Star Wars Outlaws Hands-On Preview: Hey Kid, You Wanna Do Space Crimes?

The main thing I took away from an extended play session with Star Wars Outlaws was a new understanding of its focus. Most Star Wars games are action titles, where you fight knock-down, drag-out fights against scores of enemies using blasters, lightsabers, thermal detonators, and any number of vehicles. Star Wars Outlaws, on the other hand, is a stealth game, where combat is best avoided and shooting your way out of a situation is a scrambling, desperate affair that doesn't often end well.

I recently played about four hours of Star Wars Outlaws at a preview event for journalists. Unlike the Summer Game Fest hands-on session, which was a shorter look that emphasized moment-to-moment gameplay, this preview was meant to show how Star Wars Outlaws functions as a quest-driven open-world game.

The gist here is that protagonist Kay Vess is a scoundrel, a person of Han Solo's ilk, making her way through the galaxy far, far away by swimming in its dark sea of crime and corruption. Star Wars Outlaws takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, a period during which the Empire is fully engaged in its war with the Rebellion, having nearly wiped it out on Hoth and eager to finish the job. That focus has left room for the underworld to thrive, particularly on the Outer Rim, and several criminal syndicates are vying with each other for control and profit amid the galaxy's farther-flung planets and systems.

Our play session started just after Kay and her pet alien buddy Nix crash on the planet Toshara, seemingly just after a tutorial-ish chapter in which Kay stole a ship from a crime boss and, in so doing, acquired a death mark that would follow her across the galaxy. Within a few seconds of landing, things got heated, as Kay wandered out of the ship only to nearly get bludgeoned by a running Rodian, who was fleeing some bandits. After a brief misunderstanding in which the Rodian nearly took her out with a wrench, the real bandits showed up and Kay drew her blaster to deal with them. Once they were dispatched, we learned that this guy is Waka, that he's a mechanic, and that he would fix the ship (named the Trailblazer, he quickly discovered) since you helped him.

These plot developments happened at break-neck speed, with barely 30 seconds elapsing between meeting Waka and him sending Kay to the nearby city of Mirogana to talk to Gorak, the local underboss of the Pyke Syndicate, to get some work and buy some parts to fix the ship. That was a pervasive feeling throughout the play session, in fact--everything happens at a weirdly fast pace as the game hustles you into the action of completing jobs, discovering missions, and double-crossing your employers for a few credits more.

In practice, that means a lot of ham-fisted moments where some shady-looking alien sees you walking down the street and leans forward to whisper something along the lines of, psst, hey kid, wanna do space crimes? Especially in the early game, like the interaction with Waka, Star Wars Outlaws gave off a forced, video gamey vibe, a combination of people saying things like "Come back when [my faction] trusts you more" (implicitly telling you to complete some missions to make the reputation numbers go up), and, "Hey person I met one second ago, I like the cut of your jib, go do a mission for me that could get you murdered." Kay, of course, always haltingly agrees.

To be fair, it's clear in a lot of the interactions of that second type that these people can see that you're an offworld rube and that makes you the perfect kind of hire--extremely expendable but also totally unknown. And when the dialogue sells this element, that you're working with not-so-nice people who are willing to use you for their own ends and don't especially care whether you wind up in a ditch covered in blaster burns, the entire vibe of Star Wars Outlaws works. But it can be undercut by favoring expediency at the expense of realism or character development. The game needs to get you into some crimes ASAP, so it'll occasionally feel a little goofy that everyone in town quickly comes to know who you are and what you've done, and is itchy to work with you.

Crime Time

I spent better than half of the session working through Mirogana, a large and winding city nestled inside a giant rock formation. There seemed to be a lot to do, both in terms of main quest jobs and side missions, in the city and the area around it.

