Star Wars Outlaws, one of the most eagerly awaited games of 2024, is finally here. The adventure about the young criminal Kay Vess takes place between Episode 5 and Episode 6 and is set to take you into an open game world full of fan references. We took a closer look at it in our test.
Star Wars Outlaws at a glance
| Title | Star Wars Outlaws (official homepage) |
| Genre | Open-World; Action-Adventure |
| Developer | Massive Entertainment |
| Publisher | Ubisoft |
| Release date | August 30, 2024 |
| Platforms | PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S |
| Number of players | 1 |
| Price | PS5: € 49.99 *; Xbox: € 79.99 * |
Star Wars Outlaws Review: Exciting story that slowly picks up speed
Star Wars Outlaws takes place shortly after the rebels have lost the battle for Hoth and the Empire has launched a major attack. Fans of the series who are now hoping for a clash with Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and co. will quickly be brought back down to earth. But don’t worry: Outlaws is bursting with allusions, familiar characters and references that will make fans smile time and time again.
In the game, you take on the role of young thief Kay Vess, whose life is turned upside down when her first big job goes very wrong. Together with her companion, the alien-dog-axolotl-something Nix, Kay has to flee her home. In a stolen spaceship belonging to the Star Wars leader of the Zerek-Besh syndicate, Sliro, who naturally doesn’t take too kindly to this.
With Sliro and his cartel breathing down your neck, you now have to fend for yourself and make a name for yourself in the underworld. The three factions Crimson Dawn, the Hutt Cartel and the Pyke Syndicate (a fourth faction will be added later on) vie for your favor.
It does take a while for the story of Outlaws to pick up speed. But once the spark has been ignited, the open-world adventure turns out to be exciting and well-staged popcorn action, which is particularly dynamic thanks to its hero duo. The main story takes around 18 hours to complete, which is rather manageable for a Ubisoft game. With side quests, mini-games and the like, there are many more hours to come.
The reputation of the factions
Most of your time in Star Wars Outlaws is spent completing missions for the various syndicates, which work against each other in secret. Here the game relies on a simple but coherent reputation system.
You complete a mission for Crimson Dawn in which you have to infiltrate the territory of the Pyke Syndicate? Your reputation with the Crimsons increases accordingly, while the Pykes naturally don’t like it at all.
Your reputation increases depending on which factions you work for. This not only allows you to move freely within the factions’ territories, but also gives you access to special bonuses such as armor sets or useful talismans that improve your stats. However, if you fall out with a faction, it will be hostile to you, which can even wipe fast travel points off the map.
This sounds pretty familiar to us
From a gameplay perspective, Ubisoft takes the path of least resistance with Star Wars Outlaws, as the adventure lacks any really fresh game mechanics. There are climbing passages complete with grappling hooks that could have come straight out of Tomb Raider. A bit of hacking here, a bit of lock picking there.
Firefights in typical third-person shooter style including tactical reloading from Gears of War, a Dead Eye mode from Red Dead Redemption 2 or glider races in the open game world. In combination with the mission design and the game world, everything in Outlaws looks as if it has been seen before in a (very) similar form. And that really is the case, because the title lacks any fresh ideas.
It’s all okay and quite fun, but in the long run Star Wars Outlaws lacks the really fresh ideas and unique selling points to really keep you glued to the screen. If it weren’t for the wonderfully atmospheric Star Wars setting, we’d be dealing with an average open-world action game. For fans in particular, however, the title offers a lot of coherent trappings behind its core to keep them on the ball.
A large part of the gameplay is made up of sneaking, as Kay’s rather short health bar is drained after just a few hits. Accordingly, you should move quietly and carefully through the areas to take out enemies silently with melee attacks.
Fortunately, the level design plays along here. Almost all areas offer several paths and a number of hiding places to make progress unseen.
