisfying non-lethal stun option that becomes essential when you’re required to take a stealthier approach. Sneaking around enemy strongholds is your typical long grass, ventilation infiltration affair, with Nix on-hand to provide assistance. Holding L1, you can give Nix commands to distract or attack guards, collect keys, press buttons and retrieve weapons. Most stealth sections present you with multiple paths and options to explore, but these instances pop up far too frequently.

I was never too bothered when Kay crouched down and began to whisper through her comms to signify a stealthy approach, but it’s when I spotted the all too frequent mission objective “do not raise the alarm” that I flinched. Instant fail stealth missions are antiquated, painful when they appear once, let alone a dozen times. One such late-game moment was frustrating enough for me to put my controller down for a breather, lest I want to replace it.

Locked doors and protected terminals will attempt to slow your progress, but Kay’s life of crime has taught her some tricks. Lockpicking, by way of a data spike, comes in the form of a rhythm minigame that has you tapping the trigger to match the beeps, while slicing (hacking) is essentially a quick game of Wordle, but with space shapes. I genuinely enjoyed both of these for the first few hours, but could thankfully make them easier, or turn them off entirely, within the game’s menu.

It’s always nice to see a frozen friendly face 

Between firefights and skulking around enemies, you’ll be exploring ancient ruins, derelict ships and, on one occasion, the inside of a Sarlacc. You won’t find innovative advancements in third-person platforming here, with a grapple hook and a huge amount of upper body strength getting you around but moving through the gorgeous environments is always enjoyable. While it’s present by default, you can even choose to remove the suspiciously handy yellow paint plastered on interactable ledges, leaving you to genuinely explore.

The story will take Kay across five planets: Cantonica, Tatooine, Akiva, Kijimi, and the newly created Toshara. Each world is unique and distinct, varied in their visual design, size, and scale. While Toshara’s sweeping savannahs are rich in vibrant colours and teeming with wildlife, the snow-covered cities on Kijimi are compact and dense.

Too large to cross on foot, Kay makes use of a speeder that was aboard the Trailblazer when she…liberated it. While it’s utility can’t be denied, the bike isn’t the most thrilling vehicle to control. A boost and jump can be unlocked to jazz up your rides, and you can use Adrenaline Rush to pick off any pursuers, eventually making your mode of transportation more than a steel horse.

The speeder is a screenshot machine, I’ll give it that

Central to why Kay’s in such a mess is the Trailblazer, the ship she so graciously absconded with. Rather than board the ship and transition into a cutscene, travel between planets is actively playable. Taking off into space, you’re in full control of manoeuvring the freighter and engaging in ship combat. It’s commendable that the Trailblazer is pilotable, if only to complete the experience, but it’s mechanically uninteresting. Controlling the ship feels floaty and the combat is pretty bare, but most of that fades away when the prompt to “punch it” appears, asking you to push the thumb sticks forward to initiate hyperspace travel. Similarly to the speeder, there are a handful of upgrades that enhance the ship gameplay, but never to an extent where I felt drawn to the cockpit.

Unlocking these new abilities will have you seeking out Experts instead of pushing points into a skill tree. Starting with a rumour or tip, you’ll need to locate a speeder mechanic to work on your bike, a gunslinger to teach you a new technique or a suave gambler to help you up your Sabacc game. Each Expert will grand you access to a new ability or piece of gear following a mission chain, with all subsequent unlocks thereafter being tied to using said ability. It’s a system that actively engages you in your progression, giving you something to accomplish before rewarding you with something tangible. It’s also thematically appropriate, as Kay is a budding scoundrel, and what would a scoundrel be without a story behind every feat.

While most of these planets feature wide open spaces to blast across, they’re also populated with several outposts, cities and townships filled with activities and life. You’ll weave through crowds at the marketplace on Akiva, brush past gangsters and goons in the Mos Eisley Cantina, and shuffle through an Imperial checkpoint on Toshara, all while the local inhabitants are being accosted by Stormtroopers, bartering with merchants and placing bets on the Fathier races. The worn-out futurism found in the architecture and landscape is instantly recognisable as Star Wars, but it’s when you wander through the busy streets that it truly feels like a living and breathing place within this well-known galaxy.

Say what you want about organised crime, they know who to party

Each of the towns you visit will be governed by one or more of the four prominent syndicate factions that Kay will be forced to work with and against. The spice mining Pyke Syndicate are the first you’ll encounter on Toshara, led by the underboss Gorak. Soon after you’ll run into the secretive and fashion forward Crimson Dawn, helmed by Qi’ra, the hive-mind Melitto Ashiga Clan, and, of course, the Hutt Cartel.

Throughout the course of the main story, you’ll be introduced to each of the organisations, often tasked with doing work for them in exchange for a favour, or to get out of a bind. A reputation system allows you to become close with a faction by staying loyal and completing missions for them, gaining you easy access to their strongholds and rewarding you with discounts, resources and cosmetics. Consequently, if you work against a clan, they will become increasingly hostile towards you.

I enjoyed the interplay between the four crime families, deciding who to hitch my speeder bike to and why, but some will be disappointed to learn that these activities are almost entirely separated from the core narrative. While their involvement will crop up on the golden path, the syndicate activities are largely framed as an additional story branch that’s tackled as a string of open-world objectives. For me, this provided a reason to continue on once the main thread was wrapped up, but I was left wanting slightly more synergy with the overarching story.

You can’t complain about your salary with that work ethic

That said, the core journey is filled with plenty of twists, turns, backstabs and betrayals without syndicate involvement. Kay channels her inner Danny Ocean, searching the star systems for a collection of experts in demolitions, droid smithing and slicing to pull of the heist. The supporting cast is solid, with the clear standout being the commando droid muscle, ND-5. As the crew grows, so does the intrigue, with a larger plot slowly unfolding as you approach the point of no return on Cantonica. The story commendably steers clear of random ties to the wider mythos, instead focusing on its own slice of the Star Wars galaxy. That is, save for one gratuitous cameo late in the game that feels like an unearned tick of a box. Away from that sore thumb, I found Kay’s path to freedom to be a fun 15-hour ride.

Final Thoughts

Outlaws will feel familiar because it is familiar. The gunplay is good, the mission structure is good, the stealth mechanics are good, the traversal is good. Individually, the components that make up Star Wars Outlaws are varying degrees of alright, but it come together to be more than the sum of its parts. This rendition of the often-explored sci-fi-fantasy universe is authentic and immersive, our protagonist is likeable and energetic, the narrative is colourful, and the syndicate shenanigans are entertaining. There are plenty of flaws to point out, and I have, but when it comes down to it, I keep on coming back to one word to describe Outlaws: fun.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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