Star Wars Outlaws PC Review: A Big, Beautiful Adventure That Lacks That Star Wars Punch

Star Wars: Outlaws, the new action game from the authors of The Division, is very similar to other Ubisoft games – big, sometimes beautiful, but monotonous and perhaps just a bit unfinished. Released on August 30, Ubisoft released what they called “an adventure in the world of ‘Star Wars’ about the showdown of criminal syndicates.” The game was criticized before its release, but some were optimistic about it. Both sides were right: it is still a typical Ubisoft game, with typical problems for the publisher. But it is not such a complete failure that you want to turn it off and forget it as soon as possible. This is our Star Wars Outlaws review for PC.

The beginning of an exciting journey

Star Wars Outlaws events occur between the fifth and sixth episodes of Star Wars. The destructive Death Star has been destroyed, but the Empire is still in its prime, building new weapons and the Rebellion is gaining momentum. Against the backdrop of this confrontation, criminal syndicates are revitalized: their leaders decide that there is no better time to redraw the balance. The battle for territory and resources begins, and Kay Vess is drawn into it.

Young but ambitious smuggler.

Since childhood, Kay Wes has survived by stealing on the streets of her home planet. As an adult, the girl decides to change her fate by robbing a large tsabe, which will give her the opportunity to start a new, trouble-free life. As usual in such stories, things go wrong, and Kay is forced to flee her home planet. Furthermore, a reward for the girl’s head is announced. After this prologue, we find ourselves on the planet Toshara, where our adventure begins and the way to earn a reputation among the cartels, among which the gangster power is divided in a distant galaxy.

Kay, of course, cannot compare with the charisma of Harrison Ford (and who can?), but she manages to interest with her lightness and youthful ease. We get to know her character through her dialogues with other characters, her improvisations in seemingly dead-end situations, and her willingness to take on adventurous tasks. Even without realizing the consequences of her actions and not understanding exactly what she is signing up for, Kay manages to get out of even the most difficult situations. A typical fortune-seeker who reacts primarily for her own benefit. Which is not a bad thing in the context of the adventure genre.

At the beginning of the game, the girl accidentally crosses the road to the head of the cartel, Zerek Bash, after which she is hunted. To survive, she flees her home planet and takes any job she can find – illegal, of course. Eventually, she gets the chance to pull off one of the biggest heists in history, make a lot of money, pay off all her debts, and get rid of the bounty hunters.

Star Wars Outlaws is set up like a classic heist movie. Most of the game is spent assembling a team of the most talented criminals in the Outer Rim while running other errands to keep the team from starving. At first, everyone laughs at Vess and does not take her seriously, but over time, the girl builds up a reputation. And instead of just stealing, she is assigned more complicated and dangerous cases, such as sabotage on the Empire’s bases.

You can find really beautiful landscapes in the game, but the planets themselves turned out to be a bit boring.

In essence, it is a typical Ubisoft game, with large open areas, some freedom for exploration, and very little variety in quests.

Star Wars Outlaws events occur on several planets, but everywhere, you’ll have to do the same things – steal, fight, and shoot. The stories are closely tied to the gameplay mechanics, so all quests start and end the same way. This isn’t just a problem with Outlaws; it’s a problem with almost all Ubisoft games. Even if you’ve been assigned to hold a matinee at the local kindergarten, don’t hesitate – everything will end in a fight, a shootout, or a car chase.

Sometimes the views are astonishing and breathtaking

At the core of Star Wars Outlaws gameplay are three key elements – stealth, shooting, and a bit of parkour. Unfortunately, all these aspects are done mediocrely and are often annoying. For example, the authors love long stealth episodes where the discovery of the heroine immediately leads to failure. Oh, how I love these missions. There’s usually a lot of loot scattered along the way, but restarting not only throws you back to save but also empties all your pockets. The AI here is frankly terrible, and enemies get stuck and behave strangely, approaching and running for no clear reason and where. They can suddenly appear in front of you, weave very, very slowly along their route, blocking the only path, or ignore you altogether, even if you jump in front of them. Several times during the playthrough, enemies simply stopped seeing me and let me reach my goal by the shortest route.

I was also pleased with the variety of mission completion. There are two ways to get into the bases. The first is to loudly shoot every enemy you come across while also lowering your reputation if the attack is on the cartel. The second way is quieter and has some trick paths. You will learn about some of them when you are already trying to leave the place of infiltration. The same goes for tasks in towns and settlements.

