While the Star Wars Outlaws achievements remain a mystery, I’ve been lucky enough to travel to a galaxy far, far away for a Star Wars Outlaws preview session to check out the upcoming Xbox open-world game and see what it has to offer. When Star Wars Outlaws was first announced, I was skeptical. Rather than playing as a Jedi or a Sith, you assume the role of thief Kay Vess, who, along with her alien animal companion Nix, has to navigate the shady underworld and its various crime syndicates to pull off one of the biggest heists ever seen in the Outer Rim. While I love living out the Jedi fantasy (who doesn’t), after spending a few hours with Kay exploring some of the wonderfully detailed and atmospheric locations in Outlaws, I was sold on the scoundrel Star Wars tale developer Massive is striving to deliver. That being said, I do have a few niggling gameplay concerns.My first gameplay session picked up shortly after crash-landing onto the dusty world of Toshara. After dispatching several enemies via a shooting mechanic very similar to Red Dead Redemption’s Dead Eye, I was free to zip across the open world of Toshara on my speeder bike in search of parts to repair my ship. My first stop was a cantina in the city of Mirogana to make contact with the boss of the Pyke Syndicate, Gorak. Stepping foot into Mirogana, I was immediately impressed with how ‘Star Wars’ the location felt. It was bustling, with droids and little creatures zipping around on the floor, aliens getting thrown out of gambling dens, Stormtroopers inspecting IDs and questioning those walking around — it was incredibly immersive and atmospheric. After meeting with the Pyke Syndicate boss, which didn’t go as planned, a fixer approaches me with an offer to steal information from inside Gorak’s private base. This involves sneaking through territory controlled by the syndicate. Of course, Kay can’t just walk in through the Pyke’s front gate; she has to nimbly scramble through vents and climb along ledges and railings, all while sneaking past patrolling guards— there is a lot of Assassin’s Creed DNA here. In these stealth sections, Kay’s alien axolotl-like companion, Nix, comes in handy. You can send the lovable little creature to distract guards, fetch items, push switches to open doors, and even detect enemies. I found myself using Nix a lot, almost a bit too much at times, which made me think he was maybe a little overpowered. Once at the Pyke stronghold, Kay can choose to “go loud” or attempt to remain silent while disabling an energy barrier to get inside. After quietly taking out a few guards, all hell breaks loose. I rely on Kay’s trusty blaster to shoot my way through the Pyke Syndicate. While you can pick up other guns dropped by enemies, Kay’s blaster is a permanent weapon that can be upgraded with different modules and abilities. I didn’t get to check out many of these upgrades, so it will be interesting to see how much they can change up the combat. Inside the stronghold, to get the information I needed, I hack a terminal that involved a minigame similar to Wordle but with images instead of letters. This, along with a lockpicking minigame that involves matching button presses to a pulsing rhythm from the lock, felt a little more unique compared to other similar minigames. Hacking the terminal revealed a traitor among the Pyke Syndicate, looking to overthrow its leader Gorak. Alarms then started blaring and I had to shoot through more enemies to escape and return to the fixer who gave me the mission. Once back at the cantina, I am given a choice: tell the Crimson Dawn, a rival faction to the Pyke Syndicate, about the traitor hidden among the Pykes, or save the information and give it to Gorak — it’s all very tense and exciting. Whichever option you pick impacts your reputation with either syndicate. Improving your reputation with a syndicate provides you with perks like more jobs, better prices and exclusive gear at merchants — it also opens up a syndicate’s territory for you to explore. Of course, aligning yourself with one syndicate will usually upset another, which has its consequences. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite get enough time with the game to see how these relationships play out, but they should add a fair bit of replayability to Star Wars Outlaws. I completed a couple of missions like the one above during my time with the game — one on an Imperial fueling station and another on the frosty planet of Kijimi. They all followed roughly the same formula of stealthily entering an area you’re not supposed to be, hacking and lockpicking your way through doors and terminals, getting spotted, and then blasting your way through enemies, all before eventually stealing something. I enjoyed playing through these quests, but I worry things could get a little stale if this formula persists for all the major story missions.After playing favorites with the syndicates, I went to explore the open areas of Toshara. I set out for a mission marker on the other side of the map but quickly found myself distracted — there is so much to explore and uncover. While blasting through the dusty landscape, Kay picked up Imperial communications indicating that stolen Imperial property had been located at a nearby pirate camp. Soon after, an Imperial Shuttle flew over top, which I followed to the camp. Once there, the Stormtroopers had pretty much taken out the pirates and turned their sights on me. Unlike the Stormtroopers in the movies, these ones didn’t miss and quickly blasted me to pieces. After legging it, I managed to give them the slip in some tall grass, but being the scoundrel that I am, quickly snuck back around to where the stolen goods were and snatched them. I love little world events like this, and while this was the only one that I really came across in my time with the game, it was a real highlight. From what I’ve seen so far, it’s clear that Ubisoft and Massive are shooting for the stars with Star Wars Outlaws. I feel as if I only scratched the surface from my time with the game, but from what I did experience, I was left throatily impressed at how alive and rich the worlds Massive created felt. I can’t wait to play more and fully immerse myself in the Star Wars universe once more.
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