Your first job is to find your way to Gorak, who's hanging out in a private suite above a cantina. Of course, a Pyke underboss doesn't talk with just anybody, and you're barred from taking the elevator up to his spot. There are a few ways to deal with the situation, and I got the impression that Star Wars Outlaws is trying to capture a light immersive-sim feel by providing you with several possible solutions to a problem and letting you figure out which is best on your own. I couldn't really say how robust they were with a limited look at the game, but for example, I repeatedly found multiple paths into different areas as I was exploring.

To get to the suite, your first option was to buy your way in, thanks to a guy who instantly spotted Kay, somehow intuited that she was hoping to meet Gorak, and offered to sell an invite to his private suite. Alternatively, as I wandered around the cantina, I discovered someone working on a power conduit for the elevator, who Kay could try to talk into opening the door for her. I failed in that endeavor, but it seemed as though, had I found a particular item that would have helped the tech finish the job, she might have been more amenable.

Instead, I discovered a vent I could open using Kay's dataspike, which is essentially a hacking device and lockpick. Lockpicking has its own minigame, which separates itself from similar mechanics in other games by relying on rhythm: You watch the device spin back and forth and then match its cadence with button presses in order to beat the lock. Pointedly, the action doesn't stop while you pick a lock, Deus Ex-style, and you can look back and forth in a first-person view mode to make sure nobody spots you while you work.

Opening the vent got me into the elevator, which got me up to Gorak. During a cutscene, Kay makes the mistake of dropping Waka's name and Gorak promptly throws her out for being too new and untrustworthy. But just getting up to the suite was enough to catch the attention of Danka, a broker always looking for new freelancers to employ, so we're on our way to getting a gig. Danka's job, from a client she won't name, is to sneak into Pyke territory and steal some data off Gorak's computer.

Sneaking And Shooting

The Pyke territory gives you a crash-course in Outlaws' stealth of skulking around walls and crates to avoid enemy sightlines. Nix, your alien pet companion, is essential in all of Outlaws' gameplay; when sneaking, you can use Nix to open distant doors, distract enemies, or steal things without Kay leaving cover. He adds range to your ability to interact with the environment, and I quickly found that any problem that didn't seem to have an immediate solution probably had a Nix solution.

After we slipped past our first few sets of guards, I found a grating I could climb to reach a higher location. Another major part of Outlaws' gameplay, especially when sneaking through locations such as this, is the kind of environmental climbing puzzles you'd find in something like the Uncharted games or Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Finding climbable walls and swinging over gaps with a grappling hook is a major part of how you'll navigate the world and how you'll find paths that help you avoid getting spotted, but the climbing also feels fairly rote at this point--there's nothing in these traversal mechanics that hasn't popped up in other third-person action games for a decade or more.

Finally, I hit the Pyke stronghold, an area covered with marauding guards. The mechanics here were familiar Ubisoft fare--you can use binoculars to tag enemies, which lets you track them as they move around the area; sabotage alarm panels so nobody can call for backup; slip past people and security cameras by hiding in tall grass; and take people out in one hit if you sneak up on them. Nix adds something of a fresh element, and the levels are designed so that you have to use Nix smartly to keep yourself out of trouble.

The ultimate goal of the Pyke stronghold mission is to sneak through and open a door shielded with a forcefield. Outlaws didn't tell me how to deal with the forcefield, instead requiring me to figure it out myself. Electrical wires from the door led to generators you can blast or send Nix to dismantle, opening the way--although while I figured out quickly that I was meant to follow the power lines, I didn't realize for some time exactly which objects I could interact with or how to disable them. And in that time, I got spotted and had to fight.

Combat in Outlaws is interesting in that it feels significantly different from that of most Star Wars games. Kay is a crack shot, and although you can upgrade her blaster with parts to hot-swap between different gunfire types that are good for specific functions, like shooting organic enemies, zapping droids, or knocking people out with a stun, her gun isn't particularly powerful. Luckily, you can also grab the weapons off downed enemies, allowing you a short-lived upgrade to an assault or sniper rifle for as long as the gun has ammo. You also have an ability called Adrenaline, which charges while you're in combat. Using it lets you slow down time to tag several enemies and then eliminate them all in a single, rapid-fire action, like in Splinter Cell: Blacklist.

