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I'll admit, I had my reservations about Star Wars Outlaws in months and weeks leading to launch. Massive Entertainment's space scoundrel simulator didn't really hit all the right notes for me, especially close to release when some of the gameplay footage didn't look as polished as one would hoped it would be so close to release.
I was even more sceptical when the initial reviews started to flood in, with only 68 per cent of critics recommending Star Wars Outlaws, which is on the low side for such a massive release. So yeah, I had a lot of concerns going into this one and unfortunately, those concerns were justified - Star Wars Outlaws is not that bullseye video game release that Ubisoft desperately needs.
Star Wars Outlaws simply feels basic in so many ways - from its level design, combat, platforming, characters and story - you'll always have this feeling that you've already seen everything Star Wars Outlaws offers in other, much better games.
You'll constantly find yourself squeezing through the same ventilation shaft to get to the room that feels like the one you've already visited. Nix, your cute little companion will be repeating the same tricks over and over again and when your stealth tactics eventually break, you'll be introduced to the most basic set of combat mechanics and shooting that is only serviceable at best. Add an absolutely atrocious AI, and there's your recipe for a very underwhelming combat experience overall.
I wasn't impressed by the game's Reputation system, progress blocking and "You're leaving mission area" messages either. A lot of the features in Star Wars Outlaws feel undercooked in a way like Massive needed more time to properly implement something more meaningful that would elevate the mediocre gameplay loop.
Everything good in Star Wars Outlaws is connected to its stunning open world that every Star Wars fan will fall in love with. It's truly the highlight of the game with so many gorgeous locations, from verdant and lush forests to small, moody, neon-lit bars where you can take on various side gigs.
Visually, Star Wars Outlaws is a spectacle with highly detailed and beautifully lit environments thanks to the implementation of path tracing though I have a few criticisms here too.
The denoiser that is supposed to clean up the image doesn't work well so I was constantly seeing a lot of ghosting, noise and imperfections. Some of these are a product of the game's upscalers, which can make the image look very underwhelming at times.
I tried messing around with the resolution and other settings to make Star Wars Outlaws look a little bit sharper and found that using Nvidia Super Resolution to set the game to 4K while setting the DLSS to Balanced or Performance resulted in the best image quality/performance ratio.
Star Wars Outlaws sounds as good as it looks. The soundtrack is absolutely exceptional with memorable tracks that will at times make you feel you're actually having your own bit of Star Wars adventure in the huge Galaxy far, far away.
CONCLUSION
On paper, Star Wars Outlaws has all the necessary elements to be a great open-world action-adventure but sadly, these elements never come together in a way that would create an engaging gameplay experience.
It's a shame as Massive have created a stunning world filled with gorgeous locations to explore. But if you really like games like Uncharted and the Star Wars franchise is close to your heart, I can recommend Star Wars Outlaws to some degree. Get it at a discount or subscribe to Ubisoft+ service for a month to try it out. Who knows, you may end up liking it much more than I have.
The Good
Nix is a great companion- Strong visual presentation
- Gorgeous world that hits all the right Star Wars tones
- Interesting lockpicking mechanic
The Bad
Underwhelming story- Poor combat and gameplay
- Stealth isn't fun
- Performance could be better
- Terrible AI
