Star Wars Outlaws (PC, Xbox, PS)

[MartyG]

I've played about three hours of it; it did have some wierd stuttering about 15 mins in, but I changed the screen res and it sorted itself out.

It's decent enough, it oozes atmosphere but it's similar to Cyberpunk 2077 in terms of interaction, that there's not that much of it with NPCs - it not quite as barren as there are NPC with side-quests and if you listen to the characters that speak English, then there are often easter eggs in the conversations.

There's a lot of Lore included in the game, everything you see, locations you discover on different planets, charaters, species and organisations you meet - they've clearly spent a lot of time on this side of it, and the worlds feel way more open than anything in Jedi Survivor / Fallen Order, I don't think you're missing things not having Force skills.

Looks great, sounds great and I do like the story so far and the main characters (with iffy lip-sync in the cutscenes). The menus and options in them are extensive - Ubisoft always do a good job here. Plenty of accessibility options, you can change dozens of aspects of the game to your liking, such as making the mini-games easier or tougher, turning off the visibility markers for climbable objects etc, and loads of graphics options that can be tweaked - you'll definitely be able to get this run on low-level hardware, just not with all the bells and whistles of ultra settings.

Things I don't like are the insta-fail stealth missions (although I only failed the first one once) - you get introduced after you leave your home planet, but it's kind of key to the whole theif breaking into places theme. Hopefully there's not too much of it through the game or it's made a little more forgiving.

The map markers could be a little better; they're trying to be none intrusive by going small when you're going the wrong way, but they could be a little clearer heightwise. You have a map, uncover fast-travel points and custom markers so you will work out where to go. Combat is a bit simplistic and you can only carry one weapon at a time, when these run out of "ammo" you go back to your blaster.

Based on what I've played so far, I'd give it 7 Obi-Wan Kenobis out of 10; I think if you're a big fan of Star Wars you'll get more from it due to Massive nailing the atmosphere part of it completely.

[MartyG]

After seven hours, things are starting to open up, I'm sure you can get through things faster, but I've been exploring and find hidden missions and treasures, upgraded the speederbike, fixed the spaceship - just need to get the hyperdrive sorted and it'll be off to other planets. I see the user reviews have opened up on Metacritic, and they're frankly ridiculous, but that shouldn't come as a surprise. Claims that this is the ugliest game with a terrible characters and boring story just haven't played it and probably never will - the story and atmosphere are top game, and it looks absolutely stunning with all the RT turned up to max.

The stealth missions do seem to be quite frequent, but they're not all insta-fails, so not as frustrating and you start to understand the stealth system a little more - I still don't think that aspect of it is great, but you can pick the enemies off one by one by pulling them out of their patrol routes, it's just isn't especially thrilling gameplay. You do soon end up on an Imperial space station after fixing the ship, and it's pure Star Wars movie - it's quite an imaginative mission, and it was quite fun despite sneaking about.

Other than that odd framerate issue I had early on when I streamed the game (and I think that might have been OBS capture related), I haven't had any problems, no game breaking bugs that stop progress or broken NPC conversations; there is the occasional stutter but it's not common, and I've seen the odd RT weirdness around pointlight sources and DLSS hair issues (or possibly down to the ray reconstruction), but generally this is a very stable and glitch free game.

I'm still going with a 7 and the moment, but I think it has potential to be an 8 once you can explore the galaxy.

[MartyG]

Made it into hyperspace and off to Tatooine and seeing a certain decoration hanging on the wall of a certain palace, not sure if Kay knows who she's looking at.

And then met the Sand People (and worse).


But got to relax in a bar at Mos Eisley, the band playing some tunes

And some star gazing after the suns went down.

The stealth stuff never really goes away though, so if that puts you off then I'd stay away from the game, with all the other stuff to do and see in the game you can kind of put it off a bit until you really have to - and there are some fantantic areas to explore, like old derelict ships.



It's these parts that keep you pushing things forward.

[Dogg Thang]

I've been playing this and I've finally made it to hyperspace and I'm now exploring the other planets. Aside from the stealth sections, of which there are many, I'm loving it. It's so Star Wars in its feel. Maybe the best Star Wars I've played in that regard, in terms of feeling like I've been thrown into the world of the movies.

I've had the odd funny glitch along the way but nothing major, except for one where I had completed a mission and I had to leave the area and then it failed me for leaving the area. When it reloaded, all was fine. That was as bad as I've encountered.

