With the Change 2 nonetheless fairly recent, the system has already proven it might deal with some visually gorgeous video games. Though we’re nonetheless within the early days of the console/handheld, and even when a sport is formidable, it wouldn’t be the primary time a port has had a bumpy transition. Happily, Star Wars Outlaws is just not one in every of these examples and provides hope for the way forward for the system.
Star Wars Outlaws is about within the time interval between The Empire Strikes Again and Return of the Jedi. You play as Kay Vess, a rookie Scoundrel who needs to make a reputation for herself. Joined by her little fuzzy creature-in-crime Nix, Kay instantly bites off greater than she will chew, getting frolicked to dry, stealing a ship from a criminal offense boss, and having to juggle loyalties between syndicates. To get out alive, Kay is roped into pulling an enormous heist in hopes of making an attempt to repay the bounty on her head. With the assistance of the surprisingly burly commando droid ND-5, Kay might want to put a crew collectively, sending you across the shadier elements of the galaxy.
You get to expertise a couple of of the Star Wars’ extra ruthless planets and the house surrounding them, with a lot of the motion going down as a third-person stealth/shooter Ubisoft Open World sport, as you sneak round Imperial bases and smuggler hideouts. You additionally get to take your sport to outer house within the Trailblazer, your private home and base of operations for Kay and her crew.
The tough a part of Outlaws for me was having to recollect Kay is supposed to be a correct outlaw. The choices you must make for Kay aren’t often the ‘good’ or ‘nasty’ decisions, however variations of whether or not you’ll cross somebody or not for the sake of extra credit, or the place you need your popularity to go. Whilst you would possibly assist alongside the way in which, you’re additionally typically seeking to fill your coffers and stroll the tightrope of various loyalties. Initially it may be a tough resolution as to which syndicate to aspect with, as being in poor standing with any one in every of them makes it tougher (or outright lethal) so that you can journey by their areas. Not solely does it make it tougher to do every other jobs by their turf, but when your title is mud, it’s even tougher to win your manner again into their good graces when their jobs are off the desk too.
It seems when you’ve had a bit extra time to run a couple of jobs and earn some credit, you’ll be able to mitigate this by shopping for and buying and selling in beneficial information to whichever syndicate you need to enhance your standing with. It doesn’t imply it’s a cakewalk if you wish to maintain good or glorious standing as typically as attainable, with greater story missions typically boosting your popularity with one get together and a much bigger hit to a different. You get to no less than select your poison after which work your manner again from there.
The Change didn’t get a lot in the way in which of the more moderen Ubisoft open world video games. Outlaws strikes on from a few of the older open world trappings, however it might nonetheless get a bit weighed down by what they couldn’t let go of. You not need to climb towers/lookouts to disclose extra of the map space; now it’s extra pure exploration of the world. Upgrades, nevertheless, are nonetheless slowed down with having to scour the worlds to grind for assets. It by no means feels an excessive amount of, no less than, both by simply accumulating something in your path or with the ability to buy some assets; you’ll be able to nonetheless eke out a residing within the Outer Rim.
Because the sport initially got here out on different platforms, there’s been a while for adjustments alongside the way in which in response to participant suggestions. For those who performed on a kind of different platforms round launch, you might have seen these adjustments, now right here from the beginning to your profit. Stealth is extra forgiving in comparison with the preliminary launch, not immediately failing a mission except there’s a selected motive. I perceive why folks didn’t prefer it, though realizing you’ll be able to shoot your manner out of the state of affairs diminishes a few of the pressure if you’re meant to be stealthy.
Whereas every planet has its personal central metropolis, there’s loads of time on Kay’s speeder bike as you pace across the surrounding areas too. The speeder bike might be enjoyable to zoom throughout the planets’ surrounding areas. As you choose up extra jobs for the syndicates, it helps you develop into fairly accustomed to the broader world and places, particularly as a few of the extra generic ‘take this from level A to level B’ or ‘steal or plant one thing right here’ can are likely to occur on the similar spots.
As anticipated with an open world sport, there are a couple of aspect actions to assist earn some additional credit. A lot of the actions take the type of house playing. There’s Fathier racing, Sabacc, and an area follow-the-card sport. All are completely different sufficient, and Sabacc is tied to one of many extra ‘DLC’ missions that may require you to concentrate and discover ways to play. It’s also possible to hop on an arcade sport should you simply need to goal for some excessive scores. If you wish to get distracted selecting up requests and jobs, you might be busy for a lot of hours past the story. As at all times with large concerned open world video games, I finally bought to a degree the place I needed to cease myself from getting distracted by these. Happily, the principle story is fairly enjoyable because it immerses you within the Star Wars universe; it’s as much as you the way far off the trail you need to discover.
It’s nonetheless early days with what the Change 2 is able to when dealing with ports of extra recent-gen video games. Video games like Cyberpunk have had years of labor, together with years of repairs to get to such a excessive level. Outlaws appears and runs higher than most initially anticipated. It’s nice to see corporations making the trouble to squeeze essentially the most out of the {hardware}. The sport usually runs at 30 FPS; it by no means felt prefer it actually dipped typically.
I had initially written about some visible points that have been round at launch. The largest being Kay’s hair being distractingly shimmery, and numerous metallic parts have been giving off an ethereal sparkle and shimmer. In October 2025, there have been a couple of patches, and there was a bump up in texture high quality, and any distracting shimmer or glowing has decreased.
Hell, the crew even managed to get the sport’s file measurement below 20GB, which is wild that it was below 30GB within the first place! Whereas it could possibly be one thing additional addressed by patches to return, there does really feel like pop-in has develop into extra noticeable in locations. They’re typically at occasions the place it doesn’t matter; possibly it’s a trade-off at the moment for the elevated element. Regardless, the sport appears nice and has continued to to date. It offers me hope for different Ubisoft video games on the way in which, like Murderer’s Creed Shadows.
The sport sounds unmistakably Star Wars, with out leaning into the well-known symphonic film rating. As a substitute, it options grooving Cantina tunes, hitting up the jukebox every time there may be one to see what the Galaxy has to supply. It nonetheless offers that Star Wars really feel, though it feels a bit extra like The Mandalorian than the John Williams hits. It ought to be no shock that the opposite sounds inside this universe are authentically Star Wars too, with no scarcity of Gonks and different droids chirping and beeping amidst the blaster fireplace and engine roars.
Star Wars Outlaws is a wild house journey. It seems like part of the Star Wars universe versus simply making an attempt to shoehorn Star Wars right into a mismatching sport. For those who get overloaded on large open-world video games, that’s nonetheless a danger right here, though ending the sport isn’t depending on getting too slowed down both. Star Wars Outlaws is one other nice sport to point out off what the Change 2 can do when devs get the chance to make it work for the {hardware}.
Score: 4.5/5
