Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
The galaxy far, far away has always presented an opportunity to tell a unique intergalactic story. The Star Wars brand has been nurtured over the years, bringing us cinematic and gaming experiences that have been a joy to discover. It’s a shame that Star Wars Outlaws won’t be one of them after the first 6 hours of play. Star Wars Outlaws is an action-adventure game set in an open world. Across five planets, you’ll have to sneak into enemy bases, use your enhanced blaster to eliminate them, and climb the rubble left by the war. Outlaws occur between the fifth and sixth episodes of the movie saga, and while the Empire tries to hold its ground, the Rebels want to stop it.
An Unlikely Heroine in the Underworld
The not-so-guarded rest of the world is seeing a rise in crime syndicates. And it is in this world that the story’s protagonist, Kay Vess, finds herself. The story tells of an ambitious heroine trying to make it in an underworld full of traitors and murderers, which would, at its core, be nothing wrong. Except what can we say so far that the game does a much better job of telling the story of the outside world than the protagonist herself? However, of course, I’ve only played “only” 6 hours so far. Still, in veterinary titles, the story is generally strongest in the beginning and end. I haven’t had the same feeling yet, so the game makes me skeptical.
Interacting with the Galaxy’s Denizens
What pleased me, on the other hand, after the first couple of hours of play is that you meet characters who react to your actions, or you can respond to their speeches and woes. For example, you might be walking down the street and notice that representatives of one of the syndicates are blackmailing a merchant. If he decides to intervene, you can bribe, persuade, or disarm the aggressors. Other times, characters will outright ask you for help.
Repetitive Quests and Tired Gameplay Loops
Since this is an open world, the question of the side content also arises. I’m referring to the most problematic part of Star Wars Outlaws. The quests and gameplay you will use to complete them are generic and done according to one template. In the game, you’ll undertake a few basic activities: sneaking around, firing your blaster, overcoming environmental obstacles, or flying your spaceship.
Stealth and Strategy: A Double-Edged Lightsaber
On the other hand, stealth is one of the most used mechanics and works well here. The title has prepared for it and can offer you a playground ready for experimentation. You can use ventilation and hidden alleys, silently choke enemies, or put them to sleep. Alternatively, disarm them all loudly.
Lost in the Galaxy: Navigational Nightmares
The thing you’ll hate when navigating locations or moving from point A to point B, either on foot or a speeder, is orientation in space. I’m not kidding when I say this is one of the worst guidance systems I’ve seen in a game. The game provides a compass that will start guiding you when you select one of the quests or allow you to view a point in space.
Only, instead of guiding you through each aisle, the point in space appears several hundred kilometers away from you, and it doesn’t care that if you go in that direction, you’ll very quickly crash into a wall, mountain, or whatever. This will put you in situations where you’ll be running around the alleys of cities in confusion or opening the map every five seconds to see if you’ve accidentally taken a wrong turn. In short, you’ll be frustrated to the point where you’ll want to throw the controller out the window.
Glitches and Visual Mediocrity
And it needs to be helped by the graphics or the technical state of the game. You can play the title on PlayStation 5 in either quality or performance mode. While quality mainly improves the resolution and textures of the world while reducing frames per second, performance does the exact opposite. It often happens when I pause the game for more than 10 minutes and go to play again, so for about the first 30 seconds; the game drops to a painful 30fps before everything returns to normal. Otherwise, in both game modes, the visuals of the game look… “OK”.
Bugs in the System: Technical Woes
Then, the techie state, which is in early access, is not surprising but still quite annoying. Flickering textures, various minor glitches, or even for some unknown reason, placed barrels and crates right in the way to the shaft where I wanted to go as an actual thief and steal something, but I just couldn’t. Luckily, at least it wasn’t a story path because I wouldn’t have been able to continue. Speaking of which, the game also tried my patience on that one. My screen went dark at one point, and I couldn’t play. Fortunately, a save restart helped.
Final Thoughts for Now
This is my preliminary information for you after the first day of playing. Star Wars Outlaws certainly has its merits in certain aspects, but it is also marred by several bugs or bad decisions regarding game design. But you’ll find out how I feel about the game in a few days when I’ve fully completed the game. In the meantime, you can read more Star Wars Outlaws articles on our page, including an upcoming gallery tomorrow, which we’re preparing for you before the full review arrives.