Fights aren't particularly hard, as Jordan Ramée found in his SGF play session, but they did get harrowing for me because, at least early on, Kay can't take many hits at all. The only way to keep yourself alive is to stay behind cover, pick your moments, and make liberal use of Nix to jump on enemies' faces and briefly distract them so you can shoot them down. A lot of arenas seem to be littered with explosive barrels, too, encouraging you to find slightly more creative ways to beat foes than just hitting them with a bunch of blaster bolts. Identifying ways to even the odds is important because in most every real fight I got into, enemies were accurate enough to nail me whenever I popped up to take a shot.

It's pretty clear that Outlaws doesn't generally want you to get into straight fights where you're outnumbered and instead takes a more realistic approach to what these gunfights would be like. It seems like you're meant to kill an enemy or two or use Nix to jump on someone who spots you so you can take them out fast, and then hustle back into hiding and try again. While Jordan found he could just run through levels, my experience was more of a scramble in these moments, with a few hits spelling doom in any situation with a significant number of enemies.

Things can go bad so quickly, though, that my time with Outlaws could get a bit frustrating. A couple missions later, Kay infiltrates an Imperial space station on another job. Before long, you find yourself in a huge hangar, with TIE fighters getting moved around on conveyors, probe droids floating around scanning things, and a ton of Stormtroopers patrolling the area. I picked a path that kept to some high scaffolds, sneaking past a droid and using long jumps and grapple hook points to make my way around the room. I finally reached the door I was supposed to sneak through, only to get spotted by one last trooper I hadn't noticed and have the whole place descending on me in an instant. It made it pretty obvious that stealth was, really, the only viable option.

I ran through that same room several times, having to repeat big, slow sections of it over and over if I ever messed up. Eventually, when I got to that last Stormtrooper, I abandoned being clever and just stunned him, hoping to unlock the exit door before someone spotted his body.

Scum And Villainy

Back in the Pyke base, I eventually made my way through the forcefield door and stole the data from Gorak's terminal, where I also discovered his second-in-command was selling him out to the Empire. Upon returning to Danka, I met the client we were working for, a member of the rival Crimson Dawn gang. Here, Outlaws gives you a taste of another major element of your life of crime: its reputation system. You can either give the info on the traitor to Gorak, ingratiating yourself with the Pykes, or hand it over to Crimson Dawn for a rep boost with them.

Balancing how everyone feels about you seems like it'll be central to the game, although I only got a brief sense of it. Being in good with Crimson Dawn will probably make other factions like you less, but it unlocks some benefits, like discounts with certain vendors and the ability to enter the gang's territory without getting shot.

I gave the data to Crimson Dawn and then used my newfound respectability in the very next mission, which had me trying to acquire a blaster upgrade that was necessary for another burglary. You can steal it from the Pykes or Crimson Dawn; I went with ripping off my new allies, since they would now let me waltz almost right up to their vault. After some careful sneaking through a restricted area, I nabbed the part--an Ion Converter that's good for overloading mechanical stuff, like droids and shields--and slipped back out without anyone being the wiser.

From what I saw, just about every mission where you steal something valuable or do a job for a faction gives you a binary choice that's an opportunity for betrayal, allowing you to risk or blow your reputation gains and reverse your losses. In a later mission, with the Trailblazer repaired, I made my way onto that aforementioned Imperial space station. The goal was to wipe data on Gorak's debts, thereby framing him to look like he was betraying his Empire allies. But as Waka noted while I was making my way through the station, I could just as easily wipe the Crimson Dawn's debts, framing them instead, before heading back to Gorak for a bigger payday. After all, wasn't it just as likely that Crimson Dawn would eventually turn on me and cash in my death mark, even after they said they wouldn't? Why not strike first?

