Star Wars Outlaws Review: A Perfect Open World in an Incredible Universe

Star Wars Outlaws is not a game you play because you want to experience the most innovative open world. It’s not full of genre-shattering ideas, and its structure and gameplay can get pretty repetitive. In many ways, it’s standard stuff. But for a certain type of player, none of that will matter. Because what makes Outlaw remarkable is the Star Wars part — it’s an average but amazing open world game Star Wars simulator.

The game takes place between the events of The Empire Strikes Back And Return of the Jedi and puts players in the role of Kay Vess, a small-time criminal who quickly finds herself in over her head. It’s a humorous Han Solo with an adorable sidekick named Nix, who is part puppy, part axolotl. The plot is a cliché crime story: Kay joins a team to pull off a big heist, intending to retire safely with all the money she’s about to steal. Things go awry, and not only is Kay penniless, she’s also pissed off an incredibly rich and powerful member of the criminal underworld. Whoops!

From there, the story takes an interesting turn, and the rest of the game is spent preparing for another heist attempt. This means Kay has to improve his skills in the underworld by taking on missions, finding a team that can help him pull off the heist, and generally upgrading his skills and equipment for a better shot. It’s a fun premise that works well with the open-world structure, ensuring that everything you do in the game leads to a big payoff at the end.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of the game is the way the factions work. You’ll be dealing with four crime syndicates, and your standing with them will change over the course of the game based on your actions. Taking on a mission to appease the Crimson Dawn, for example, can piss off their rivals, and dealing with them all can feel like child’s play. Getting in the good graces of a gang opens up new mission paths and other opportunities, while angering them can make certain areas off-limits and, if things get really bad, make them attack you on sight. It doesn’t fundamentally change the game, but the structure forces you to make interesting and sometimes difficult decisions about which side you’re on.

Just like with the Star Wars Jedi series, if you’re just looking to be whisked away to a galaxy far, far away, Outlaw is a great option. There’s nothing quite like riding across the deserts of Tatooine on a racing motorcycle or landing on a new planet and going to the local cantina to ask questions. Every detail – the visuals, the sound, the storylines – looks exactly like… Star WarsAs if you were in a movie, able to walk around and soak up the details.

I’ve always loved market scenes in fantasy and science fiction; they’re a great way to quickly get a sense of the culture of a place at a glance. And I’ve spent way too much time in Outlaw walking around taking pictures of street food vendors and watching customers in canteens. It’s not just a way to feel immersed in Star Wars in a way that is impossible in other media, but it is often worth lingering over; on several occasions I leaned against a wall on a crowded street, to hear details about an interesting side quest.

Part of what makes this work is density Outlaw is. Unlike, say, Star field Or No Man’s Skyscience fiction games that feature giant, but mostly empty, planets to explore, Outlaw is more practical in terms of scale. There are a handful of worlds, and while each has some open expanses to traverse, most of your time is spent in cities, settlements, bases, and other detailed, bustling spaces. It doesn’t make Outlaw feel small, but rather more human in its scope. You don’t need to spend hours digging through nothingness to feel like you’ve seen what the game has to offer.

The problem is that what you’re doing at any given moment is largely the same as every other open-world game of the last few years. Missions involve either sneaking into an enemy base to steal something, or going somewhere to retrieve an item and return it. There’s a lot of running through vents, disabling cameras and alarms, and getting into shootouts with very stupid stormtroopers and criminal thugs. Sometimes you get a choice in how you approach a mission (you can sneak in the back door or go in guns blazing), but for the most part the action of each moment follows a familiar pattern.

Unlike a game like Tears of the Kingdomwhere you have the tools to approach missions in an inventive way, Outlawyou largely follow one of a few predetermined paths. Worse, the game often forces you to follow specific modes, including very tedious stealth sequences. It’s a structure found in many games of the genre, from Assassin’s Creed has Horizon has The Ghost of Tsushima; I had a lot of Star field flashbacks during my game.

How much you enjoy your time with Outlaw will depend on your desire to live this fantasy. The underground world of Star Wars has always had some of the most interesting stories and characters in the universe, and here’s a chance to experience it all firsthand. It involves tedious missions and conventional gameplay, which can be a tough sell if you’re already burned out on open-world games. But when you’re on edge infiltrating Jabba’s palace or taking in the sights and sounds of bustling Canto Bight, it’s easy to forget all that for a few blissful moments.

Star Wars Outlaws will launch on August 30 on PC, Xbox, and PS5.