Mechanically, the game is maybe 3 or 4 stars - enjoyable but not a stand-out play experience. I did not experience any of the bugs that other people complain about. Maybe because I played on PS5? Or maybe because I waited until after the first patch to play? Either way it was a smooth experience.

But the audiovisual experience was top-notch, and its StarWars-y-ness is, I felt, unrivaled. They spectacularly captured the Star Wars aesthetic without just regurgitating bits of Star Wars that we've already seen. We got to see bits of the EU that were as yet unexplored and they REALLY felt like the most authentic bits of the canon.

And as far as the gritty, Outer-Rim, "Wild West" scoundrel-with-a-heart-of-gold archetype goes, this is the first time a game has really made a good go at it. It's an important part of the Star Wars ouvre and they hit it spot on. The narrative was compelling and original, dialogue was both entertaining and natural. Lots of completely original characters who were - good or bad - a joy to have in the game. Even the appearance of the non-original Lando Calrissian in the first DLC episode was well-done; it did justice to the character without feeling like he was taking over the spotlight or just being squeezed for fan nostalgia.

I got Star Wars Outlaws as a Christmas gift. I’m not as big a Star Wars fan as I used to be, but getting to play as a scoundrel in a galaxy far, far away sounded like a fun time. It’s also a Ubisoft game, and even with all their issues, I do still enjoy a lot of their releases.

The gameplay in SW Outlaws will feel familiar to anyone whose played a lot of Ubisoft games, or other 3rd person adventure games. I wouldn’t blame you for referring to this game as Star Wars: Assassin’s Creed. Like that series, you spend a lot of time sneaking through tall grass and scampering up ledges. They didn’t go fully hardcore parkour with Outlaws though, you can only climb up a few select spaces, making the vertical traversal feel like an Uncharted game. You also have a grappling hook to swing across gaps and climb up to anchor points with, but it’s very limited in its use. You won’t be using it to swing from one grapple point to another or throwing it mid jump to save yourself. You just stand at a spot where the prompt comes up and swing. Grappling mechanics like this have been done in more engaging ways in other adventure games. Sure, it wouldn’t be original if Outlaws copied them, but it would at least add a little more challenge to the platforming. Instead, they challenge you via perilous jumps, such as jumping on a platform before it shoots back into the wall. This is where the deficiencies in the traversal system boil to the surface. There were several occasions where I’d jump and my character would hit the edge of the platform and slide off to her death. There’s no saving grab as you slide down, you just die. With how much this game plays like Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, Tomb Raider, it feels clunky in its climbing.

When not sneaking around places, you’re in a firefight with Imperials or criminals. The gunplay is decent. You only have a pistol as your main weapon and I do like that Kay, our hero, holds and fires her blaster from the hip, like the scoundrel she is. It’s reminiscent of Han Solo or the Connery era Bond. The aiming is fairly generous so you can reliably hip fire your way through most fights, which feels very Star Wars. You can pick up enemy guns to use for a limited amount of time, but you’ll use the pistol most the time. It does limit the combat, because while the pistol has some range, you don’t get a long rifle, or a shotgun which would’ve been handy for when Kay is swarmed by feral animals. The combat goes for a grounded feeling in that you mostly fight dudes with guns through the game. There’s no extreme enemy variety like melee troops or hulks. The only real boss fight in the game is a puzzle fight against a rancor. There’s also AT-STs in some Imperial bases, but I never had to fight those, so I’m not sure what combat against those is like.

Along for the journey with Kay is her pet Nix. A little creature whose personality is a mix of cat & dog. It’s a cute little critter that I was worried would be annoying when he was first introduced, but Nix grew on me. He’s also helpful in solving puzzles and combat. You can use Nix as the Force, snatching items from far away and bringing them to you or pushing buttons in unreachable areas. He also helps in combat to a limited extent, my favorite use for him was to kick away grenades chucked at me. But the most important ability Nix has is his ability to distract guards and cameras. It lets you set up stealth takedowns easier.

You can upgrade Kay & Nix’s abilities during gameplay. Instead of spending experience points on a skill tree, Kay meets experts throughout the galaxy that give her goals to achieve to unlock skills. Such as finding a special item and “killing x amount of enemies via headshots” to unlock a new blaster mode. I enjoyed this system because it is a nice way to encourage switching up gameplay and exploring out of the way places, but never being too challenging that they are impossible to achieve. I was able to unlock a good 75% of the skills.

I did encounter a general lack of polish while playing through Outlaws. It’s not so bad as to be game breaking, but they were little annoyances I’m surprised haven’t been patched out this far from release. On top of the jumping mechanics sometimes tossing me into a pit, I had issues with the interact button not working. I would go up to a chair or NPC and press square for nothing to happen. It happened at multiple places, one of them kept me from completing a side quest. There’s some issue with NPC pop-in, that mixed with NPCs’ inability to drive led to speeders popping out of nowhere and running Kay over randomly, sometimes killing her. And on two occasions using the game’s photo mode caused my whole PS5 to have a hard crash.

