Star Wars.
When I first fired up Star Wars Outlaws, I was looking forward to getting stuck into two of my favourite hobbies: being disappointed by Ubisoft open world games and being disappointed by Star Wars. Well, Ubisoft, you’ve really screwed up my plans this time, haven’t you? Because Outlaws is a very good time and a very good Star Wars game.
The Disney era of Star Wars has made it very easy to dunk on the galaxy far, far away, but Star Wars has still inspired a heck of a lot of great games. Few of them, however, have truly made me feel like I’m inhabiting the galaxy of the original trilogy.
Dark Forces was an amazing Doom clone full of Star Warsy-looking corridors. TIE Fighter brought the dogfights to life. KOTOR 2 was an impressive, philosophical dissection of the Force. The greats all adapt and explore specific slices. But only Star Wars Galaxies (RIP) dropped me in the setting of the films and just let me soak it all in. Until Outlaws.
Outlaws actually goes even further in giving us an authentic Star Wars playground. In Galaxies, anyone could be a Jedi. Initially the journey to Force mastery was a long and laborious one, but by the NGE update you could start your game as an acrobatic space wizard. Here’s your lightsaber, go have some fun. Despite the era during which it was set, the free-wheeling Jedi bullshit was very much drawn from the prequel trilogy. Outlaws, though, which is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, isn’t interested in Force-wielders. Jedi light
Kay Vess lives in a galaxy where there’s only a faint glimmer of hope and no magic. She’s a scoundrel making do—hitting up cantinas and hanging out with ne’er do wells. The wide open spaces she races through on her speeder are majestic and full of tourist-trap vistas, but the cities are dirty, busy, lived-in places where every nook and cranny builds this tangible sense of place. A real place.
Outlaws has a grounded vibe that I think a lot of adaptations forget the original trilogy also boasted—especially A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back.