I didn't get a chance to see exactly how you'll navigate those relationships over the long term, or how outcomes will play out depending on whether Kay chooses loyalty or betrayal. Massive Entertainment developers did mention that, if your reputation with a faction drops low enough, they'll start sending death squads to eliminate you. I suspect the faction system, and the many opportunities to specifically turn on your employers, carries more weight in the story than just a drop in rep numbers, though.

A First Step Into A Larger World

Mirogana itself is surrounded by rolling plains and dotted with small towns and homesteads. There's the impression that it's composed of a series of territories controlled by different hostile factions, such as bandits and the Empire. Like the city itself, you can explore all this stuff freely on a speeder you unlock right after your run-in with Waka, finding additional tasks to complete or random events to interfere with.One of the cooler elements of Star Wars Outlaws is that while someone will often offer you a job, quests don't always fall in your lap, and Kay is always on the lookout for "opportunities." You might overhear a conversation between two thieves as they discuss where they left their haul of goods, giving you an opportunity to go jack it before they show up, or find an email from a company explaining to someone that crashing their speeder puts it out of warranty, offering you a chance to track down the wreck and see what you can salvage.

I particularly liked that Outlaws usually trusts you to figure these elements out yourself. You'll get a waypoint putting you in the general vicinity of something like a secret sabacc parlor or a hidden cache of stolen weapons, but these work more like clues to investigate than signposts. When I went looking for the goods that the pair of thieves mentioned, I found their stash behind a waterfall, but one of their associates had already moved it, leaving a note to tell them that behind a waterfall was a terrible place to hide stuff. That sent me searching for the new stash location, and when I found it, I had to figure out how to get into a locked building, sending Nix to open a panel that exposed a conduit I could overload with my ion blaster.

There seem to be lots of open-world tasks of varying levels of complexity, both on Toshara and the second planet we visited, Kijimi, the snowy city world last seen in The Rise of Skywalker. On the trip between them, I engaged in some space battles, fighting off Crimson Dawn fighters attacking cargo ships flown by civilians, and snagging cargo off wrecks floating in orbit. A lot of these little tasks feel fairly standard in a game like this, but the density means there's plenty of reason to explore.

While I liked much of my time with Star Wars Outlaws, it did sometimes feel rushed, undercutting the immersion into the Star Wars universe. Much of my interaction with the early story was hammy and unrealistic, with random person after random person offering me, an equally random person, jobs or information, or talking loudly about something they shouldn't be so I could overhear. It all felt a bit hokey. The gameplay, and in particular the stealth, I liked a lot more, especially when I realized how intricate Outlaws means for sneaking to be. It's exciting to play a Star Wars game that takes the danger of the universe seriously and forces you to be quick and clever, rather than just blast or slash your way through everything.

My major struggle was that it could often be tough to understand exactly what you're able to do. You know how people make fun of developers for covering everything in yellow paint to show you what can be climbed, blasted, or collected? Star Wars Outlaws is a pretty good example of why they do that, because I often felt unsure of what I could interact with in a given area. I appreciated that the game left me to figure out what I needed to do instead of just slapping a waypoint on it, but everything in Star Wars is covered in lights and buttons, making it tough to tell what's a control panel for Nix to flip or a generator you can shoot, and what's just a cool-looking background texture. It sometimes left me floundering to figure out what to do next.

Combat, too, felt a little loose, at least in this slice, mostly because I wasn't particularly sure how I was supposed to deal with a situation going badly without taking a ton of damage. Outlaws doesn't seem to handle those emergency moments especially well--but when you can execute a smart, sneaky plan using all your tools, especially Nix, the gameplay is exciting and rewarding.

This was just a short look at an enormous game, however, so the question to be answered is how well Outlaws brings these things together for the player as it teaches you how to play with tutorial elements and a better explanation of what's going on. Things like character and weapon upgrades and new skills that you have to hunt down and learn also seem likely to change the balance, making elements like combat feel like a more viable part of the game, and making sneaking and navigation a little more intuitive. More than anything, though, Star Wars Outlaws felt huge to me, and there's fun and a lot of potential in getting lost in a sprawling Star Wars underworld.