First on the table is the Shabak card, on the right: Star Wars Desperado It’s not going to win many Game of the Year awards. There are a lot of reasons for that, not least because there have been other big games released this year that were bolder, better marketed, or that pushed the medium forward in some exciting way. The enemy AI in other big games isn’t funny. Add to that the general drag factor we’ve all felt to varying degrees about Ubisoft Open World Malaise, which seems about as convincing as Anakin and Padme’s chemistry. But you definitely shouldn’t care about that, because it’s pretty unwatchable.
Mechanically, there’s honestly nothing in Outlaws you haven’t seen before. It’s a great take on the open-world thing (luckily, “climb towers to clear the map of fog” doesn’t appear in the track list, like Shiny Happy People, but for sadists). It’ll evoke everything from Assassin’s Creed to Red Dead Redemption, blending urban trading, open-world joyriding, tense stealth, and close-quarters combat. It’s got Tomb Raider-style suspended climbing and a dizzying array of vehicle and equipment upgrades, all of which require completing some kind of mission to use – skill challenges, most of which are, but many of which are genuine side quests, raiding enemy bases to steal unique parts or investigating the whereabouts of skill-tree specialist No. 8. That sort of thing.
There’s a lot to do. As one would expect. For those of us who prefer sneaking around rather than straight-up combat, this game is well-suited to them, as almost any objective can be accomplished without raising any alarms. Most of the time, you can also make a lot of noise if you want. The game rarely punishes you for being loud, and most of the time you can get away with it as long as you’re quick on your feet. Most actions will have some kind of impact on the reputation system, though, especially when you’re working on contracts, which is an ongoing procedurally generated job system where you make most of your cash and is your means of currying favor with the worst people on your planet.
There are four major criminal groups whose support you have to try to win over: the Hutts (the Sicilian Mafia, but with Pablo Escobar’s zoo), the Pikes (the guys who sell pirated DVDs in bars), the Ashiga clan (the gangsters from Morrowind), and the Crimson Dawn (the British school goths). Obviously, their goals are often conflicting. Obviously, the work you do for one of the groups might annoy the other. You’ll find yourself having to juggle these contracts to stay in good standing with everyone, because it makes good business sense to be friends with everyone. Here’s one of the places where the suspension of disbelief is stretched to its limit: by doing the heavy lifting, you may well find yourself in a situation where you’ve just been caught in a thief group hideout, killed half of their staff on your escape, sabotaged their operation against a rival, and as a result they furiously downgrade your reputation from “Excellent” to “Good”.
This is explained in the dialogue – if criminals hold grudges, organized crime will never get done. It’s funny, and it works. It’s actually a really fun game – the dialogue often comes across as deadpan. There’s a tacit sarcasm in many of Kay’s interactions with NPCs, but not in a playful, Joss Whedon-esque way. A real highlight is Kay’s relationship with her companion Nix, a dog-monkey who Kay teaches the art of petty theft. Nix is lovably goofy and loyal, but also very capable as a representative of the player aids that Ubisoft fills other games with. For example, people can remotely operate doors and switches in Watch Dogs – Nix can be sent on occasional errands. He also has a kind of detective vision that can be shared with Kay telepathically, allowing Kay to see colored spots through walls, which is very similar to the ability of the assassins in Assassin’s Creed.
Base infiltration is Ubisoft’s tried-and-true signature game, and Outlaws retains much of the same feel from games like Far Cry and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. Sneak, carefully take down all the guards, steal treasure (or hack terminals to sell the data), and run away. You can even set traps in alarm boxes to prevent reinforcements from arriving.
Look, you know what kind of game this is. You don’t really need me to describe every single feature it rips off from somewhere else, and you can pretty much decide whether it’s for you based on your own pre-existing attitude toward Ubisoft Open World Games.
The bottom line is that this game is extremely well executed. Massive Entertainment has clearly benefited from its parent company’s years of iterations on various open-world action-adventure series, and has ultimately crafted an extremely polished game that’s a joy to play. For example, the box of stealth tricks it offers you is perfectly balanced, and there’s always a real challenge if you want to go undetected, so successfully making it through a level without being spotted is an absolute delight. Likewise, there’s nothing more satisfying than distracting a guard away from his patrol partner and hiding him behind a cargo crate.
Sever important data terminals in the exact time frame you need, before patrolling law enforcement officers spot you. Yes, the lock-on and terminal mini-game happens in real time with the rest of the world. You can even look around with a quick flick of the thumbstick, and you can absolutely be caught and escorted off base.
Everything feels great. The lock-picking minigame that’s essentially Guitar Hero? Neat, and way better than fiddling with bobby pins. Getting caught sneaking around, tapping the right stick to activate “talk yourself out of trouble” mode, and blasting them with stun mode before they can figure out what to do with you? Awesome. This is Star Wars, baby.
All in all, the open world is a joy to explore. You start out with a speeder bike that you upgrade early on, and it quickly becomes the fastest bike on your planet. Glide across the vast Star Wars landscape on a frictionless pad, and mow down enemies chasing you with Red Dead Redemption’s bullet-time Assault mode. Space travel is a very stripped-down space game, taking place in small explorable spaces above the planetary areas you can visit, and it’s masterfully executed with unabashed simplicity.
Essentially, space combat controls like a first-person shooter. No need to worry about micromanaging ship systems like in Elite Dangerous or Star Wars: Squadrons. It boils these things down to the essentials and makes them appealing to the 10-year-old in you. This is exactly what Star Wars should be, if at all possible.
And that, ultimately, is why Outlaws works. It understands not just Star Wars in terms of lore and anecdotes, but that Star Wars, at its best, makes you feel young. Young enough to look over the horizon and enjoy what lies beyond it. Young enough to think danger is exciting. Young enough not to be burdened by Newtonian motion.
It’s not the best game I’ve played this year, but it’s definitely Felt Haven’t played this game in a long time. This game has a “one more mission and I’m addicted” feel to it that makes it hard to turn in copies on time and has such an impact on sleeping habits that it should come with a health warning.
It’s also incredibly beautiful. Video game Star Wars has never been as perfect as this one. It’s both beautiful and ugly: the verdant plains of Toshara, an Earth-like moon, sunlit, rim-lit, ray-traced in all its glory, but visible from a dense urban megastructure filled with brushed bronze walls covered in peeling paint, grime, and grossness. Tatooine is vast, with cruel deserts stretching endlessly to the horizon while moisture farmers keep cool in their terracotta hobbit homes.
Everything feels right, authentic and faithful to the original movies, something that many recent Star Wars TV shows have failed to do. You might think that video game graphics look too clean, but a lot of labor and careful artistry went into getting everything polished and crisp. Dust patches on the hulls of the ships show obvious signs of finger-tug, presumably from some bored space mechanic. Every surface, device and control panel feels clicky and in tune with the aesthetic of a world designed in the late 1970s. The CRT screens hum, flicker and whir as they’re used, and the realism betrays the hours you’ve spent tweaking shaders until they’re just right.
Ubisoft’s selling point is the location. The sense of place. The beautiful recreation and restoration of the ancient cities, buildings, temples and atmosphere. Star Wars Galaxies definitely evokes that same sense of wonder, and it’s been recreated here with the same love and care. Mos Eisley is every bit as authentic in the public consciousness as Rome was during the time of Caesar. Familiar yet multi-faceted. And potentially just as dangerous.
Star Wars Outlaws isn’t going to win any Game of the Year awards. But it’s sure to win a lot of hearts.
