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For many years, we've had several games from Ubisoft, big games, but all of them marked by the "Ubi standard" of always using the same recipe. However, I saw Star Wars Outlaws as an opportunity for the publisher to break away from the same old mold, with a game that, in the press releases, seemed to be a totally different game from what we know from the French publisher. But is it really that?

Well, let's start with the basics, which is what the game is about, and here we have a third-person action-adventure game with a strong focus on stealth, but that doesn't stop you from shooting everywhere. It's a game with a lot of content that makes the experience a lot of fun. We'll talk about that later, but I want to start by talking about a part that is very important, in my opinion, which is the...

History

In my opinion, this is one of those GTA-like games with a strong focus on heists, or thefts if you're not familiar with the term. We take control of Kay Vess, a thief who uses petty theft as her livelihood. Always in the company of her best animal friend, Nix.

However, she is hired for a mission that goes far beyond what she is used to: to rob the vault of Sliro, one of the richest people on the planet and one of the most powerful syndicates in the galaxy, Zerek Besh. Obviously, the robbery goes wrong, but Kay manages to escape by stealing one of the ships from the site.

This robbery has a major consequence, Kay is marked for death and begins to be hunted by Zerek Besh, until she meets Jaylen and ND-5. They present her with a robbery opportunity that will make her so rich that it could solve the problem of her death mark.

She then accepts the mission, but first she needs to put together a team to complete it, and that's the crux of the game. We go from planet to planet looking for people to help us complete this ambitious heist. It's a simple story, but one that becomes more complex as we learn more about Kay and the people around her.

Having said that, let's move on to the gameplay section, where I can also explain other important points related to the game's story. But let's get down to what really matters here, which is...

How does the game work?

As I said earlier, this is a third-person action-adventure game with a strong focus on stealth. And that's something you need to keep in mind before buying this game, which is that it's a heist game, and that means that most of the game's missions will involve Kay trying to break into a location to steal something, whether it's an object or some information.

This indicates a certain repetitiveness in terms of gameplay, and the game is indeed repetitive in this sense, but it is far from tiring. This is because the gameplay allows us to complete missions in different ways, and it's up to us to choose which way we like best.

In terms of stealth, you can crouch down to make it difficult for enemies to see you, access ventilation ducts to get through the scenery without being seen and defeat enemies by stealth. It doesn't sound like much, but it's enough to make the gameplay quite satisfying in this respect.

But if you prefer to go for more direct combat, you can. You can either go into melee combat against the enemies (this doesn't work with everyone) or go into a shootout. And both ways of completing the missions are extremely fun.

The blaster we use is very strong, and if it is upgraded it can become even stronger. As well as being powerful, it is a modular weapon and can have three fixed modules for shooting. These modules can be changed according to the player's preference and range from plasma modules (normal), ion modules (effective against shields and droids), power modules (which cause great damage, but are slower) and sleep modules (self-explanatory).

One important thing to note, however, is that in most of the missions you can't allow the alarm to go off, as this will result in an immediate game over. Playing stealthily is ideal, but if you want to play more combatively, you need to keep an eye on your enemies so that they don't set off the alarm. Being seen by the cameras is also an "insta kill".

Nix

And to carry out the missions, we have a very important reinforcement: Nix, our partner in crime. He's very useful in missions, and sometimes even essential for carrying them out. We can order him to do certain things to help us both in exploration and in combat.

You can order him to pick up various items in the stages, including grenades, healing items, collectibles and even weapons. In the case of weapons, from start to finish we only have one fixed blaster, but we can pick up other blasters for a limited time. And if you're surrounded by enemies and need more firepower, you can ask Nix to pick up a nearby one to help you out.

In terms of stealth, it's also very useful, as we can order it to distract nearby enemies so that we can pass by unnoticed, for example. We can order it to attack enemies so that they are defenseless and even steal from them. It can also be used as a sonar to indicate the location of nearby enemies.

I said that he was essential in the missions because there are some simple puzzles that can only be overcome with his help. For example, we can ask him to open doors, operate levers or expose important points that make it possible to get through the stages. He's very useful because he can access small places that Kay wouldn't be able to.

Open world

Ubisoft has used as a marketing element the fact that, according to them, this is the first open-world game in the Star Wars franchise. In fact, we can access several planets with our ship. Speaking of which, it's another interesting gameplay element.

