From: Ubisoft
For: PS, XBox, PC
★★★★
REVIEWED BY BEN ALLAN
Call it Map Legend Fatigue Syndrome, perhaps.
Back when Star Wars: Outlaws was announced it seemed like a properly big-budget, open world Star Wars game would be something of a slam dunk. And yet the game has generally been met with a resounding ‘‘meh’’, another rock tossed in corporate hope into the worldwide gaming pond and rather surprisingly sinking quickly to the bottom with barely a ripple.
And yes, those now increasingly passe icon-chocked Ubisoft maps are here, making you press the buttons to enlarge the key so you can work out which ones are items and which ones are collectables.
They won’t be the only thing to remind you of a bunch of other games that you’ve already played either, as you clamber around ledges over deadly drops and crouch-walk behind guards in rings around waist-high containers and move your reticle around to paint targets who are going to get auto-blasted at the end of your allotted 6 seconds of slow motion.
But you know what? Despite all the been-here, done-this, I can tell you Outlaws is a pretty fun time.
Players take on the role of Kay, a young chancer initially joined by the game just after The Empire Strikes Back’s Battle of Hoth in her life on the fringes of the 1-percenter playground planet of Canto Bight (as seen in sequel trilogy film The Last Jedi).
Kay doesn’t really see why the wealthy should get all the wealth (fair point, Kay) and sets out to grab the galaxy by the scruff of the neck, approaching matters with a moral flexibility that would make the young Han Solo proud. This means living that hustle lifestyle with a stream of odd jobs for major criminal factions until she can make that One Big Score.
Kay’s a multi-talented lass - gunplay, piloting, acrobatics, gambling - but if you had to pick a single job title for her, it would probably be ‘‘thief’’. Much of Outlaws’ gameplay is spent sneaking into places where she is not supposed to be and making off with something she is not supposed to have.
This makes for a lot of the sort of third-person stealth that will be familiar to anyone that’s played video games in the last two-plus decades; get ready to spend some quality time in long grasses. But there’s a fun wrinkle here with the addition of Nix, Kay’s little alien pet/buddy who can be ordered out to distract guards, hit switches, detonate explosives, or simply leap on to some hapless stooge and start biting. Nix acts as sort of a tool kit of different approaches, helping to reduce the frustration of the auto-fail stealth missions the game occasionally insists on.
In between Kay’s bouts of breaking and entering are those open world maps to explore, each littered with hidden treasures, platforming challenges - get out that grappling hook - and more little self-contained lairs and dungeons. Icons will pop up, yes, but you can also just pick a spot on the horizon and set out to see what you can find. This can range from a bit of spelunking in search of crafting materials to stumbling over a back room Sabacc game and playing some high stakes cards (fortunately Nix is once again on hand to help you cheat).
The third pillar of the game is taking to space in Kay’s (stolen, naturally) ship The Trailblazer for a bit of piracy, cargo retrieval or the like. Dogfighting is more functional than spectacular and the space areas can’t help but feel more like additional maps (which they necessarily are) than, you know, the limitless void, but the game still offers the opportunity to lead TIE fighters on a twisty chase through a dangerous debris field, which is OK by me. Space stations dotted about the place also act as more trading and mission hubs.
As Kay gets to work she builds her reputation with the galaxy’s major criminal factions, so you’ll need to choose who you want to keep happy. Taking a Crimson Dawn gig that targets the Pykes will boost your cred with the former and put you in the bad books of the latter, with various benefits (cheaper prices, open access to faction areas) and recriminations (uh, death squads) arriving at certain levels, so there’s a balancing act to manage.
Fortunately there’s the Empire, who everyone hates (what with all the fascism), so taking a job that involves a few fried stormtroopers is always a good way to smooth things over. The system also allows for delightfully unscrupulous manoeuvres like raising your reputation with a faction to the point where you can wander around their base of operations with a cheery wave, then betraying this trust to loot the place.
And look, yes: it does sometimes feel like a Star Wars texture pack for games you’ve already played. And combat is a bit humdrum. And the Worldle-esque hacking minigame is fairly pointless.
But as a total package, it’s all so delightfully Star Wars-y, a Scoundrel Simulator full of variety where you can bounce from sweet jumps over a canyon on your speeder bike to eavesdropping on conversations in markets bustling with aliens. Add a cast of dodgy characters and a plot full of stand-offs and double crosses and there’s just a whole lot to entertain here.
Do I actually like Outlaws, though, or do I just like Star Wars? It’s a fair question, but it will have to wait until I’ve stolen the secret data from this next Imperial base.
