I am, admittedly, a cynical guy when it comes to Star Wars. The original trilogy had Star Wars painted as this colorful canvas in the face of an oppressive regime, and characters like Han Solo were cool because they made their entire living skirting around Stormtroopers and the like. Sure, the heroes are the magic space wizards, but it was the overexposure of said space wizards that caused me to start rolling my eyes because every rock became a Skywalker by extension, every naughty thought a secret plot of the Sith or worse, an entirely new threat that should be taken just as seriously.
In that vein I’m quite excited for Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft’s own take on the Star Wars Universe, out August 30th. I won’t lie and say when I first heard Ubisoft would be making a Star Wars game I didn’t think it’d be a romp about the great jedi E’zio, on his quest to sneakily destroy the Sith that wiped out his family. Instead, Star Wars Outlaws looks like it’s giving me what I specifically want- a chance to live back in that colorful canvas.
Stay Smugglin
Playing as Kay, a smuggler aboard the Trailblazer, it’s nice to just be exploring the worlds of Star Wars. You’re in criminal slums, hearing Huttese on the speakers and learning about space gambling and being marked for death- it’s a good time all around.
In the Star Wars Outlaws levels we were shown, you can definitely see the bits of Ubisoft expertise showing. In one level, Kay is infiltrating an Imperial outpost, extracting precious cargo. Her sidekick, the marketable Nix can distract guards while she goes in for some triple-A stealth takedowns. You’re crouching around corners and scanning for enemies. It’s par for the course for a game that lets you stealth your way through it, even more so when it’s made by Ubisoft.
But then the alarm rings and you’re fighting Stormtroopers. This is the game’s make-or-break point. and to its credit it does a good job of selling the kind of swashbuckler Kay is. Instead of gear scores and loot colors Kay has a single multi-purpose blaster- Blaster module for shooting things, Ion module for puzzle solving and dealing with shields or droids and a stun shot on cooldown for removing problems.
It helps because you’re not even just locked to that. Need more kick? Pick up a blaster off the ground. It’s stronger and functions differently from your own, and the idea of picking a gun off the floor and using it is part of that smuggler fantasy. Even better when the game has a sort of Deadeye Mode, letting you chain kills in the kind of cool way you’d imagine a space outlaw would.
Get In The Trailblazer
It helps that that isn’t even the only type of combat in Star Wars Outlaws. The game also features dogfighting segments, where you’ll fight off TIE Fighters and the like across Space battlefields. It’s an integral part of the outlaw fantasy- you can’t be a cool space rogue without having an equally cool ship, and it has to do more than just sit in the background when you talk.
You can tell it’s made by people who like dogfighting in games too because it even has the little tracker for leading your shots. While the segment we were shown was fairly simple, the catch of what appears to be a quick dodge button for your ship makes me hopeful that later on the Trailblazer will have more to do outside of steering and shooting.
Star Wars Outlaws Looks Like It’s Just A Fun World To Be In
I genuinely think that one of Star Wars Outlaws biggest strengths will be the strength of its world. While I’m definitely not an acolyte of every piece of non-movie media it’s nice how much of Star Wars Outlaws feels new, but something that can exist in the setting. In all the gameplay we’ve seen it’s more plausible to me that gangs and space clans are at war with each other and roping in random smugglers than somehow getting involved in another Sith succession struggle.
There’s more to the game we haven’t seen yet, I’m sure- but as a first showing it feels like Star Wars Outlaws is hitting a lot of the right notes to pull in Star Wars fans. It looks like a genuinely interesting entry into a colorful setting, I mean, just having one of your crew be a sassy Battle Droid is already cool enough- but it looks like Star Wars Outlaws is interested in using its setting more than just paying tribute to the original movies.
