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Star Wars Outlaws has been billed as the first-ever open world game set in the Star Wars universe; a claim that immediately puts developer Massive Entertainment on the back foot. Ignoring the fact Star Wars Galaxies did it first over two decades ago, it opens the game up to an extra layer of scrutiny: is it even open world in the first place? Control is taken away from you when hidden load screens bridge the transitions between a planet's surface and space. Is that open world, or secretly open zone? We'll leave the question to the gaming gods, but that potentially fragmented structure speaks to what Star Wars Outlaws is at its core: a game made with the best intentions that doesn't quite come together.

When it's left to revel in its Star Wars setting, as you set up a round of Sabaac in the corner of a backwater cantina, Outlaws is at its best. When it has to weave combat and stealth sequences in between its big-budget CGI cutscenes, Outlaws is at its worst. The faction-focused reputation system is stuck in the middle, leaving little impact on the world and its inhabitants. It's a game of mountainous highs and frustrating lows, forming an uneven experience that delights just as much as it disappoints.

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Set in between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, the Galactic Empire is at the heights of its power and the criminal underworld is thriving as multiple factions battle for respect and control. Main character Kay is stuck in the middle of it all, yet having grown up surrounded by scum and villainy, it's all become second nature. Double-crossing someone is no big deal to her, and neither is stealing a bounty reward intended for whoever gave her the job in the first place. Despite her charismatic personality and quick-witted nature, Kay — on the face of it — isn't a particularly nice person. Following a heist gone wrong, then, she's the perfect lead for a daring break-in behind enemy lines.

The opening failures provide the protagonist a chance to strike back, forming the crux of the main story: Kay must clear her name while putting together a team to burgle a vault far richer than the one from the introduction. To do so, she'll need to involve herself with the criminal clans of the underworld, either doing their bidding to gain an important team member or stringing them along right up until the point you can escape with a new crewmate and whatever they were after.

It's a structure you'd think would lend itself perfectly to an open-ended narrative with separate paths leading to a number of different endings. The reality is anything but, however. The reputation system feels so superficial, with very little in the way of story impact. While you will be presented with choices to make at select points in the plot, they're so unimportant that you'll never feel their effects outside of the immediate aftermath.

The plot always concludes the same way, leaving the slight gameplay consequences to pick up the slack. Except they never do, for all your decisions ever impact are the areas you can freely explore without causing a scene. You're alerted to zones you're not welcome in on the map, and all that means is you need to sneak past the guards at the entrance when you want to enter and stay out of sight once you're in. As the mechanic the entire game was said to be designed around in the lead-up to launch, it feels incredibly surface-level. There's no depth to get lost in, with easy ways of reversing your reputation even if a clan's leader swears to hunt you down in a main quest cutscene. It all quickly becomes a minor inconvenience rather than something you'll stop and take a few seconds to consider — it's as if Massive Entertainment sorted the basics and then forgot to build on them.

Away from faction squabbles, three open world planets and a fourth city map allow you to pillage for secrets, complete side quests, and source new equipment. Star Wars Outlaws moves away from the traditional Ubisoft formula, swapping map icons for a fog of war that hides locations and activities until you actually encounter them in-game. Exploration is a lot more rewarding as a result, with little puzzles handing out cosmetic items for Kay or resources to upgrade the blaster with.

When you're in town, you’ll have the chance to eavesdrop on conversations to learn of places worth visiting when you're back out on your speeder. NPCs will also approach you with odd jobs, and contracts can be accepted to improve your standing with the four clans. The main quest is a relatively short one compared to other Ubisoft epics, but getting lost in side content is what allows the experience to breathe a bit. While it runs into a bit of ludonarrative dissonance, where planning for the overarching heist should be of the utmost importance, the optional quests flesh out each planet and provide fun scenarios to complete. The latter can be straightforward quests, or others deemed of an "Expert" level where you'll source new abilities.

