Star Wars Outlaws Patient Review

(Note: This review is based on about 20 hours of playtime, roughly halfway through the main story, mostly wandering around and side questing.)

The game has been in my backlog for a while. My expectations were underwater after seeing how it was received initially. But I've been craving a good open-world RPG lately, so I finally decided to dive into my Star Wars backlog. I finished the Jedi: Fallen Order games first and thought they were just okay. Nothing to write home about. Then I started Outlaws, fully expecting to dislike it, but 20 hours in and I'm really liking it. It’s exactly the kind of Star Wars game I’ve always wanted, just exploring the galaxy as a regular person.

The map design shows a ton of love for the lore. I love the fact that you aren't a superhero saving the world. Playing as a relatively normal person dealing with syndicates makes for a nice, laid-back explorer/stealth gameplay.

While the story isn't an epic saga like Mass Effect or hardcore like Kingdom Come: Deliverance, it is still decent enough to keep you engaged. I really don't understand the hate this game received. Maybe people just wanted an epic adventure.

Overall, it feels like Horizon Zero Dawn and Cyberpunk 2077 had a Star Wars baby.

Pros:

Great environments and setting.

Good exploration and stealth gameplay.

Great, immersive atmosphere.

Delves into the Star Wars underworld lore pretty well.

Cons:

Gunplay and combat aren't anything to shout about.

The story is okay at best.

However, it makes sense from the character's point of view that combat wouldn't be the focus of the game, and a small-time outlaw story fits the setting well.

Who should play it:

Star Wars fans who would like to explore the world outside the typical Jedi/Sith stories

Space and sci-fi fans.

Anyone looking for a laid-back, atmospheric, and immersive game.

Who should skip it:

Players looking for high-intensity, high-adrenaline, edge-of-your-seat games.

Anyone who needs in-depth, hardcore RPG mechanics like Kingdom Come: Deliverance.

Anyone who can't do without lightsabers and typical Star Wars clichés.

Anyone who wants epic story RPGs like ME, BG3, The Witcher etc..

Overall Rating: 7.5/10

I wish it hadn't been received so badly by the fans; the game could've become great with further sequels and development. I'm not saying it's amazing or the best thing since indoor plumbing, but I don't think it deserved so much negativity. Feels like people were hating not because it's terrible, but because it's not exactly the type of game they wanted it to be.

Bold prediction: I think this is one of those games that will age well, and people will come to like it with time.

P.S: Original post got removed because apparently the title was bad.
Some quick responses from the previous discussion:

I understand the game was lacking in many aspects but keep in mind I came to this game expecting absolute trash based on the reviews. But was surprised how much BETTER it was than expected, not that It stands up to the top RPGs.

For reference, my top RPG games would probably be the likes of Oblivion, KOTOR, ME, DA:O, CP77 TW. But I've already played all the greats, so after those you gotta find enjoyment in games that aren't as good but still have some enjoyable aspects to them, which I thought this game did.

It's honestly a great case for being a "patient gamer". I played it on release and while I enjoyed it I can give you some examples.

They overhauled stealth missions and gameplay. I don't remember specifics, but from what I recall if you were detected at all it was instant mission failure and checkpoint restart. They also changed the number and movement patterns of enemies in many different missions and locations.

It was a super common complaint, you should go and look for reviews from release or videos that discuss the changes.

Actual game breaking bugs. When I played I encountered a bug that prevented me from going from space to a planet. This was when I was on my third or fourth planet. I could fast travel to any location I had been previously. I could fast travel into space. But my ship no longer appeared at any port I went to, and in space I never got prompts to land.

When I reported this bug my ticket got closed without resolution as it was a known issue with enough reports already. They fixed it in a later patch but I basically quit playing at that time.

This is to say nothing of the many, many smaller bugs I ran into which stopped me from progressing a lot of the open world side quests and miscellaneous discoveries. Which again did get fixed by patches.

Disjointed story. If you're the type to push straight through story stuff in open world games and skip all optional content then it's a pretty cool story. If you do a lot of the side content the story becomes very disjointed and forgettable.

The opening few hours are great. The story is good, the stakes are good, the characters are alright. And the final hours when you're locked in on the story are also great.