Overall, it looks superb. The locations are gorgeous and it all just feels authentic Star Wars. It's a strong game.

[Brad]

It sounds pretty good! Better than I was expecting. Sadly I am unable to play ubisoft games so I'll just have to follow your adventures here.

[MartyG]

Completed the game (well the main story) now and overall my rating hasn't changed. I've enjoyed the game mostly, and it definitely drips with Star Wars, but the DLC in the season pass would have to be something different from the main game to make it worth it. If it's just more stealth stuff I think I'd call it a day. You can pick this up for £28 on CD Keys now, and I'd say it's definitely worth a go for that price.

It has had a big patch since, and that has improved overall frame rates, sorted the lip sync and tweaked the stealth so that the AI doesn't have super detection powers, it'll make the first stealth mission at the start which was a chore better, and stealth is far easier once you get into the rhythm of it - the exploration of the areas you will get into are great though, so you will get more out of the game as a Star Wars fan and it truly is stunning looking with all the RT turned on - my rating remains a 7/10.

[fishbowlhead]

I’ll wait for inevitable Jan price crash & the PS5 pro patch now. Good impressions though Marty.

[Neon Ignition]

I think, outside of the Ubi-mould aspect, my main concern in playing Outlaws would be that I'm currently mid-way through Jedi Survivor and I'm enjoying it but without question the more open areas are the weak points. A whole game of it...

[Dogg Thang]

I think, outside of the Ubi-mould aspect, my main concern in playing Outlaws would be that I'm currently mid-way through Jedi Survivor and I'm enjoying it but without question the more open areas are the weak points. A whole game of it...

I haven't played Survivor so I can't compare but, if Survivor is still very like Fallen Order, then Outlaws feels very different in its open world stuff. And it's mostly because of how populated it is. Sure, there is a whole lot of nothing, like many open world games (still to this day, I think I prefer a tighter fuller game) but there is actually lots to discover and lots of little settlements. And with those, a huge load of little side quests - your mileage on those will vary for sure. I am not a completionist and I'm glad because there would be too much for me to do here.

[Neon Ignition]

I'll keep an eye out on it, much like others, it'll be a waiting game for it to hit that Ubi-bottom dollar price point

[MartyG]

There are some great areas you'll miss if you don't do the side quests for the blaster upgrades for example, like the sandfalls cavern.

[fishbowlhead]

This has now been updated to the very latest version of PSSR on Pro and apparently all the graphical glitches that were an issue due to U5 Lumen are cleared up, along with some further slight performance issues. No need for the PSSR/FSR toggle now with PSSR being vastly better.

[fishbowlhead]

Got a cheap copy of Vinted in the end, I love me a haggle. Anyway, I like it, there’s a lot going for it, Kay & Nix are both great, Kay is well written and acted, and is generally likeable, nix is good little critter while being a useful gameplay hook. The worlds are great, background characters are done well with some interesting conversations to ear wig on.

Technically while it often looks pretty and certainly has good art, the game just looks like it’s native res is 480p with Ubisoft putting it through upscalers to within an inch of its life at every turn, which is a massive shame. Also the lack of HDR hurts as well, with everything looking very flat, or that flatness may be symptom of something else they’ve done, I’m not sure. I can’t imagine how bad it looked on launch with this being in a supposed “fixed” state.

Anyway I like it enough to carry on with, so that speaks for the core experience.


edit. Didn’t realise there was a “quality 60fps” mode on pro, that definitely cleans the image up a bit over performance mode. Doesn’t deal with the “flatness” of the game but it’s buts it’s better at least.

edit2. Oh my, you are definitely NOT a jedi with super powers in this, the Empire are no joke for your average smuggler.

[fishbowlhead]

Over 40hrs in on this and absolutely loving it to be honest.

My initial gripes with the resolution & flatness were limited solely to Mirogana city on Toshara it seems, with the rest of the game looking absolutely pin sharp on PS5 pro “quality 60fps” mode. There’s times on Tatooine where you have to remind yourself this is on a console and not a high end PC rig, with some absolutely magical vistas, especially with the twin suns setting.

It’s a real shame UBI didn’t wait until it was in this state to release it, and instead rushed it out to meet quarterly targets, as the actual finished product is fantastic, but the rushed out release day probduct with all its technical issues and crap insta fail stealth did the game so much harm.

Oh well.

[MartyG]

Took me a little over 30 hours to complete the main story, and I took in quite a lot of the side missions - it's a decent game, and Kay is a very likeable main character, well voice acted as well.