One of the highlights of a Star Wars game is the chance to explore a bunch of strange new worlds. You get to explore four planets. Three of them are open world spaces where there’s usually one major city, a few towns, and then a lot of wilderness to explore. The fourth planet is just a large city space. Avika is a jungle planet that’s more Endor than Felucia. It wasn’t fun to explore because the dense jungle forced you on linear paths. Tatooine shows up, while I usually groan when a Star Wars story ends up at Tatooine, I give Outlaws a pass since it’s focused on the underworld and Tatooine is a major player in that sphere. While Mos Eisley is lovingly recreated, I was a little bummed that the cantina didn’t feature the cantina band and their iconic song. Kijimi is the planet where you just explore a city. It is also the snowy planet and the natives have a heavy Japanese influence. This planet is where I also noticed the Star Wars style fades away in sorta ‘middle-class’ environments. So much of the Star Wars style is dedicated to either a galaxy that’s well worn & beat up or the sleek, glassy, modular look of military bases and mansions. Kijimi is neither of those. It’s a lot of stone and woodwork. I thought on a few occasions, “take out the few space things and this could be a setting for Assassin’s Creed Shadows”. The first planet you get to explore is Toshara, a windy, Mediterranean like world. I felt most of my time was spent on Toshara, as it’s where you go through the somewhat lengthy tutorial and the first main story arc. It nails that feeling of a frontier world, mix of seedy cities and beautiful wilderness. While it may’ve been a hard sell, I wouldn’t mind a Star Wars game that sees you stay on one planet.

Each planet is under the control of a crime family and there are certain areas they have cordoned off as their areas. This is where the social reputation mechanic comes in. You have to balance your reputation between each of the 4 families, the Pyke, Crimson Sun, Hutts, & Ashiga. You start on poor terms with all four and you aren’t allowed in their sectors, but as you do jobs for them or sell them info you increase your rep which allows you to access their areas and unlock new gear. But sometimes doing a job for the Hutts would involve you stealing from the Pykes, so your reputation is always in flux. That being said, it was easy to at least keep all 4 factions at the good rank which is all you need to get into their sectors without having to fight them.

Each planet offers a smattering of side activities, most being contracts to go sneak into some bandit camp, but there’s also several arcade games in the cantina to play, I only messed with a few. You can also bet on horse races, and rig them in your favor. And there’s Sabaac, a card game that’s like simplified poker. I immediately took to this game. It’s a lot of fun and while there’s a healthy amount of luck involved in winning a hand, a little strategy doesn’t hurt either. It was simple to learn and has been the first card game in gaming I’ve loved since Gwent. The Sabaac table was one of the first places I visited on a new planet. The games also feel good as you sit at a smoky table in the back of dimly lit barroom. Eyeing up your opponents as you palm a card. The Sabaac games are caked in atmosphere, with your final opponent being Lando Calrissian. It’s a fitting place to run into Lando and isn’t played off as overbearing fan service. While you can cheat at the card game, your opponents all play the game straight, or if they do cheat, you don’t have the option to call them on it. I think adding another level to the card game would’ve been fun, to always be watching your competition, waiting to see them pull out the loaded dice.

There’s also a street food vendor on each planet. You can visit their stall and eat some of the local cuisine via a quick time event. It’s the only time quick times are used in the game and on its completion you unlock a new skill for Nix. Each stall’s signature dish is explained in detail and Kay provides a running food review during the meal. Their inclusion feels odd. Like, street food isn’t something I’d associate with the scoundrel lifestyle and it’s weird how detailed it is. I really want to imagine one of the lead developers was a huge Stars Wars nerd who really got into the cuisine of the Star Wars universe and this was his chance to share his niche nerdom.

You get around these worlds using a speeder bike, it’s a unique design that looks more like a vintage dirt bike than the long speeder bikes common to the franchise. Its controls are pretty intuitive, and you can unlock a speed boast and jump ability. You also have your space ship, the Trailblazer, it’s not the most iconic looking ship, just a flying refrigerator, but that partly the point as it was built to be a low-key smuggler’s vehicle. The space traversal and combat is basic and reminds me of the space controls from No Man’s Sky. The space dogfights are fun if basic and besides that, the only other thing to do in space is collect loot. You can collect items to upgrade the performance of both vehicles and change paint jobs. The performance upgrades do show up on your ship, but I also wished they showed up on your speeder too.

