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Star Wars enters the open world view game genre with “Star Wars: Outlaws,” and despite an overall solid game, little new ground is broken…it’s just wrapped up in a pretty Star Wars package.
Cutting to the chase, this game is essentially the Star Wars equivalent of the Red Dead Redemption games, complete with a “Wanted system” and a version of Dead Eye. Since you’re playing as a thief, you’re rewarded for bad behavior as you plunder unsuspecting characters’ hidden treasures and cheat your way to victory playing cards. The most unique feature that the game introduces is the faction reputation system. You’re constantly working with or against one of the four criminal syndicates, double-crossing them whenever it works to your advantage. (Provided you don’t mind losing too much favor with one group and you end up finding guns drawn on you when you get near their territories.) Meanwhile, dealing with the Empire is much more straight forward and crossing them means more elaborate means are needed to get them to back off. The biggest complaint about the Wanted system is that it’s never clear how much trouble you’re in.
The plot is actually pretty simple, and after some stuff goes sideways, you’ll find yourself tasked with putting together a crew for one massive heist. The basic storyline is decent, but most of the crew never really adds all that much meat to it. Once you add them to the team, they’re mostly just hanging out in the background. It’s really only the connection between your character of Kay and the droid ND-5 that adds any depth to game. And while some of the more important NPCs add some flavor to the mix, most of the other characters you encounter are just kind of there to fill out the world like background extras.
The gameplay is fun enough, but there’s a bit of a learning curve. Learning to us Nix initially is confusing, and the game doesn’t really give you much of a tutorial on what the different commands do and how to use them. Other common tasks like using your data spike to picks locks and slicing into computer terminals are just kind of thrown at you and take a bit of trial and error to figure out exactly how to properly pull them off. At least on the main map, there’s a solid fast-travel system, and that even lets you fast travel straight to other planets instead of having to go through the whole space travel sequence.
While in enemy territory or in the middle of a quest, you’re mostly at the mercy of the auto-save feature and are unable to save manually. This can lead to some occasionally having to start over from scratch after spending a ton of time slowly sneaking around only to slip up and either get kicked out or killed and it’s back to square one. The game is heavily stealth-based, and not the “Batman Arkham” or “Spider-Man” fun kind of stealth with flash take-downs and cool gadgets. It’s mostly distraction and trying to sneak past enemies or taking them out and hoping nobody sees you. Another odd choice is that while you can take weapons dropped by your enemies, once you climb a ladder or duck into a vent or jump on your speeder, you’re forced to drop the weapon. As far as space battles go, it just feels like there’s something missing, even after upgrading your ship. Regular combat is not so great. A lot of blasting your enemies and taking a few hits yourself while trying to outlast them. The Adrenaline Rush does help even the odds, but the targeting leaves a lot to be desired.
Overall, “Star Wars: Outlaws” takes a lot from other open world games and adds a Star Wars twists the fans will find immersive. The game has a learning curve, but once you get the basics down and learn some new skills, it’s much easier to navigate. One-dimensional NPCs and glitched quests can really kill the mood, but the main plot does deliver a good story in the end.
*** out of *****
