The exact kind of fun I hoped for

There’s really something to be said for staring down the barrel of a stormtrooper’s grenade launcher, as you dip and dive from cover to cover. The pew pew pew of missed shots, narrow openings and reloading weapons feels equal parts invigorating and nostalgic. This is what many of you grew up with. This is adrenaline personified. This is what Star Wars means.

As such a beloved property, the collective grip that Star Wars has on fans means that breaking new ground can feel risky. Vocal dissent from the worst part of the internet is not uncommon in this community, and so developing an open world game with a female protagonist that largely tries not to get too involved in the conflict of Jedi vs. Sith… It could have gone either way.

As a fan of both Star Wars and open-world games, I knew I had a pretty strong chance of enjoying Star Wars Outlaws. I had a great time with the preview builds, I was fascinated by the worldbuilding, and I’ve honestly spent more time cuddling with a Nix plush than I’ve had real human contact over the last few weeks.

My expectations were firmly up in orbit, hovering somewhere between the brightness of Tatooine’s two moons and the thrill of a perfectly executed blaster shot from the hip. What I didn’t expect, however, was for the game to exceed even those expectations.

Star Wars Outlaws tells the story of Kay Vess, a two-bit scoundrel from Canto Bight who finds herself in some serious hot water when a job goes downhill, fast. With a deathmark on her name and nowhere in the galaxy to safely hide, she and her merqaal companion Nix team up with a slew of unexpected allies in an Ocean’s Eleven-esque heist that could change all of their lives.

And I cannot stress this enough: it’s some of the most fun I’ve had in a game all year.

Read: Star Wars Outlaws interview: Freaks, found family, and A Fistful of Dollars

Emotional pay-off

They say that winning is the friends you make along the way, but not since Mass Effect 2 have I felt that sense of crew accumulation and found family. Kay is an enigmatic character who, sure, doesn’t always make it easy for her friends to trust her. But once she’s on your side, she’ll stay there – and boy can she accumulate a rag-tag bunch of miscreants.

Whether it’s her relationship with Nix (who is far and away the best character in the entire game, even when I take hot droid ND-5 into account), or it’s the newfound sense of loyalty and vulnerability that she discovers with the wider heist crew, Kay is a vehicle for growth – both for the player, and for the team.

It could’ve easily felt like drudgery to be traipsing all over the universe, seeking out shadowy figures who inevitably want you to scratch their back before they scratch yours. It could also very easily have felt ill-won to have the crew’s relationships suddenly thriving without all that effort. Star Wars Outlaws straddles that line well, with enough connection and pay-off to make the questing seem engaging, and the relationships organic.

I didn’t expect the game to delve so keenly into the found family versus real family trope, with flashback snippets demonstrating exactly why Kay has such a chip on her shoulder when it comes to relying on anyone other than herself. But that conversation is handled with a degree of nuance that was unexpected, even if some of the supporting characters could’ve been fleshed out more.

In a world where scoundrel is as scoundrel does, where syndicates and crime lords betray and backstab willy-nilly, it’s all the more welcome when someone you didn’t expect to have your back winds up coming through – and all the more tense when it’s the other way around.

And while Kay and Nix really do form a symbiotic core that keeps the heist crew together, seeing the friendships and interactions between the other members helps make it feel like much more of a team effort. Natural conversation partners emerge – the droidsmith and the droid, the explosives expert and… well actually, anyone who doesn’t want to get blown to smithereens.

And yes, I will take one more minute to sing out the praises of the hot droid, ND-5. At the risk of putting such a sentence onto the internet, the GamesHub team was unanimous: it’s really great when he’s being a little bit mean to you. And he’s almost always a little bit mean to you.

World-building? Nah, this is universe-building

Possibly the most striking thing about Star Wars Outlaws is just how expansive it really does feel. The open-world was a new, potentially risky endeavour – there have definitely been games that have claimed the descriptor before yet didn’t quite live up to the mark, but there was no disappointment on that front here.

Not only are there countless quests, intel hunts, mini-games, contracts, experts, and more, but there’s a whole lot of space to explore too. With “only” four orbits – Toshara, Kijimi, Akiva and Tatooine – you’d be forgiven for thinking the world may feel somewhat limited. Instead, the expanse of star-dotted space feels open, like a yawning mouth of pirates, debris and planets.

Each of the visitable planets has its own distinct biome and flavour (which we were very fortunate to hear about in advance at a preview event), and it helps take your mind off the fact that you’re likely once again heading into one compound or another to piss off one faction or another. Environmentally, thematically and practically, it never feels as tired as it would have every right to feel.

