It’s pretty interesting how your perception of something can color how you experience it — the whole idea behind “under-promise, over-deliver”. When I first heard about this game, in my mind it was the “first ever open-world Star Wars RPG”, which sounded dope. I thought it was going to be an Outlaw game set within the backdrop of Star Wars, and you were going to kind of forge your own path.

Truthfully, I’m not sure where I got that idea. It’s less an RPG and more of a Star Wars story about an outlaw that you get to play as. It’s relatively linear.

Given the misconception, there were a few moments, especially early on, that seemed strange. Like being forced to shoot my way out of a situation when I initially tried to do more of a stealth/stun playstyle. But otherwise, once I realized what I was actually getting myself in to, I really started enjoying this game.

Kay & Nix Beginnings

You play as Kay Vess a young woman who makes her living stealing and scheming with her adorable pet alien Nix (who’s like the Abu to her Aladdin). From what I can tell (and in doing a bit of research for this post) the Death Star has recently been destroyed, so The Empire is on it’s heels and criminals are working with relative impunity.

She is able to get away for now, though, and crash-lands the ship on a nearby planet. Now she has to find a way to avoid the dangerous people who are after her, clear her name (or at least pay them back), and still hope to get that big score that just might solve all of her problems.

The Underworld & Reputation

After crash-landing, you’re found by a mechanic named Waka (no Flaka) who recognizes the ship as a classic and says he can help you repair it. You need parts and, more importantly, money to buy those parts; so Waka directs you to talk to an underworld boss, Gorak, for work.

Gorak isn’t actually a big fan of Wakas, so when you drop his name Gorak has you thrown out of his base. It’s at this point that you meet Danka, a broker, who tells you how the underworld works. Brokers (like Danka) facilitate the relationship between people like Kay who need work, and the factions providing it. So you’ll have to talk to them to get jobs.

There are 5 factions in all, four of which you can work with. Danka introduces the Pikes, Hutts, and Crimson Dawn. And later, you’re able to work with the Ashiga. The last group is Zerek Besh, but they’re led by the guy you stole the ship from, and they’re hunting you.

The game also shows you that there’s a reputation system where your choices will affect how the different factions feel about you. It’ll increase and decrease throughout the game as you help or harm each faction. If your reputation is low enough, they’ll attack on-site; and if it’s high enough, you’ll be able to walk around their bases largely without being bothered.

There are additional benefits to having high reputations with the factions — like higher-paying jobs, and unlocking merchants with access to rare parts. And, like I mentioned earlier, this is where the consequences of a lot of your choices lie. A lot of the missions involve breaking into another faction’s facility; and with a high enough reputation with the faction you’re breaking in to you can walk through the proverbial front door.

It’s a pretty cool mechanic, and gives you stakes when completing missions. Instead of simply rewarding you with money and reputation, you’re often given a choice whether to help out one clan or another; or sometimes yourself. You can give the information to the people you’re initially stealing for, or you can cross them and tell the people you just stole from who hired you and why. Sometimes, you can even keep something for yourself; gaining something material but losing reputation.

It also gives you reasons to check in with brokers to see what’s available, in case you want to raise your reputation back up with a certain faction after betraying them.

Gameplay Variety

I had a great time exploring the worlds, sneaking through bases and imperial strongholds, and playing all sides so I could (hopefully) come out on top. Gameplay is quite varied, the puzzles are fun, and there were genuine moments of delight — like when Nix and I had a snack for the first time.

There’s also a lot to do outside of the main story line. There are some quick little arcade games you can play; and the one-off contracts that you can do for factions for credits and reputation. There’s treasure hunts which were a lot of fun — you can find datapads or eavesdrop on conversations that give clues to where valuables may be stashed. And you can go out and try to acquire them for yourself. I spent a lot of time just traveling around the worlds and around space trying to find some really cool items.

There’s also the Fathier races which is similar to a horse-race. In nearly every city you go, there are tables broadcasting these races holographically and you can test your luck. Or, if you’ve had your eye out, you might not have to rely on luck.

We also get to play Kessel Sabacc, which is kind of a card game, where you try to get better pairs than your opponents — using tricks and special cards to do so. This was right up my alley (I loved Gwent in The Witcher), and I loved testing my mettle against (and attempting to pull one over on) some of the Core Worlds’ slickest card sharks.

