In this article, we are going to be taking a look at everything we know about the highly anticipated upcoming Star Wars game, Star Wars Outlaws. Outlaws is being developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft in collaboration with Lucasfilms, with tons of hype surrounding it since the official announcement trailer back in June of 2023. It’s set to be the first ever open world Star Wars Game, being an open world action-adventure game focused on the underground of the Star Wars universe, immersing players into the world of bounty hunters, criminals and syndicates.
Star Wars Outlaws – Everything We Know So Far
The game is being produced on the Snowdrop Engine, Massive Entertainments proprietary engine which boasts incredible fidelity and graphical intensity, as you may have seen in the recent Avatar game, Frontiers of Pandora. The amazing engine alongside the 4 or 5 years of development has made this game shape up to be one of the most anticipated games of 2024. With that being said, we will be exploring everything we know so far about Outlaws Story and Setting, Core Gameplay, Combat, expected release window and platforms. Let’s check it out!
Story and Setting
The setting of Star Wars Outlaws takes place in between the events of 2 movies in the Original Trilogy, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi ‘. Just as a brief recap in case anyone doesn’t quite remember, in this timeframe, the Galactic Empire’s control strengthens after the Imperial attack on Hoth, where Imperial Forces decisively crushed the main Rebel Base. Consequently, the Rebel Alliance’s influence has diminished, creating an environment ripe for the flourishing of the criminal underworld.
In this setting, you play as Kay Vess, a scoundrel seeking freedom and a new start alongside the adorable merqaal companion, Nix. Born from the Worker’s District on the planet Cantonica, she has survived Imperial Rule by living as a thief, fighting for survival with Nix for years. Now, she finds herself as one of the galaxy’s most wanted criminals, compelling her to undertake the biggest heist in the history of the Outer Rim Territories in order to find a life of peace.
Some other characters of the story we saw from the trailers include 2 other companions. Jaylen is one of them, who promises Kay that she will “never have to look over her shoulder again” if she can pull the job offer off, and the other is ND-5, a BX-series droid commando built by the Seperatists who fought in the Clone Wars, now serving as a companion for Kay in her grand heist.
In the overarching narrative of Outlaws, there are no diverging storylines, meaning the game has a straightforward, linear progression with a clear cut story path. The main hub planet crafted uniquely for Outlaws within the Star Wars universe is Toshara; an arid moon situated in the Toshaal system, bearing resemblance to the arid savannahs of East Africa, with winds so strong it can erode man made structures. It serves as a pivotal hub for criminal operations, known as the “gem of the underworld”. It has earned this title is in spite of the fact that Toshara is under Imperial control, thanks to corrupt governors who engage in shady dealings, accepting bribes and forging alliances with criminal syndicates and organizations.
We can expect to see other planets as well, most notably Tatooine, which as I am sure you all know, is home to the hub of scum and villainy, Mos Eisley. Additionally, other known planets in the Star Wars Canon will also be explorable, such as Cantonica, a desert world housing the casino city of Canto Bight; Kijimi, characterised by its mountainous terrain and currently serving as a hub for Spice Runners; and Akiva, a humid jungle planet where crime lord Surat Nuat and his crew operate from the capital city of Myrra. Each planet will be handcrafted rather than procedurally generated, with each explorable planet being around the size of 2 zones in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. There will probably be more planets as well, so we can be excited to explore a wide range of cities and planets throughout the galaxy.
Gameplay
The gameplay of Outlaws looks like it’s going to be similar to something like Grand Theft Auto, or Read Dead Redemption 2, with an open world area featuring crime systems and faction reputations. It doesn’t seem like there will be any jedi or sith present in the core of the game, so it will mainly revolve around your criminal activities and the underworld which has fallen under Imperial Rule. To start, let’s go over the world and what you can expect within the explorable areas of planets.
The World
The explorable planets of Outlaws have various regions with different purposes, such as cityscapes bustling with lively cantinas where you might find criminal syndicates and corrupt Imperials mingling together, or vast and mysterious open environments, and of course the infinite expanse of space. There will even be some infiltration of Galactic Empire ships or structures, which can be seen and instantly recognised in the trailer thanks to the unmistakable imperial architecture.
To traverse the various cities and landscapes within the planets of Outlaws, there will be alot of on-foot exploration, but also some vehicular options. For now, all we have seen is a Speeder which was used to dart across landscapes at high speeds, but there were also other vehicles that NPCs were shown using such as a Landspeeder, so we may have other options as we progress. Within the open areas and structures you find, you can utilise a grappling hook and parkour abilities to scale towering structures, uncover hidden pathways, and access hard-to-reach areas. For venturing into the depths of space, players will have The Trailblazer, a freighter from the republic era which has been fitted to be Kay and Nix’s home.
The transitions between using your speeder within the world and lifting off into space with The Trailblazer have been shown to be relatively seamless, with no loading screens or cuts. Kay will hop on speeders and ride off within a second, and The Trailblazer will launch out of the atmosphere like in No Man’s Sky, making the overall experience for travelling within the game look extremely immersive.