Nothing comes from nothing
A central role in Star Wars Outlaws is played by your cuddly alien pet Nix, who has a lot more to offer than just making little men. The little guy can squeeze through narrow shafts and open a locked door for you, distract enemies, detonate explosive barrels from a distance and much more.
At the touch of a button, Kay switches to an overview mode in which targets are highlighted for Nix. With another press of a button, your companion sets off to wreak havoc. Especially as Nix is able to use pulse waves to visually highlight nearby enemies. Quite handy, the little guy. And cute. Extremely cute.
But of course Kay is not helpless either. Throughout the game, you will be traveling with a blaster, which you can improve with various upgrades, for example to cause more damage or open electric gates thanks to the ion mod. For a short time, you can also pick up weapons that enemies have dropped. But only until their magazine is empty.
Star Wars Outlaws does not offer a skill tree for abilities. But there is another system that is much more motivating: you unlock upgrades for various completed challenges that increase your life energy or give you new options. To do this, however, you must first unlock the individual experts in side missions that the challenges bring with them.
The technique
From a technical point of view, Star Wars Outlaws is extremely bumpy, especially on the PC. Despite a powerful gaming PC (AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 4080 Super, 64 GB RAM), the frame rate in 4K resolution fluctuates significantly at times.
The ray tracing options in particular, including environmental effects, lighting and much more, cost a lot of performance. While I can easily achieve over 120 FPS in quieter open-world areas without ray tracing, the performance drops to less than half (around 40-60 FPS) with the RTX activated – especially with Direct Illumination.
It is advisable to deactivate ray tracing as far as possible, as the graphical improvements are hardly noticeable. In addition, some low-resolution and sometimes extremely slow-loading textures spoil the impression.
Regardless of this, Star Wars Outlaws is a double-edged sword from a graphical point of view. In some moments, the adventure scores with some breathtaking scenery and skillfully captures the rusty, shabby Star Wars look in cities. On the other hand, the game world looks too lifeless and pale in some places, while the character models and their wooden facial animations in particular fall down badly.
On the other hand, there is nothing to complain about when it comes to the soundtrack, which impresses with successful German voice actors, powerful sound effects and an atmospheric, driving soundtack.
Star Wars Outlaws Review: Conclusion
Star Wars Outlaws is a good game. Period. The new Ubisoft game is undoubtedly not a total failure, which some had expected after the mixed Skull & Bones.
It’s a real highlight that you absolutely have to play, but unfortunately it’s not. But don’t get the wrong idea: With the exception of a few minor bugs and graphical errors, Outlaws doesn’t have any major flaws. The gameplay is varied and motivating, the scenery is sometimes breathtaking and the mix of sneaking, fighting and exploring works brilliantly.
It’s just that you’ve seen it all somewhere before. But not in the Star Wars universe. The bottom line is that this is a fun open-world action game that lacks its own ideas. How much this bothers you depends on how interested you are in George Lucas’ universe.
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Pros
|
Contra
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|---|---|
| + entertaining story + charming character duo + excellent Star Wars atmosphere |
– Side missions rather monotonous – Story only picks up speed slowly |
| + Syndicates with motivating reputation system + powerful firefights + successful sneaking mechanics |
– repetitive gameplay – no new ganeplay ideas – many mechanics too simple |
| + fair save points + customizable difficulty level + motivating challenges |
– weak enemy AI – some bugs in battles |
| + Around 20 hours + Side quests + 5 varied planets + Collectible items, individualization, mini-games |
– Confusing navigation – Space missions rather dull – Some filler passages including backtracking |
| + many graphic adjustments + upscaling and ray tracing + partly breathtaking sceneries + atmospheric soundtrack |
– Environment graphics partly poor in detail – Graphic errors and bugs – Repetitive environmental graphics |
Star Wars Outlaws
Story
Gameplay
Balance
Scope
Graphics & Sound
83/100
Fun open-world game with intense battles and an exciting story towards the end, but lacking its own ideas. The PC version also has a few technical glitches.