The stealth mechanic is basic here. We hide behind crates, sneak through vents, distract moisture with Nix, or bait with whistles. The main thing is that the developers provide this variation and it reminds you of Deus Ex or Dishonored, which is a compliment.

Missions to infiltrate the imperial bases make you surprised

Shooting is also realized simply: you should not expect any cool animations or wow moments. Over time, the arsenal of Vess expands, in battles you have to switch between different modes of fire of her main weapon, different types of grenades appear. But the level of intensity of the battles is similar to the shootouts with bots in Call of Duty on low difficulty level, even on high difficulty level of the game.

The arsenal is extremely limited: Kay almost always uses a pistol, and the picked-up weapons are thrown away at every opportunity, and sometimes just for fun. And although this decision fits into the logic of the plot, it still negatively affects the gameplay. For example, when using most of the perks, Vess throws away the gun, and you have to pick it up again.

The animations of Nix on the speeder are constantly changing: he is ridiculously squeezed into the seat, then he can barely hold on to the seat when you race at full speed.

The game also features speeder chases and space battles. The former is disappointing: you can’t shoot freely and can only use the “mark and eliminate” mechanic. Time slows down, and you have to manually select some enemies and then kill them with precise shots. Yes, it looks like it sounds, but it looks strange: after killing a few enemies, you have to move on and wait for the skill to recharge so you can shoot again.

Chases that could have been more fun

The space battles work better and are similar to the battles in Star Wars: Battlefront 2. These are arcade-style shootouts, and as you pump up your ship, Vess can take on more and more enemies. Several types of weapons are available for their destruction: cannons, turrets, and missiles. Fighting in space is rare, so these segments never get boring and add variety to the gameplay.

Space in this game is even very beautiful.

As for the parkour, everything is on the level of the last Assassin’s Creed. The heroine often has to climb somewhere, but you won’t get stuck: there’s only one road, and the girl herself jumps where she needs to go after pressing a button. However, these episodes show that The Division engine is not designed for such gameplay mechanics: the authors even added a special setting that prevents the heroine from jumping into the abyss. Without it, the passage becomes an ordeal because it’s impossible to control the heroine’s movements normally.

At times, Star Wars Outlaws is very reminiscent of the Tomb Raider series.

However, perhaps the most important feature of Star Wars Outlaws is the reputation system. The heroine constantly interacts with criminal groups: Jabba the Hutt’s syndicate, led by the iconic villain, the Crimson Dawn, led by Ki’Ry from the Han Solo movie, the Ashiga clan (invented especially for the game), and others. By working for the cartels, Vess can increase his reputation within their ranks. This opens up additional opportunities: passage to territories controlled by the syndicate, new missions, loot, and so on. Allies also provide Kay with useful information that makes the search for riches easier, and in some cases, the cartel will even stand up for Vess in a firefight.

But it’s easy to ruin your reputation: it’s enough to enter the cartel’s territory without asking, steal something right in front of them, or kill one of their members. Also, at the end of many missions, you have to choose a side – this will increase the respect of one faction but hurt the other alliance. And the reputation system really works because it’s woven into many aspects of the game.

A representative of one of the syndicates and the choice of which faction we will improve relations with.

For example, side missions usually take place on the territory of a certain faction, which you can easily get if you have good relations with them. But it’s worth a fight, and even the simplest mission turns into a headache because it’s not easy to sneak into these zones. Cartels with whom you have bad relations will hunt you in the open world and bore you with constant chasing. That’s why there are plenty of moments in the game when you want to do one thing with a clear conscience, but you do something else because of all the future problems.

4 Syndicates Mean a Lot of Problems

In general, the reputation system looks like an interesting addition to an open-world game. Unfortunately, the developers have not developed it to the maximum. Reputation essentially does not affect the main story but runs parallel to it. Contribute a grain of frustration and bugs. One moment, the mechanics work according to one rule, and the next moment, they work according to another. At first, it’s not clear whether it’s a bug, a change made in a patch, or just the system is broken. This may happen once or twice per game, but the overall impression is slightly affected.

There is no brutality in Outlaws: even scenes where someone is shot look as harmless as possible.

There are other aspects that the authors managed to create. For example, the tame animal Nix is one of the coolest and most useful companions in modern video games. Not only is he cute, but he can fetch items, press buttons, distract enemies, and even attack them. By the halfway point, you’ll get so used to Nix that you won’t be able to imagine the game without him. Oddly enough, it’s the animal that provides the coolest action scenes. For example, when you run to the door, dodging blasters, give him a command, and Nix presses the button just as you’re about to die. It is clear that attention to the animal was required by Disney, which sells toys, but the character has not been degraded and looks very organic in the game.

