It is Could 4th, Star Wars Day. Or, as we confer with it at Nintendo Life Towers, Oh-god-Jim’s-going-to-bang-on-about-Star-Wars-again Day.
Heh, it is true, I’m a fiend for all issues from a Galaxy Far, Far Away, and, if I am being trustworthy, that has generally meant that I am a bit of extra eager to see the Gentle Aspect than embrace the extra reasonable Darkness. However my rambling this 12 months is not an ‘Assault of the Clones is Good, Truly’ scorching take, my pricey Younglings. As an alternative, I am about to hit you with some chilly, arduous details. The sort of details which can be based alone perspective, after all.
So, right here it’s: Star Wars Outlaws is likely one of the Swap 2’s finest launch-year signings, and a 2025 launch will give the Ubisoft open-world journey the second likelihood it so rightfully deserves.
Okay, okay, put your blasters away for only a second and let’s do some clarifying. Swap 2 goes to be residence to some belters in its first 12 months. Placing the first-party line-up apart for a second, behemoth ports like Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Road Fighter 6 are going to present large waves of individuals the possibility to expertise (or re-experience) console classics from the final 5 years, and that is great!
However it was Outlaws’ temporary, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo in one of many Swap 2 Direct’s sizzle reels that elicited the most important cheer from me. Why? As a result of, as nice as it’s to see the entire aforementioned titles make the leap to a brand new viewers, few deserve a second shot as a lot as Outlaws.
Should you utterly missed the launch of Star Wars Outlaws, I would not blame you. This one arrived again in August 2024, from Huge Leisure and Ubisoft. Set between Empire Strikes Again and Return of the Jedi, it follows outlaw Kay Vess on her journey by means of the galaxy’s underworld after a run-in with a big-time crime boss sends issues squiffy.
Whereas the primary quest gives a whistle-stop tour of some acquainted (and not-so-familiar) locales, the sport is extra within the aspect content material, with bonus missions, Sabacc tables, and probabilities to enhance/wreck your fame with the underworld’s head honchos ready round each nook.
If, after studying all of that, you thought to your self, “Sure, it is an Ubisoft open-world sport. I’ve performed that one earlier than,” you would not be utterly flawed. I’ll admit, Star Wars Outlaws brings little in the best way of originality to the desk, and its gameplay is about as distinctive because the outcomes of the Clone military’s college picture day. Whereas I discovered loads to love underneath the floor, this Drive Dyad of taking part in issues too secure and being a Ubisoft joint meant that the Outlaws discourse was off to the (pod-)races lengthy earlier than launch.
Cracks began to point out from the second Ubisoft slapped the “first open-world Star Wars sport” label on it. If there’s one fandom you do not wish to check, it is the Star Wars clan, and cries alongside the strains of “Pffft, these guys do not even know concerning the early 2000s PC MMORPG Star Wars Galaxies, what losers!!” have been fast to sully the sport’s fame earlier than it had even fired up its engines.
Drained conversations about whether or not the sport’s inter-planetary loading screens made it actually open-world or simply open-zone ensued (a subject I discover about as fascinating as a Gungan TED Discuss), accompanied by legit criticism of Ubisoft’s advertising and marketing and low cost practices, as the corporate continued to instigate layoffs and deem video games ‘business failures’ earlier than they got an opportunity to breathe.
Not the most effective pre-launch image, then. On launch, issues have been a bit of extra optimistic however remained undoubtedly combined, and, identical to clockwork, Ubisoft was fast to notice how gross sales had “underperformed expectations” in its subsequent six-month monetary report. Sigh.
The Drive was not robust with this one, however, being the Star Wars sicko that I’m, I selected to select it up on PS5 all the identical. I am conscious that the sport had undergone some snips to its stealth sequences earlier than I got here to it, and quite a lot of bugs had apparently been blasted away. However, anticipating a pile of poodoo, I used to be stunned by simply how a lot I used to be on board with it at each flip.
On the one hand, sure, the gameplay is much from unique and the plot is nothing to write down residence about, however within the robotic different hand, it has every little thing I ever needed from an open-world Star Wars sport.
The aspect quests are different, giving me lots to do when the primary path plodding from A to B will get an excessive amount of, and navigating between them lets me dwell out my childhood dream of hopping on a speeder and making mud tracks underneath the 2 suns. Kay Vess is each bit the sort of Han Solo-esque ‘couldn’t-give-two-Siths’ hero you need from a non-Jedi-focused narrative (and Nix is the last word “Aw, I would like one” alien pup companion), and each locale is filled with sufficient nods and references that I discovered myself in a semi-permanent state of that one DiCaprio-pointing-at-the-TV meme.
However it wasn’t any of this that saved me coming again for extra. The factor that caught with me essentially the most is that Outlaws completely nails the Star Wars vibe. Like Spider-Man or Breath of the Wild, that is a kind of video games the place it is greater than sufficient to move out right into a mission-less space and simply be.
My playtime was shortly over the How Lengthy To Beat 18.5-hour mark, with lower than half of the primary quests underneath my belt. I wasn’t fast-travelling, I wasn’t speeding to hit the following story beat, and I wasn’t going into something that did not curiosity me. Some evenings, a few fingers of Sabacc and a stroll round Tatooine was all I wanted.
Look, numerous the criticisms levelled at Outlaws at launch have been greater than affordable, however I can not assist however assume that the pre-launch chatter and ‘business failure’ standing meant that this one ended up in entrance of far fewer followers than it deserved.
The Swap 2 launch schedule seems set to maintain us greater than well-fed all through 2025, however I do know the place my consideration will lie as soon as September 4th rolls round. Should you’re a Star Wars fan for whom Outlaws fell by the wayside final 12 months and you have got your Swap 2 locked in, you are in for a deal with.
Have you ever already sampled Star Wars Outlaws? Will you be choosing it up on Swap 2? Use your Jedi thoughts tips within the feedback and let me know.
Jim got here to Nintendo Life in 2022 and, regardless of his insistence that The Minish Cap is the most effective Zelda sport and his unwavering love for the Star Wars prequels (sure, actually), he has continued to write down information and options on the positioning ever since.
