Fun open-world adventure with weaknesses

With Star Wars Outlaws, one of the most eagerly awaited games of 2024 is finally here. The adventure of the young criminal Kay Vess takes place between Episode 5 and Episode 6 and takes you into an open game world full of fan references. We took a closer look at it in the test.

Star Wars Outlaws at a glance

69,99 €

79,99 €

This item will be released on August 30, 2024. Pre-order now.

Star Wars Outlaws Review: Exciting story that slowly picks up speed

Star Wars Outlaws takes place shortly after the rebels have lost the Battle of Hoth and the Empire has launched a major attack. Fans of the series who are now hoping for a clash with Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader and co. will quickly be brought back down to earth. But don’t worry: Outlaws is full of allusions, well-known characters and references that will always make fans smile.

In the game, you take on the role of the young thief Kay Vess, whose life is turned upside down when her first big assignment goes completely wrong. Together with her companion, the alien dog axolotl-something Nix, Kay has to flee her home. In a stolen spaceship belonging to the Star Wars leader of the Zerek Besh syndicate, Sliro, who of course is not particularly happy about this.

With Sliro and his cartel breathing down your neck, you must now be on your own and make a name for yourself in the underworld. The three factions Crimson Dawn, the Hutt Cartel and the Pyke Syndicate (a fourth faction will be added later) are vying for your favor.

It takes a while for the Outlaws story to get going. But once the spark is ignited, the open-world adventure turns out to be exciting and well-staged popcorn action, which gains momentum thanks to its hero duo. It takes around 18 hours to complete the main story, which is rather manageable for a Ubisoft game. But with side quests, mini-games, etc., there are many more hours to add.

The reputation of the factions

Most of the time in Star Wars Outlaws is spent completing missions for the various syndicates that are secretly working against each other. The game relies on a simple but coherent reputation system.

You complete a mission for Crimson Dawn in which you have to infiltrate the territory of the Pyke Syndicate? Your reputation with the Crimsons increases accordingly, which of course the Pykes don’t like at all.

Depending on which factions you work for, your reputation increases. This not only allows you to move freely within the factions’ territories, but also gives you access to special bonuses such as armor sets or useful talismans that improve your stats. However, if you fall out with a faction, it will become hostile to you, which can even remove fast travel points from the map.

This sounds pretty familiar

From a gameplay perspective, Ubisoft is taking the path of least resistance with Star Wars Outlaws, as the adventure lacks any truly fresh game mechanics. There are climbing sections complete with grappling hooks that could have come straight from Tomb Raider. A bit of hacking here, a bit of lock picking there.

Firefights in the typical third-person shooter style including tactical reloading from Gears of War, a Dead Eye mode from Red Dead Redemption 2 or glider races in the open game world. In combination with the mission design and the game world, everything in Outlaws seems like you’ve seen it before in (very) similar form. And that’s actually the case, because the title lacks a lot of fresh ideas.

That’s all fine and certainly entertaining, but in the long run Star Wars Outlaws lacks the really fresh ideas and unique selling points to really keep you glued to the screen. If it weren’t for the wonderfully atmospheric Star Wars setting, we’d be dealing with an average open-world action game. But for fans in particular, the title offers plenty of coherent trappings behind its core to keep you hooked.

A large part of the gameplay consists of stealth, as Kay’s relatively short health bar is depleted after just a few hits. Accordingly, you should move quietly and carefully through the area in order to take out enemies silently with melee attacks.

Luckily, the level design plays along here. Almost all areas offer multiple paths and plenty of hiding places to progress unseen.

Nothing comes from nothing

A central role in Star Wars Outlaws is played by your cuddly alien pet Nix, who can do much more than just do little tricks. The little guy can squeeze through narrow shafts and open a locked door for you, distract enemies, detonate explosive barrels from a distance and much more.

At the push of a button, Kay switches to an overview mode in which targets are highlighted for Nix. With another push of a button, your companion sets off to cause chaos. Especially since Nix is ​​able to use pulse waves to visually highlight nearby enemies. The little guy is pretty useful. And cute. Extremely cute.

But Kay isn’t helpless either. Throughout the game you’ll be using a blaster, which you can improve with various upgrades, for example to cause more damage or to open electric gates thanks to the ion mod. For a short time you can also pick up weapons that enemies have dropped. But only until their magazine is empty.

Star Wars Outlaws does not offer a skill tree for abilities. However, there is another system that is much more motivating: you unlock upgrades for completing various challenges that increase your life energy or open up new opportunities for you. However, you first have to unlock the individual experts in side missions that the challenges bring with them.

The technology

From a technical point of view, Star Wars Outlaws runs extremely choppy, especially on the PC. Despite a powerful gaming PC (AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D, RTX 4080 Super, 64 GB RAM), the frame rate fluctuates considerably in 4K resolution.

The ray tracing options in particular, including environmental effects, lighting and much more, cost a lot of performance. While I easily achieve over 120 FPS in quieter open-world areas without ray tracing, the performance with RTX activated – especially with direct illumination – drops to less than half (around 40-60 FPS).

It is recommended to deactivate ray tracing if possible, as the graphical improvements are barely noticeable. In addition, some low-resolution and sometimes extremely slow-loading textures spoil the impression.

Regardless of this, Star Wars Outlaws is a double-edged sword graphically. At times, the adventure scores with breathtaking scenery and skilfully captures the rusty, shabby Star Wars look of cities. On the other hand, the game world seems too lifeless and pale in places, with the character models and their wooden facial animations in particular falling short.

There is nothing to complain about the soundtrack, however, which impresses with great German voice actors, powerful sound effects and an atmospheric, driving soundtrack.

Star Wars Outlaws Review: Conclusion

Star Wars Outlaws is a good game. Period. The new Ubisoft game is definitely not the total failure that some people expected after the mixed Skull & Bones.

Unfortunately, it’s not a real highlight that you absolutely have to play. But don’t be fooled: apart from a few minor bugs and graphic errors, Outlaws doesn’t have any serious flaws. The gameplay is varied and motivating, the scenery is sometimes breathtaking and the mix of stealth, fighting and exploration works excellently.

It’s just that you’ve seen it all before somewhere. But not in the Star Wars universe. The bottom line is that this is an entertaining open-world action game that lacks original ideas. How much that bothers you depends on how much you care about George Lucas’ universe.

69,99 €

79,99 €

This item will be released on August 30, 2024. Pre-order now.