‘Star Wars Outlaws’ review: a criminally good intergalactic experience

How do you know you’re really Skywalking? It might be the moment you drop out of a hyperspace jump into orbit around an ice planet, straight into the middle of a TIE-fighter skirmish, John Williams-style strings blazing behind all the pew-pew laser fire. Or maybe the first time you sit down at a grimy cantina table with a bunch of sucker-faced alien gangsters to play high-stakes space cards to the tune of Tatooinian freak jazz. Or the moment you crawl out of a space station vent into a gleaming gunmetal docking bay, only to realise there are several squadrons of stormtroopers and Imperial guards between you and your hunk-of-junk smuggling spaceship and, unlike the films, they don’t look like they’re going to fall over at the mere sound of a blaster.

• READ MORE: The ‘Star Wars: Outlaws’ soundtrack is not just another John Williams retread
  

Star Wars Outlaws savours all of these wonderful moments, like adrenaline shots to the heart of your inner child. Following the gimmicky fun of running around iconic locations as Luke, Han and Darth Vader in various Star Wars Battlefront outings and the Metroidvania open-level maps and Force-solvable puzzling of the Star Wars Jedi series, Outlaws (controversially for some fans) claims to be the first proper open-world Star Wars game, and a vast one at that.

Its hype is that of a sci-fi Grand Theft Auto for those desperately awaiting GTA 6, but besides a plethora of money-making side-games and an out-runnable “wanted” system that brings the full force of the Empire down on your unsuspecting ass for such minor crimes as stopping off at a remote farmstead to choke out a few stormtroopers who are hassling the locals, it’s rarely so specifically targeted. Instead, it caters to those hungry for more Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Witcher and Assassin’s Creed, combining the best parts of all of these franchises into a gloriously cohesive, uniquely Star Wars experience.

Set between the events of A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (and there are cameos we won’t spoil here), Outlaws ventures behind and beneath the rebellion to explore the underworld of warring crime syndicates, space pirates, smugglers and thieves lurking in the shadows of those early films. You play Kay Vess, a wet-eared young hustler from the decrepit casino city of Canto Bight on Cantonica – itself the most exciting and immersive training level you might ever play, with its seamy gambling bars and streets that are convincingly foul and alive, full of skittering rodents, rusting droids and mob enforcers strong-arming local businesses.

Deep in debt and with a death mark on your head from robbing the vault of syndicate overlord Sliro, you flee the planet in a beat-up smuggling ship called the Trailblazer to Toshara, there to fix up your ship and set off around the Core Planets system to recruit a crew for the heist of some long-ago, far-away century.

At your side is your trusted pet Nix, a trained monkey-possum sort of creature capable of being sent off at short range to distract or attack enemies, sabotage equipment, pickpocket Imperial guards, operate hard-to-reach levers and scout out dangers – finally, a convincing work-around for the illogical gaming mechanic that humans can just sense the outline of enemies through walls and nobody talks about it, okay? The two make an endearing, well-drawn pairing; hard-nosed and growing bolder with every fresh underworld experience, yet vulnerable enough for the appearance of imposing enforcer droid ND-5 – a bodyguard and navigator thrust into the crew by the heist’s mastermind Jaylen – to create an unsettling dynamic.

Toshara provides a preview of Outlaws’ pleasures in microcosm. In the main city of Mirogana, a sprawling post-apocalyptic bazaar of a place, you can explore trading markets to upgrade your blaster, ship, character and motocross-like speeder, or gamble your hard-stolen credits on virtual (and often fixed, if you can find the clues) horse races, retro arcade games and the tricksy sci-fi card game of Sabacc – a minute to learn, a lifetime to master.

There are also Assassin’s Creed-style infiltration missions into syndicate-held areas that favour stealth rather than taking on small armies and their swarms of back-up with a rudimentary blaster-cum-tickle stick, plus tons of hidden stashes (often accessed with a rhythm-based mini-game), criminal contracts and side-missions to pick up in the darker corners.

Your reputation with a range of syndicates (Crimson Dawn, The Pyke Syndicate, The Hutt Cartel) fluctuates depending on your actions towards them, so it quickly becomes essential to play them off of against each other by withholding information or taking particular jobs in order to make your path to an objective easier. And bribery here will get you everywhere, if you’ve a nose for scammers and hustlers.

That Outlaws doesn’t lead you by the snout to its side events adds to its naturalistic appeal. You’re more likely to overhear hints to interesting locations and schemes while leaning on a bar rather than get called over by a suspiciously loitering ne’er-do-well with an Imperial vault needing raiding. And that these missions are rarely mere fetch quests but evolve step-by-step into ongoing storylines draws you into an open-world landscape outside the city which gradually expands the deeper you follow the mission trail.

Out on this ruined savannah – buzzing around on a speeder with a satisfying haptic drag, like an anti-gravity Days Gone – you can bypass raider and pirate battles or wade in for the booty, explore the crumbling wrecks of starships by Uncharted parkour and discover outpost towns and gas stations replete with buried secrets and helpful NPCs. Upgrades are the usual matter of collecting materials and cash, but skills aren’t innate abilities just waiting for the experience to unlock – they’re learned from experts you hunt down on your way.

More fleshed-out believability for an unreal universe, although Ubisoft occasionally take such naturalism too far. More than once, creeping through an Imperial Star Cruiser, players will pick up a fully charged AT-AT killer of a rifle, only to drop it before firing a shot because both hands are needed to climb a ladder.

Once the Trailblazer has its hyperspace doodiddly fixed, the universe – to some degree – becomes your oyster. To the verdant world of Akiva, for a spot of Far Cry jungle exploration? To the ancient ice city on Kijimi, redolent of Lara Croft’s chillier exploits? Or to good old Tatooine, where Jabba’s palace lies like a fortress and things get very Red Dead Redemption very quickly?

Outlaws isn’t as vast as it would like you to think – space exploration is kept strictly to the limited orbits around each planet – but a 30-hour main campaign and copious side-quests will push it well into the realms, size-wise, of a decent Creed, and with much more immersion built in. We’re Skywalking now, baby.

‘Star Wars Outlaws’ is released on August 30 for Xbox Series X and S, PS5 and PC

NME reviewed ‘Star Wars Outlaws’ on PS5