Star Wars Outlaws understands the importance of weird little guys and Glup Shittos

The bustling cantinas and shady back alleys of Star Wars Outlaws‘ gorgeously detailed (but never overwhelming) cities, towns, and small villages feel refreshing. Is it because they’re deeply interactive? Nope, not at all. In fact, they’re rather static sets when it comes to possible interactions. The secret sauce is that they truly feel lived-in and straight out of a galaxy far, far away.

Massive Entertainment’s latest open-world game isn’t that advanced once you get past the graphical presentation. Its overarching world design is actually a restrained version of what Ubisoft has been applying to Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, and even Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora for more than a decade now. It’s, however, a painstakingly detailed window into the Star Wars universe, and it all comes together because its makers really understood Star Wars thrives the more cool background characters and creatures which are crammed into a single scene.

Plenty of other Star Wars games (most, in fact) have nailed the surface-level vibes, the sights, and the sounds of the vast galaxy that came from George Lucas’ mind decades ago and has only grown in size, age, and scope as new artists have entered its sandbox. However, not everyone appears to understand the small little things that pile up and make Star Wars… Star Wars and not just another sci-fi/fantasy tale pretending to be Star Wars.

Last year’s Jedi: Survivor really understood the assignment. Respawn’s Jedi-centric epic, the second entry in a planned trilogy, was full of heart and the core themes that make Star Wars resonate with so many people across generations. On top of that, it also took some extra time (which Fallen Order didn’t have) to flesh out most of its locales and expand the ground level of the Star Wars galaxy. While the forces of light and darkness continue to fight, regular guys are just trying to get by, and that’s a constant in almost every sci-fi or fantasy setting you can think of. Perhaps movies don’t have as much time to tackle such matters when they’re focusing on Jedi and Sith, on the Rebels and the Empire, etc. But video games have even more space than novels and comic books to paint a richer picture of the Star Wars galaxy. Not only that, they’re the perfect medium to let fans become one with the worlds they’ve only looked at for so long.

When you’re blasting through a huge open-world game because you have to meet a deadline, it’s easy to ignore (or at least underappreciate) much of the work that goes into making giant game worlds come to life. If something isn’t directly tied to the playable experience, it might not get the attention it deserves. Those little bits and pieces are as key to selling the illusion as the mechanics and systems, or the moment-to-moment gameplay, though. In Star Wars Outlaws, I found it extremely hard to just push forward without stopping every few minutes to absorb the vistas and photograph the new little guy or freaky creature I’d come across. That soon becomes a ‘problem’ when there are so many of them scattered across the maps.

Outlaws is one of those Star Wars stories that simply revels in how colorful and zany the Star Wars universe can be. Much like the (underrated) spinoff movie Solo: A Star Wars Story, the lower stakes allow us to get closer to the characters that normally are in the background of a Skywalker Saga installment. Shows like The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and Andor also understood the appeal in making the Star Wars galaxy bigger by going smaller (at least until the plot started to tie into grander matters). After so many video games that delightfully recreated the battles between good and evil, putting so many resources and time into making a true scoundrel experience felt like the logical step forward to keep the Star Wars IP fresh in the gaming space.

Sure, Outlaws’ later story beats can’t escape the pull of Star Wars’ core themes (nor it should), but by and large, you’re just a schmuck off the radar of Luke Skywalkers and Darth Vaders. You just want to get paid and live your life, and maybe pet some banthas in the process. Any moment Kay Vess comes into contact with something or someone that feels above her league, she nopes the f**k out. I hope that remains intact in future DLC stories. I’d rather keep playing Sabacc with Lando than actually join the Rebellion. We’ve seen so much of Star Wars’ space opera and so little of the underworld up-close.

Outlaws’ main story takes a while to get going, but it eventually picks up, yet I’d be lying if I said Vess & friends’ big heist was more memorable than looking for a sarlacc’ tooth… inside a sarlacc. That’s the kind of content you can just completely miss if you’re rushing through the game’s main beats. Just don’t skip the ‘expert missions‘ and the little jaunts they lead to. Much of Star Wars Outlaws’ appeal lies hidden in plain sight, and that might explain why some reviews have felt so oddly harsh or more representative of Ubisoft open-world games that are more straightforward and predictable than Outlaws. Its planets beg to be explored at your own pace, picking little crumbs of info and putting together hidden stories and treasure hunts.

What I’m getting at is that I’ve often found more joy in Outlaws by speaking to that Rodian leaning alone on a table than by grinding the hell out of the reputation system or following a quest line that was thrown at my face. For the most part, it’s all good content, but Outlaws’ rewards Star Wars sickos who consume Wookieepedia articles like they were real-life data and casual players that check behind every waterfall for hidden chests. Take your time petting that unknown creature. Sit around trying to pick up some gossip. Steal that data card from the careless guard. Take pictures of the new cantina band. You’re not gonna find that anywhere else, at least not in such a textured fashion.

My favorite character in Outlaws, besides maybe ND-5, was that one Gallusian whose name I can’t remember that was working for the Imperials from inside a small fish tank. When he showed up, I knew Massive had truly cooked with this game. I rolled my eyes every time a generic human popped up and cheered whenever some weird alien became a major player or had something interesting to share. The smaller, the better. That’s maybe why Nix is the best little Star Wars sidekick since BD-1 was introduced in 2019 (sorry, Grogu).