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Most of them apply to combat engagements, which a lot of the time begin as stealth sections gone wrong. Star Wars Outlaws places a surprisingly large emphasis on staying hidden during its main missions, especially when — much like the reputation system — it doesn't have the depth to support it. Kay is joined on her travels by an alien sidekick named Nix, and you can command it to distract guards, draw the attention of security cameras, and sabotage alarms. By doing so, you can either sneak by unseen or perform takedowns to eliminate enemies.

That's as far as it goes, though. Particularly in the early game, stealth sections are rendered an immediate failure if you're spotted, while quests later on demand you prevent the alarm from being raised. These objectives are far and away the most mind-numbing the game has to offer, but also the most baffling. Star Wars Outlaws has a heavy focus on stealth, but it doesn't let you pick up and hide bodies. You just leave them on the floor, hoping patrolling guards don't spot them.

This inevitably means a lot of stealthy attempts are quickly thrown out the window for a traditional blaster fight. Kay only ever has one; you'll upgrade it across a few basic skill trees and its appearance can also be customised. Not that those enhancements provide much in the way of complexity, however, as general combat encounters are almost just as shallow as stealth. Incredibly basic enemy AI means you'll never be challenged on the default difficulty level, and there's little in the way of variety as all you ever need do is take cover from time to time and accurately land your own shots. It never gets to a point where shoot-outs are downright bad, but just like the reputation system and stealth, the implementation is so basic that combat quickly becomes an afterthought. You're never challenged, never forced to approach a situation differently.

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Some variety is found during the bits in between. In the core quests at least, combat is often broken up by traversal puzzles that test your climbing abilities, from scurries through vents to more in-depth brain teasers that involve Nix. Kay has a grappling hook and the skills of an elite alpinist to see her scale up and climb through both the Galactic Empire's bases and syndicate hideouts, making traversal feel a little more varied and engaging. It's a neat addition to the overall gameplay loop that blends a few different systems into a single series of actions — a highlight of any skirmish into unknown territory.

On their travels, the duo of Kay and Nix also proves a highlight. The cutesy companion joins a long Star Wars lineage of side characters you'd love to own a plushie of, like R2D2, BB-8, and Chewbecca. It'll play around on the floor when you stand still, you can pet it, and it involves itself in cutscenes by simply being an adorable distraction. Kay, meanwhile, loves feigning ignorance and talking her way out of tight situations. The two personalities come together to form a small but wholesome squad you'll find yourself backing despite all the crimes they commit. Illegal but lovable is how we'll put it.

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Set aside some time to explore the city of Mirogana or the sandy wastelands of Tatooine, though, and it's all entirely about the latter. Star Wars Outlaws is oozing with all the vibes and references you'd want out of a canon entry in the universe, from mentions of film characters in text logs to faithful recreations of cantinas, shops, and the dusty sandscape of Tatooine. The game does a wonderful job of placing you in its various worlds and letting you roam free, discovering its secrets and bumping into the more off-kilter NPCs of the galaxy.

Utilising the Quality Mode that specifically targets 40 frames-per-second, it's said to be the best of both the visual and frame rate worlds, but it didn't really feel like it in a playthrough conducted during the early access phase. The game, on the whole, runs smoothly; noticeable frame rate drops were rare and the overall experience definitely felt a cut above a 30fps one.

However, the overall image quality takes a hit, with exceedingly grainy visuals that distract from a lot of otherwise picturesque scenes. It's in sharp contrast to the few CGI cutscenes helping to tell the story at key moments, which look absolutely superb. This extreme disparity in graphical quality leaves Star Wars Outlaws looking uneven overall — much like many of its overarching gameplay mechanics.

Conclusion

Star Wars Outlaws gets by with a refreshed approach to the Ubisoft open world blueprints, fun traversal, and the themes and setting of a galaxy nobody could hope to replicate — but only just. So many of its core pillars, from the lacklustre reputation system to the basic combat and stealth mechanics, feel incredibly surface-level. There's little depth to invest in, leaving the game a fun enough investment in the moment that'll prove forgettable further down the line. It's a perfectly fine video game, which feels like an anticlimax given the IP it's attached to.

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