Breathtaking but uneven capriol of a crime syndicate

From then on, the game’s main plot follows a familiar formula from heist movies: Kay must traverse the various areas – including Skywalker’s legendary home planet, Tatooine – to assemble a crew and pull off the job of a lifetime.

But it’s everything surrounding this main quest that makes up the real meat of the game. Your journal of tasks, side jobs, rumors, and opportunities is constantly filled as you explore, so if you’re not in a rush to follow the narrative, you can spend hours just being a scumbag, taking on jobs from the local mafia boss, infiltrating Imperial checkpoints and stealing data, delivering contraband on your speeder, or fleece the locals at the surprisingly addictive poker-like card game Kessel Sabaac. It’s very much like a PG Grand Theft Auto without car theft.

Many of your actions will ultimately affect your standing with the four major crime syndicates, two of which are led by characters you may recognize from the films (Jabba the Hutt and Emilia Clarke’s Qi’ra).

It’s an interesting system, as your reputation affects some of the jobs and vendors you have access to, and also whether the syndicates let you into the areas they control or shoot you on sight. You’ll often get opportunities to con others for money, but you can’t actually be blacklisted. Getting back into the good guys’ good graces usually just involves doing a few odd jobs.

Dealing with the Empire’s space police is a little different, because if you get in their way, you get Grand Theft Auto-style wanted level that’s tough to get through and can only be completed with a bit of hacking or bribery. Thankfully, the stormtroopers here are just as incompetent as they are in the movies.

As you explore each region, you’ll come across incredible locations, from the overgrown wreck of a High Republic cruiser to the familiar, gleaming interior of Imperial space stations. But in between, the game can feel disappointingly empty, whether you’re racing your speeder over sand dunes or zipping around space junk outside a planet’s atmosphere. In fact, space exploration is perhaps the most meager part of the game overall; dogfights with TIE fighters are fun, but there’s not much to do other than search for loot.

Kay’s best friend and partner in crime is a cute and clever creature named Nix, who arguably does most of the work during any infiltration. Nix can scan the environment for enemies, remotely activate switches, recover loot, pickpocket, distract, and even fight. This is a toolkit you’ll be using a lot, as a large number of missions and activities require you to be stealthy.

I have a bad feeling about this

I am not a big fan of stealth in video games, but the way it is handled in Outlaws is emblematic of the game’s main problem. While the game is made up of wide open spaces, it’s incredibly prescriptive in how you’re supposed to complete missions, and it can be frustrating how often you’ll fail completely and be sent back in time a few minutes due to something outside of your control.

Instant fails can happen because you were spotted when you should have been hidden, because you raised the alarm when you should have been quiet, or because you strayed too far from a particular person or area. Combined with the tendency for platforming sections to take place over death pits even when they look like normal terrain you can jump into, this means that quite often you’ll have to see the loading screen that returns you to a recent safe state.

I had some exciting and thrilling encounters that worked exactly as the designers of these systems probably hoped. During an infiltration of Jabba’s Palace (one of the few locations taken directly from the movies), I managed to sneak around undetected enough to sabotage one area’s alarm systems. This meant that when I stunned a Gamorrean guard and opened fire on his friend, none of the nearby workers could seal off the place and I was able to take them all out. Mostly, though, I ended up running around in a panic and eventually having to try again.

But while many of the systems are frustrating (why is the hacking mini-game just Wordle but with nonsense characters, and who came up with rhythm-based lock picking), there’s something magical about the game that often made me not want to put it down.

Load

Many of the environments and skyscapes are stunning, and while Kay doesn’t seem to have any personality or beliefs beyond wanting to escape the planets of the Outer Rim, it’s a fun world to live in as a clueless rogue. There are potential mentors you need to track down to teach you new tricks, which you then unlock by checking off a list of accomplishments, and there are plenty of weapon and outfit upgrades to craft or unlock. Since there’s no interesting story, the typical Ubisoft list of “things to do” carries the majority of the load.

If you’ve ever wanted a version of the dark side of Star Wars, Grand Theft Auto or Assassin’s Creed, Outlaws will likely provide dozens of hours of entertainment, although some key elements are immature or unfinished.

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