One of the pleasant surprises in the game is eating food in the form of a mini-game.

The exploration mode, which has already proven itself in the last Assassin’s Creed, also makes the game more interesting. It is enabled by default and removes additional visual garbage: the authors tell you where to go, but you have to look for the solution to the problem yourself. It’s still impossible to get lost in Outlaws, but at least you don’t feel like a stupid little kid who can’t figure out how to shoot the big red button without a giant yellow pointer.

The open world here is a little different from the classic understanding of world-building, as the action takes place on multiple planets. Planets, like a pie, can be conventionally divided into three layers: atmosphere, open planets, and a large city. Although the second planet, Winter, has no open space.

I was pleased that landing on the planet and flying into open space was seamless, thanks to an interactive cutscene in which we could easily maneuver the ship during takeoff. The ship has simple physics, is easy to control, and the firefights with enemy crews look dynamic and exciting, especially when you fly past the wrecks of big cruisers or out of the fog with a huge block of ice right in front of your nose.

The open areas look large at first glance, but traveling through them is quick and convenient. Cities have several fast travel points to major intersections that open up as soon as you arrive. The open world also has them, but it all depends on which clan we have a good relationship with. But even without them, traveling by bike is fast and allows you to dive into a little adventure once again.

One of the few distractions in the game

The first surprise came after opening the map. It was completely clean, with no question marks or other activities; it just had completed quests and opened merchants.

Additional activities, question marks, bases, and secrets appear only when we encounter them while traveling through the open world. The atmosphere of the adventure is enhanced by small events that prompt us to search for treasure and resources. You might walk into a nondescript roadside cafe and overhear two smugglers discussing where they have hidden their goods. Or a child will happily share the location of a valuable artifact for a few coins. At the same time, you can stumble into the same places by accident, simply by taking a wrong turn. There are also more passive ways to relax in the game. In cities and small towns, you can find arcade machines or bet on horse races. There is also a separate card game, Sabak. The rules are relatively simple, but the excitement is considerable. Particularly skilled players are even invited to separate VIP tables in closed rooms. As seen in the announcement trailer, Nix can sneak a peek at his opponents’ cards. This may look like fun, but it has its advantages. If we get burned, our opponents will be more selective, and if we get too bold, they might even kick us out of the table. Then, we had to wait a while before they let us back into the game.

Artistically, the game looks great, from the desert plains to the snowy city to the water-filled rivers and streams. What spoils everything is the aggressive use of FSR technology. This is noticeable in open areas, where bushes, rocks, and water mix into an incomprehensible mess, especially when speeding around the world. In cities and places with fewer small objects, this problem is virtually unnoticeable. It is also less noticeable when using the quality mode limited to 30 FPS, but if you have a powerful PC, I advise you to pay attention to this version of the game. It is cheaper.

Interestingly made pumping, where to unlock new skills, you must first meet the right characters and then fulfill a series of conditions. Some skills can only be unlocked through side quests, so Vess’ progression is non-linear. Some players will unlock the action skill branch early in the game, while others may not get it at all and stick to the stealth walkthrough. This encourages you to explore the world, and you don’t want to miss the side quests, especially since they’re pretty good and not monotonous.

Additional skills are unlocked from the characters you work with and help.

Finally, the quality of the setting is worth mentioning. While Disney is digging in the crypt of “Star Wars” and resurrecting the already bored heroes of the series, the authors of Star Wars Outlaws focus on the story of ordinary people and do not bore with references and cameos. Of course, iconic Star Wars elements like recognizable droids, stormtroopers, and blasters are not missing. However, the heroes on the street do not discuss Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker but think about urgent problems – where to get money and food and how to fly away from the annoying planet. The conflict between the Empire and the rebels is mentioned only in passing as something distant and incomprehensible. Thanks to this, Outlaws is perceived as an independent story and not another attempt to play with the feelings of fans.

Same two suns on Tatooine

However, “Uncharted in Space” from Star Wars Outlaws still didn’t work out. In many ways, this is the problem with Ubisoft’s traditional approach: the game is made as sloppily as possible, and in many ways it is inferior not even to Uncharted 4, which is almost ten years old, but to even older games. A lot of things are done at the level of “it will do” and often in places where it should not have been done.