That’s not to say it doesn’t still have repetition. From the Uncharted-like platformer routines through to a steady trickle of vents that Kay clambers through, we’re seeing a lot of the same. But there’s enough of what’s different that it feels balanced out.

From snow-covered buildings in Kijimi to the steady pitter-patter of rainfall in Akiva, the landscape shifts just enough to keep you on your toes – though it stops short of inflicting frostbite or trench foot, thankfully.

Read: Massive Entertainment used film techniques to craft Star Wars Outlaws

Growth in a new form

One aspect that truly does feel fresh about Star Wars Outlaws is the Expert system of levelling up. At no point do you ever see a number to signify Kay’s growth, nor do you see progress bars of XP rise over the course of the game. Instead, you are asked to locate and grow alongside Experts in chosen fields.

From mercenaries with heavy artillery through to slicing experts that can help you hack into more advanced systems, these Experts don’t require payment in the form of credits – they simply have tasks that you must achieve in your regular gameplay that unlock further abilities.

This could be as simple as landing a headshot 15 times, getting a perfect score on the lockpicking mini-game three times, or even simply making Nix jealous by petting another creature (which I won’t lie, did wound me to do).

Again, this system helps foster a growth trajectory that feels organic and mindful, rather than haphazard. It makes sense from a narrative perspective as much as it does a practical level, and for that I would easily mark it as one of the best inclusions.

A smattering of Star Wars Outlaws mini-games

It should be noted that for a huge, colourful open world game, there sure are a bunch of mini-games hidden within Star Wars Outlaws. Some are more obvious – the lockpicking mechanic is one of the very first elements you’ll encounter, as it asks you to match the rhythm of a clicking safe with your controller, and the slicing mechanic asks you to complete a line of code by choosing the right numbers in the right order.

Others, you have to stumble across on your own, like the food mini-games you can find at each spaceport’s handy little droid-operated restaurants. Featuring a selection of quicktime events, Kay and Nix will indulge in a spot of a new treat to eat, which unlocks a new ability or talent for Nix to utilise on your next adventures.

As someone who’s not super into QTEs as a general rule, I didn’t initially gravitate towards them, but the developers knew what they were doing – each interaction is so unbelievably adorable that they’re impossible to resist.

Once you’re satiated, sliced and lockpicked to oblivion, there comes the one mini-game that we always knew would merit discussion: sabacc. From lowly cantina tables to the highest of high rollers, it gave me great pleasure every time a new sabacc questline popped up – to the point where I am seriously contemplating purchasing my own real-life set.

Roaming around for roaming’s sake

The biggest signal for how much I genuinely enjoyed Star Wars Outlaws is how fervently I’m already kicking my feet in anticipation of playing more. With so many different opportunities and challenges you can face, the world is one that I’m happy to just let myself live in.

There are still tiny gripes, as there are with pretty much every game – at one point a glitch meant my enemies went unintentionally invisible for a minute or so, which admittedly did raise the stakes considerably. A lot of the vent environments feel identical, and if you look exclusively at the core gameplay loop on paper, I can see why it’d feel repetitive. Nevertheless, it had a grip that kept me well and truly entertained, and that’s all I want out of a Star Wars game.

Not to go too inside baseball, but when you’re reviewing a sizeable game like this, a lot of your free time goes into making sure you’ve uncovered every rock and stone. While I’m incredibly conscious of the privilege, for some games, this can feel almost like a chore.

For Star Wars Outlaws, I felt genuine excitement every time I booted up the console. It’s not perfect, but neither are the scoundrels that the story relies upon. Where some might look at a lack of polish and feel wanting, I feel comfortable.

Returning to this universe every day for the past week was something I felt eager to do, not just obliged in any kind of way. What Massive Entertainment have achieved is genuinely impressive.

Maybe next playthrough I’ll give the Pyke Syndicate more of a chance (sorry to Gorak, who truly loathed me by the end). Maybe I’ll opt for brute force and heavy artillery rather than the comfort blanket of a stealthier approach. Maybe I’ll work harder at not careening my speeder headfirst into an unexpected rock in the middle of Tatooine – though in fairness, they really do sneak up on you.

In The Empire Strikes Back, Han Solo says the iconic line, “Never tell me the odds.” In a year where we’ve all been waiting for a standout game to rise up, I feel like – at least for now, and without anyone saying it out loud – Star Wars Outlaws has beaten the odds.

Four-and-a-half stars: ★★★★½

Star Wars Outlaws
Platform(s): PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows
Developer: Massive Entertainment
Publisher: Ubisoft
Release Date: 30 August 2024

_{A code for Star Wars Outlaws was provided by the publisher and played for the purposes of this review. GamesHub reviews were previously rated on a five-point scale. As of 29 July 2024, they have been rated on a ten-point scale.}