So, now it’s time to talk about the story. Star Wars generally tells one of three types of stories. High fantasy tales of a Jedi, the pulpy, gritty tales of a rogue, or the heroic tales of a soldier. Star Wars Outlaws, as the name suggests, is set in the seedy underworld of the Star Wars universe. You play as Kay Vess, a young upstart thief, with a bad hairdo, looking to make a name for herself and have enough money to feel she’s free. She’s got a similar personality to Han Solo at the beginning of New Hope, she’s looking out for herself and doesn’t trust anyone else. It’s a character trait that could’ve made her an insufferable protagonist, but luckily as Kay goes through the story she learns to slowly trust others and build friendships. Her personality is actually a bit hot’n’cold. One moment she’s a streetwise kid who knows not to be too trusting of people in the underworld, while the next moment she’s believing someone wholeheartedly. Maybe it was purposeful to show Kay puts on a front, but really wants to feel like part of a family. We follow her from a street urchin on Canto Bight to a galaxy hopping scoundrel. She robs the wrong person on Canto, crime boss Sliro and flees the planet on a stolen ship. On Toshara, she meets up with some underworld contacts, namely the broker Danka who reminded me very much of Roz from Star Wars Bounty Hunter. After being introduced to the major crime families, you find a stranger, Jaylen, and his battle droid, ND-5, on your ship. He hires you for a job to break back into Sliro’s vault with a new crew. We’ve got a heist game, and the majority of the game is dedicated to gathering your team. Along the way, we learn about Kay’s past & how her thief mother abandoned her and ND-5 dealing with being a pawn for Jaylen. The story writing did feel uneven overall. Sometimes the story is going for a fun, light-hearted, adventure tale, then it switches to being about how the galaxy is against the little guy & commenting on the injustices in the world. It’s a bit jarring how the story switches between the two themes.

At the end, so spoilers, skip to “One thing I do” to avoid them, Kay’s mom is hired by Jaylen. Kay is obviously not happy to see her, but it’s also been at least 6 years since she left. They end up making up after working a job together, but then her mom just disappears from the story until the very end. The payoff for bringing her back into the story felt underutilized. On top of that, Kay was dealing with helping her new friend, ND-5, get his freedom. It feels like there’s too many emotional stakes for Kay to properly resolve them all. The end game heist is also pretty lackluster. It plays like all the other stealth missions in the game. I love a good heist plot and it was a letdown that you weren’t hanging out in a casino, playing cards, sneaking into the manager’s office, etc. And like with any heist plot, the job never goes to plan. I figured Jaylen was going to betray us, he was too friendly and had that vibe. I also expected Kay’s mom to betray us, but that’s not the route they go. We learn Sliro, the crime boss, is actually part of the Empire’s CIA and is using the criminal underworld to hunt down rebels. It’s an interesting plot twist. While this game doesn’t do boss battles, I was disappointed I didn’t get to be the person who killed either of the two bad guys, Sliro or Jaylen. Instead, you have a fight against a reluctant ND-5. It’s a stealth challenge fight that was a little annoying because the game takes away all your armor and pistol before the fight.

One thing I do praise Outlaws is not getting too carried away with the nostalgia traps. Modern Star Wars stories like to shoehorn in classic characters as an easy way to endear people to their story. Like, Battlefront 2’s story having the player running into Han & Luke, or Boba showing up in Jedi Survivor, or all the cameos in The Mandolorian. It often makes the stories feel more like fan fiction. Familiar characters do show up here, like Lando, but they are used sparingly and only when they fit in the story. Jabba the Hutt shows up when you infiltrate his palace, you also see Boba Fett in a room as you sneak through a vent, but you don’t interact with him or hear him talk even. The only time the game gets a bit "remember this guy" is when Vader has a personal meeting with the main baddie. I would imagine he would report to someone like a Grand Moff Tarkin, but they had to get Vader in the story somehow. There’s also the habit of any stories set in the original trilogy to predictably end with the hero joining the rebels because they realize they’re the good guys. Luckily, Outlaws bucks that formula. The rebels are the reason Kay had to escape Canto at the beginning of the game, and she holds a grudge against them for most the game. She doesn’t join them, but by the end of the game, she’s more ambivalent towards them. The rebels are shown in a more desperate light. They constantly make hopeful speeches, but their willing to work with criminals to get a win. This game is set between Empire Strikes Back & Return of the Jedi, so the rebels are currently on the back foot.

All in all, I really liked my time with Star Wars Outlaws. It didn’t drag on for too long and the characters were all interesting, if maybe underdeveloped, and the humor was decent. The gameplay could be a little annoying at times, but never game breaking. It is a shame this game was quickly written off as a disappointment by Ubisoft, but I also don’t remember it being marketed really heavily. I would be interested in the further adventures of Kay & ND-5, and I will likely by the story DLC when it’s on sale. If you are someone who enjoys the Han Solo parts of Star Wars or the Ubisoft 3rd person adventure game formula, I would recommend this game.