Factions and Crime
The core gameplay of Outlaws will revolve around the various syndicate factions of the underworld and crimes that Kay commits in her journey. It can be said that everyone in the underground of the Star Wars universe “live and die by reputation”, and for Kay this is no different. Dialogue choices, contract missions and the resulting alliances will change your reputation and the perspective of the story, with Kay being offered more jobs by certain syndicates and straight up hunted by others.
Mission contracts from syndicates will allow you to take on high-risk, high-reward missions such as stealing valuable goods from other syndicates or infiltrating secret locations. For example, in the gameplay trailer we saw Kay completing a job in which she has to steal a priceless item from the Pyke Syndicate. However, it seems like there will be an extra layer of depth to this, as we can see that her reputation with the syndicate only decreased after she was caught during her stealth operation by one of the patrolling Huttese, so stealth may be a very important factor in keeping good relationships with syndicates that you frequently go against. Having low reputation with some syndicates will lock you out of accepting job offers from them, potentially preventing you from acquiring certain weapons or abilities in exchange for other weapons and abilities that you can get from the syndicates you make happy.
Inside and outside of missions, another factor impacting your reputation will be dialogue choices. The one we saw was a choice to bribe an imperial official to keep quiet about your presence on the planet, which when rejected led to a bounty being instantly placed on Kay’s head. Other dialogue options that will be within the game include keeping a stolen item for yourself, handing over the stolen items in the job, lying about how the job went or not providing the full information about a job. There will be no wrong options in what you choose, just options that steer the story perspective into a different light and change who you commune with in the underworld.
That being said, sometimes options will land you in a pinch, such as getting a bounty on your head. When you do get a bounty, you will be able to see which faction has placed the bounty on the top left of your hud, along with a heat meter telling you just how screwed you are. Crime bosses will chase you across the galaxy to acquire your bounty, and imperial fighters are not afraid to enter a space dogfight with you in the case that you try to escape into orbit.
The core gameplay will very much revolve around the crime system and the missions, but will also likely feature a main questline which you can tackle whenever you want.
Combat
The combat of Outlaws is taking a fresh approach to the usual combat of Star Wars games by placing you in the shoes of someone who isn’t a Jedi/Sith! You will mainly just be using blasters and witty thinking to try to outsmart and defeat your opponents rather than swinging your lightsaber baseball bat at them a million times.
Stealth plays a crucial role in navigating restricted areas, requiring players to avoid detection from patrolling guards and manipulate the environment to their advantage. Nix will play a large role in combat, being able to perform very helpful tasks such as distracting enemies, attacking enemies or interacting with objects and machinery, providing opportunities for diversion and sabotage. From what we’ve seen, if you get caught in stealth and diplomatic solutions fail, you can aggressively negotiate by quickly drawing your blaster to engage in combat, setting off alarms and escalating the encounter.
Once you engage enemies, you get a range of combat options. You can make use of the environmental explosives in the area to blow up enemies hiding in cover, use Nix to retrieve weapons and ammo from the floor and even quick swap your blaster functionality mid-fight. So far, 3 different modules have been shown which can adapt it to various threats. There is the default normal blaster module which does damage to enemies, the focused blaster module which breaks energy shields and the stun mode which is likely for leaving enemies incapacitated, which may impact your faction reputation. I suspect that there will be more modules unlockable via the workshop in The Trailblazer which we got a glimpse of in the gameplay trailer. There was also a small section of Speeder combat, which looked relatively underwhelming for now, but could shape up to be much more interactive with the VATs style system for attacking.
Kay will also be fighting combatants above ground in Ship combat. The gameplay shown doesnt seem like anything you wouldn’t expect from ship combat, featuring shield and health management, dodging enemy fire, and shooting missiles and blasters to attack enemy ships. You can also see a repair system on the bottom right of the hud which can likely be used to fix your ship’s functionality amidst the chaos of battle, alongside a hyperdrive which offers a means of escape in situations where it’s best to just run. However, the hyperdrive can be interrupted by sudden attacks, so players will have to be tactical if they want to leave a dogfight. The range of these battles can scale from small skirmishes with imperial TIE Fighters or large scale battles against massive ships, so if you were looking forward to that then rest assured.
Release Date & Platforms
With about 4 or 5 years in development, Outlaws will be releasing sometime this year in 2024. There was some recent news from Ubisoft that more details would be revealed this May alongside more info on the Feudal Japan Assassins Creed, so be on the lookout for that. Platform wise, the game is set to launch for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S, so unfortunately previous gen consoles will not be able to play the game.
Final Thoughts
Star Wars Outlaws has been presented as the most crime focused game we have received from any Star Wars game, promising a fresh experience by placing attention on the intriguing underworld of the universe. The idea is fantastic, so all they need to get right is the execution; given that this is being developed by Massive Entertainment who don’t have a substantial portfolio, it’s hard to say whether the game will end up well executed. Regardless, I will definitely be picking this up when it releases, if just for the fact that it’s a Star Wars game, and I hope that Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment can meet the community’s high expectations and deliver a well thought out, engaging game.