But in between there is a TON of dead space, and the fact that you can go to planets and crew members in whatever order means they didn't bother creating dialogue or story encounters for most situations. This is as opposed to a Chrono Trigger or Mass Effect where bringing different characters to a mission unexpectedly still gets reactions from them.

Don't get me wrong, I had a good time with the game. And I think a lot of the criticisms thrown at the game pre-release were just garbage culture war rage bait. But it had some genuine issues as well and you wouldn't even know of them if you waited as long as you did to play it.

I really enjoyed it as well, played it 1 or 2 hours a day streaming from my PC to the steam deck and didn't noticed how much I've played until it was over.

>I think this is one of those games that will age well, and people will come to like it with time

prediction.. or what you currently observe online?

I will die on the hill that this game doesn't get the credit it deserves. It's big, with lots of systems, a standout minigame that could be its own spin off, and very slick presentation. It's also made with such obvious love and respect for the setting. I have my gripes but I love it.

It has also been improved a lot since launch and received two decent sized DLCs, one of which I consider pretty good and the other of which I absolutely adore.

Haven't gone that deep into research tbh. Currently, it's viewed negatively from what I read before buying so.

>But in between there is a TON of dead space, and the fact that you can go to planets and crew members in whatever order means they didn't bother creating dialogue or story encounters for most situations

So basically ANOTHER ubisoft game where they water their product down with quantity and completely disregard anything of quality at the expense of keeping people playing the game but not in any meaningful or enjoyable fashion.

ubisoft is the king of banal, forgettable games that look pretty. They're the podcasts of the gaming world.

It seems that you're tackling it like an RPG and, I haven't played it yet, but wasn't it a stealth game? For what I've seen it's more interested in being Watch Dogs than The Witcher

I tend to play most games at least year after they’re out. Pick up the complete editions with the dlc etc.

So I’ve no idea how good Outlaws was on release although people seem to suggest it had its issues.

That and UBSoft gets a lot of hate in general, deserved or not.

Still, honestly one of the best Star Wars games I played for feeling like you’re just living in the universe and not some chosen one character.

You can do so much, it’s got some great set pieces, and you just run, gun and hide your way though the chaos.

I bought it used (PS5) at a shop about 6 months ago or so, and I had an issue that was infuriating. I lost about 6 hours of total progress. I was playing it all day and my session when we had a random brownout. I booted it back up, and because I was not logged in to Ubisoft's interface (not required to play) my autosaves were not syncing with the cloud. By default, that's where the game puts autosaves even if you don't sign in.

That being said, if you don't want to log in to an Ubisoft account, manual saves are your friend. I wish there was a disclaimer or at the very least autosaves were local by default.

Yeah, cause I've run out of good open-world RPGs to play. I usually don't like AC-type games, but the whole Sci/fi underworld game with a stealth focus grabbed my attention. I think it's a good concept, and if you lower your expectations and go about it in a more laid-back fashion, there's enough enjoyment to be had. But hey, that's just my opinion, based on the now-removed discussion; lots of people hate it with passion lol.

When this came out I got a one month subscription to Ubi-play (I can't even remember the name of their game library service) for 20 bucks and and beat it over the course of a month without feeling rushed and managed to do the side quests I was interested in and take my general time with it.

I think I'm pretty much in line with your thoughts on it. I liked the "small story in a large universe" tone.

Also, once I got all the upgrades going the space missions/combat was SUPER fun and satisfying IMO. At the time it made me realize I want a Freelancer/Privateer/Rebel Galaxy Outlaw-style game in the Star Wars universe.

To be honest, I still enjoyed it, and there are plenty of memorable moments the game created that are unique to it. Like going to raid an imperial outpost. Sneaking to a clifftop sniper, taking his sniper, and using it to take out the outpost guards without them raising the alarm.

But specifically in terms of storytelling the over arching narrative isn't that strong and doesn't interact well with the rest of the game.

There's still plenty of interesting characters to meet and side quests to do. But for a gamer whose focus is the story? And especially for Star Wars fans for whom the story is a key component? It meant a lot of those people were disappointed.