The face of an ordinary citizen in the middle of a dialogue with the MC of another game.

For example, the game simply doesn’t have lip-synchronization with speech, a technology that has been used everywhere else for about 10 years now. While other companies are integrating solutions that allow you to adjust facial expressions for different languages, Ubisoft has not even been able to polish the English version. The faces of all the characters, including the protagonist, look terrible: lifeless, without any emotion. What struck me the most is that they can’t even look at the main character; they look at the wall or the void. The staging of cutscenes looks a little better, but the technology used here and in other Ubisoft games is hopelessly outdated.

There is customization here, but not extensive. Everything is limited to coloring and charms.

There are serious problems not only in the story scenes but also in the gameplay scenes. For example, Vess knocks out absolutely all characters with the same palm strike, and it doesn’t matter how many layers of armor the enemy is wearing. It doesn’t go to the point of complete absurdity (for example, you can’t take out a robot like that), but it’s still a shame – you could have come up with different animation sets or something interesting instead of walking up to a Stormtrooper in full armor and punching him once on the head, and that’s it. Jumping and flying on the hook cat also looks unnatural, as if the laws of physics stop working at those moments.

I realize that games with good animation don’t just happen – hundreds of hours and millions of dollars go into them. But many aspects of Star Wars Outlaws don’t even look passable – they look downright bad for 2024. The studio has prioritized things in a strange way: it’s as if they spent more time on food mini-games than on polishing key gameplay mechanics. After going through Cyberpunk 2077, Red Dead Redemption 2, and The Last of Us 2, looking at Star Wars Outlaws is painful and almost insulting to those who had hope for this game.

That said, Digital Foundry has already called Star Wars Outlaws one of the most technologically advanced games: it uses many modern developments. However, it’s the little things that are hard to notice, and now only 4090 owners can appreciate them, and even then, with DLSS affecting the image quality. I was impressed, except for the soundtracking: opening doors and obstacles really distort voices and music. Yes, there are moments when the picture looks very good, but moments of instability override all this technology.

And here they are

Technological problems would be easier to ignore in the presence of a great story and charismatic characters. For example, Uncharted doesn’t boast any deep gameplay but is captivating because of the scenario. But Naughty Dog’s games are as far as the moon: in a few days, you will hardly remember the characters of Star Wars Outlaws. And that’s a shame, considering the setting and the story: there’s a lot of room for development in a criminal space western. Here, it’s more like a procedural series, where the first season introduces a bunch of characters, and then the show is closed – so there’s no character development. The only slightly interesting character was the android ND-5. Especially since the sarcastic killer robot has long been a cliché, not even within the genre, but in Star Wars itself. The actress who voiced Kay Vess does a good job, but the character itself is flat. There are funny moments in the game, like when she learns to bluff or builds herself a Queen of the Underworld. But these episodes are a speck of the background of the rest of the plot when the girl has the banalest dialogues with NPCs. It’s as if the writers really wanted to make a young female version of Han Solo but never figured out how to do it. Instead, it turned out to be a cute Disney princess surrounded by a dozen girlfriends who decided to show how much fun they had shooting people.

There’s a lot of asset reuse in the game: all Imperial bases look the same.

Star Wars Outlaws is a classic adventure game with all the advantages and disadvantages of the genre. Characters get themselves into dangerous situations. However, the developers have managed to move away from the already classic Ubisoft formula of open worlds and have created a platform where the player feels like an experienced one and where a little adventure awaits around every corner. This is not a new word in the genre, but simply a good, sometimes exciting adventure. Nothing more and nothing less.

Despite all these problems, Star Wars Outlaws wants to go through to the end. It has the spirit of exploration and the atmosphere of a galaxy far, far away, and it lacks just a little bit. It seems that soon, the quests will shine with new colors, the gameplay and dialog will become more interesting, and the characters will start to develop. I really hope that the novelty will be similar to Guardians of the Galaxy: nobody believed in its success, but the authors made one of the best adventure games.

You can’t say that about Star Wars Outlaws – it’s the same game at the beginning and at the end. It’s unlikely that you’ll want to play it again, but it’s suitable for passing the time – like most of Ubisoft’s hits. This time, however, the novelty has an advantage: it’s much shorter and ends faster than it manages to get boring.

Ubisoft and Massive managed to create a game with unrevealed potential of interesting mechanics, yet a good game nonetheless – giving the feeling of a real adventure in a distant galaxy.