Movement and Exploration (& the speeder)

Traversing the world felt pretty familiar on foot. As a third-person game, running, jumping and climbing were straight-forward and intuitive. In fact, the climbing mechanics were similar to Jedi Survivor. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The worlds are relatively big, too, and in order to get between towns, there’s a Speeder you can use. Which is essentially a hover-cycle.

The speeder was a bit underwhelming, but still pretty fun. I will say that that I was disappointed in the races when I came across them. I thought they were a great idea, and thought it was a cool addition when someone flagged me down to race. But racing itself felt a little sluggish. There were upgrades to make the speeder faster, but it never blew me away.

Space Travel

In addition to the worlds you get to explore, once it’s repaired, you can also take your (stolen) ship into space. There are space stations based around the planets that you occasionally have to visit, cargo that can be discovered, and more.

There’s a cool animation after you board your ship and opt to launch, showing the takeoff and ascent into space. It’s not really interactive — you’re not leaving and landing on planets yourself. But it’s much better than simply having a loading screen.

Landing the ship is similar. You aim the ship toward the planet you want to land on, initiate the landing sequence, and select the landing pad/location you want to land on/at. From there, you watch the ship zoom toward the planet and the landing pad. Unfortunately, you don’t get any visuals of the scale of the planet as you approach.

The game kind of cheats it’s way through that part by having you descend through clouds. But you do get to see yourself come in over the city and ultimately make the landing. Again, it could be better, but it’s not as bad as having a loading screen each time you take off and land.

Since stealing the ship, you’ve essentially adopted it as your own. And so, you’re able to upgrade it throughout the game. Cosmetically, you largely can only change the color, but there are a few different weapon types and shield options that you can upgrade to.

Yes, enemies patrol space, too, so you’ll have to be prepared to fight. Dogfighting was pretty challenging, and it was quite satisfying taking out enemy ships. Especially the Imperial ships that were launching the TIE Fighters I was battling.

It was also really cool watching the scale change as you flew closer to those ships while fighting them and space stations as you approached them. And I had some genuine anxiety flying through the Kijimi Nebula knowing there were giant asteroids just out of sight.

You could also try to avoid fights, and there were upgrades that let you be a bit more stealthy in your ship; but I found it easier to just upgrade my weapons and take out any would-be interrupters.

It’s not as in-depth as, say, Starfield. And I was a bit disappointed that the ship reorients itself after a bit (there’s no “up” in space…). But it was a fun and satisfying experience that kept me looking forward to the next space missions.

Combat

Working with various criminal organizations (not to mention being hunted by one for stealing their leaders ship) naturally, Kay is going to come across some enemies. On top of that, our fearless femme frequently finds herself in places where she isn’t supposed to be. So she has to defend herself.

Your primary weapon is your blaster, which is the typical Han Solo style shooter that should be familiar to anyone with any knowledge of Star Wars. And throughout the game you’ll be able to modify it to perform differently or have new functionality altogether.

For example, you can upgrade the gun to burst fire instead of single-shot. And there’s also an alternative firing mode you have to unlock — the ion cannon — that works better against droids; and can power nodes to solve puzzles and open doors.

There are various weapons around the world, too, that Kay can pick up and use. There’s fully automatic blaster rifles, sniper rifles, and even the cool rotary cannons with the shields on the front. You can’t keep these weapons — you’ll drop them when they run out of ammo, or you need to climb or something. But they’re cool additions, and add a new element to combat. Also, you can have Nix grab a gun and bring it to you, so you don’t have to expose yourself to get one.

Kay also has an “Adrenaline Rush” ability I alluded to earlier. Time slows down, you select the enemies you want to take out; then she’ll do so one-by-one. This is also an entertaining addition, and kind of made me feel like a badass gun-slinging outlaw.

Stealth

While there are certainly instance where you’re forced to shoot, there’s also a pretty heavy emphasis on stealth in Star Wars Outlaws. You’re often tasked with sneaking through an area, usually failing the mission if you get caught.

The game provides pretty plentiful opportunities to conceal yourself, with things like vents that you can walk through undetected. But it’s not like they lead directly to your destination. You still need to figure out how to find what you’re looking for, and get around guards and through doors.