With it we can enter and leave planets without a loading screen (but we know it's just a hidden loading screen). When in space, we can use it to explore and engage in combat against other ships. And obviously, with it we can enter hyperspace to go from planet to planet.

In total, there are five planets in the game, three of which have a more traditional open world and two with more linear maps, but which can still be explored. But don't expect a living open world, it's one of those worlds that only serve as paths in the main missions, but which hide other small maps that are where the game's missions take place.

Don't get me wrong, the maps, as well as having different biomes, have plenty of things to explore, quests to do, among other things. However, even though there are some species of animal life and some NPCs, it seemed to me to be a very "dead" world. Not long ago, we released a review of the port of Red Dead Redemption to PlayStation 4, and it's amazing how a game from 2010 manages to have an open world that's more alive than many open-world games we have today.

And to explore and move around these worlds, we have a speeder that makes things a lot easier. With it, you can not only walk faster, but also make small jumps, use a type of turbo and even use it in combat. And they are very versatile when it comes to traversing, and can be used to cross places that are inaccessible on foot, or even flooded areas.

In addition to the open worlds, within them we find some cities that are more populated. There you'll find different types of businesses, activities and even some minigames. There are also the territories of some syndicates, which we can invade to get some items, among other things.

A wide variety of side missions

Most of the items we have in the game, be it the speeder, our ship, the blaster or even Nix, can be improved. And to do this, we need the help of some specialists in each of these areas to make these improvements. This helps a lot in the progression of the game, yet it can be totally ignored.

I strongly recommend playing these specialist side missions, because not only are they a great improvement in terms of gameplay, but there are also some very special missions among them. But we have a wide variety of side missions in addition to these that I consider important.

The game has a reputation system in which we can work for all the syndicates (with the exception of Zerek Besh) and thus improve our reputation with them, which gives us some good benefits. In total, we have four cartels we can work with: Crimson Dawn, Pyke Syndicate, Hutt Cartel and Ashiga Clan.

And a nice (and sometimes difficult) thing about the game is that, at times, more than one union will be interested in certain things we own or can do. And then it's up to us to decide which union we're going to help, so that we gain reputation with the union we're helping and lose reputation with the one we're harming.

As if that weren't enough, you can sign contracts with various NPCs scattered around the map and go on various types of side quests to get more credits or items used to make upgrades. In short, there's no shortage of extra content in this game.

Visuals and soundtrack

Speaking of the music, the Star Wars franchise is known for its iconic themes and the brilliant compositions of musical genius John Williams. But if you're expecting something of this level in Star Wars Outlaws, I think you're going to be disappointed. Not that the soundtrack is bad, but it's not great either.

On the other hand, the dubbing in the game is very good, from the main characters to the secondary characters, all of whom are very well dubbed. The alien languages are not dubbed at all, even very correctly. But if the soundtrack disappoints a little, the visuals go beyond disappointment.

We found the game's scenery to be beautiful, with good textures and locations that really do resemble real life. The feeling of wind in the settings and how it affects the trees and grass in the game is surreal, very well done, not top in the industry, but very good.

However, it's totally noticeable how outdated Ubisoft still is in terms of graphics. This game uses Massive Entertainment's Snowdrop engine, the same used in the Avatar game that came out last year, which is incredibly beautiful. However, there the facial expressions were very weak, as in any Ubisoft game, but Outlaws is the pinnacle in this respect.

The aliens in the Star Wars series are largely animatronic, so a lack of expression is totally acceptable, and the same can be said of the game. But when it comes to humans, the expressions we see are totally unacceptable for today. Even in pre-rendered scenes, which is even more unbelievable.

Ubisoft urgently needs to improve in this area, as it's almost at the limit of what's unacceptable for a AAA game. There's still Assassin's Creed coming out this year, and it doesn't look like it's going to be much. I really hope that, in the future, this annoying point will be resolved.

Is it worth it?

I'm a big fan of the Star Wars franchise and so I was very eager to get my hands on Outlaws. And although there are some flaws, as mentioned, the balance of this game is on the positive side. It's a separate story, but it's very respectful of the established universe.

Despite having a visual that is very lacking, it has a vast amount of content and a gameplay that is a lot of fun. It's a game that has a duration that I consider ideal, and that can be much longer if you want to explore it fully and complete all the numerous side quests.

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