Guard presence is quite heavy, and maybe I’m just not good at sneaking around, but I had a hard time separating groups of guards so I could take them down quietly. I often found myself standing around trying to figure out movement patterns and find windows of opportunity to get to the next safe spot.

Your only take-down options while trying to remain stealth are a melee takedown if you’re hidden and a stun-gun option on your blaster. The stun option has an incredibly long cooldown, though. I never actually timed it, but it felt like a full minute˚. You can also use Nix to distract guards so you can run up and take them down, or run past them. But he couldn’t actually do any takedowns himself.

Puzzles and Hacking

Gaining access into new areas isn’t always as simple as interacting with a door. There were a few different puzzle mechanics that kept the game feeling fresh. Sometimes you had to figure out how to make yourself a makeshift bridge to cross a gap. Sometimes you had to use Nix to press a button, or open a panel so you can kill the power source. And the ion blaster I talked about earlier.

There are also minigames that I had a lot of fun playing and solving — and I don’t mean the arcade game. Theres a Data Spike, which is essentially this game’s lock pick; and with it there are audio cues you have to listen for to unlock the lock.

It’s a bit strange, to be sure, but definitely unique. Personally, I really enjoy music and rhythm, so I actually liked using the Data Spike.

My favorite, though, was the wordle-style puzzles that you occasionally come across. There’s a bank of a bunch of symbols, and you have to get them in the right order.

After selecting your initial symbols, you’re shown whether you have any correct and if so, if they’re in the right spot. From there, you deduce the correct order and symbols. Wordle is actually derived from a board game called Mastermind that I loved to play as a kid; and I loved Outlaws’ take on it.

There were also “tricks” you could use in order to make this puzzle easier, by, say, eliminating tiles in the bank or giving you more chances. I was initially confused, because I upgraded my energy levels a couple of times before I could use any of the “tricks”, though. For a long time, I wondered why I was told about them so early when they took so long to actually use.

I realize now that the ability to see which tiles are “connected” and when a group of them is eliminated is the initial trick. You don’t have to do anything, it’s always active. I didn’t realize they counted that as the first trick at first, though.

This was typically how you hacked in to various computers and terminals — and I had fun with that as well. Often you had to hack in to these to acquire the information you needed; but they also would sometimes control the cameras and automated weapons in the area. You can turn the tides swiftly in your favor by finding the right terminal.

Items and Cosmetics

Sliro’s old forgotten about jacket (which is somehow a perfectly fitting cropped jacket on Kay? Maybe an “ex” left it behind…?) isn’t the only thing that Kay is stuck wearing. There are different cosmetic pieces that can be bought from vendors or found in the world.

They’re not always just visual upgrades, either. Some items come with bonuses, such as increased focus generation or additional health vial slots. And there are also sets that you can try to complete for even more powerful upgrades.

You also have a few lucky charms that Kay likes to keep around that grant bonuses as well. You can have two minor and a major one equipped at any given time, and can swap them out at will. They my decrease your detection level from droids, increase the amount of adrenaline that you gain, or allow you to automatically recover a health vial or grenade when used. There are a decent amount out there, so keep your eyes peeled. They can be very helpful.

Star Wars Outlaws handles the skills that you can acquire in a different way than a lot of games. There’s no skill tree, and you don’t really gain experience points and level up in order to acquire an upgrade. As you meet influential and well-versed people in the world and accomplish tasks for them, they then become available to acquire skills from. You can upgrade your skills in the pause menu, though, you don’t have to physically travel between the experts.

Unlocking skills is as simple as spending a resources you were probably gathering anyway; that can only be spent on said upgrades. Occasionally you have to find a more-rare item in order to unlock the skill, but when that’s the case unlocking that technique is the only thing that item can be used for. There’s no sacrificing an item to select one skill over an other.

There were a few skills that you could only upgrade after completing tasks, too — such as having a certain amount of stealth takedowns or solving puzzles within the allotted tries. I loved this aspect of the game, it gives you reasons to vary your playstyle and made additional challenges more meaningful than simply giving an achievement.

Overall…

Despite my initial misunderstandings with what this game was, I had a ton of fun with Star Wars Outlaws. The gameplay is fun and varied, the puzzles were unique and challenging, space travel and combat is enjoyable, and all-in-all, I had a great time exploring Kay and Nix’s story.

I completed the main storyline, but there’s still a lot of treasure out there I can find. And I’m excited to do so.