Author: Simulacrum  <<nub>>    99.47.225.102 Use this link if you want to link to this message and its entire thread of discussion. Post a Msg
Date: 4/25/2026 10:12:46 AM
Subject: More impressions of Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws is a perfect example of how the Twitch and Youtube gamer community makes up its mind that a game is bad before they ever play it. The weightiest contribution to this determination is its identity as an Ubisoft AAA title. Since Assassin's Creed Valhalla, no Ubisoft game -- especially any open-world project with a big budget -- has escaped this bias. As soon as the announcement trailer for Outlaws dropped, it was pronounced "Ubislop" and went into the review process with no chance of succeeding.

I paid $70 for this thing and decided that I would at least try to get through the main story. I wanted to see if it was as bad as everyone said. I have played it for over 90 hours, and I think some of the negativity is deserved but a lot of it is unexamined bias and clickbait dogpiling.

The Bad

1. Outlaws has an extremely annoying tendency to wrench you out of one quest and throw you into another one without warning. As an example, I was looking for a certain weapons expert on Tatooine who might teach me a new skillset. I was directed to go to a cantina for a meeting with this person, but before I could cross the room, I was assailed by a cutscene in which I was suddenly thrown into another entirely unrelated mission. I was not prepared to go on a long jaunt in this new direction, so I went to the main menu to load an earlier save.

2. Outlaws might let you load an earlier save without issue, or it might not. In this case, no matter how far I went back, the only save I could reload was the autosave that started the new mission -- even though I had made at least a couple of manual saves not long before entering the cantina.

3. Being hijacked by a new mission can have damaging effects. Much of Outlaws' fluidity depends on whether you have a good or bad reputation with any of the game's four criminal factions. If you have a good to excellent standing, you can move freely through a faction's territories. If you have a poor or worse standing, you can be attacked on sight. This makes travel and every kind of interaction quite difficult. Hijacking the player into a new mission, especially a major one, can result in disastrous reputation effects, which is doubly annoying because it takes a long time to build relationships with factions. In an instant, this can be wiped out and in some cases it can't be undone.

4. There are some minor quibbles, like the usual bad quality of Ubisoft's cutscenes and some awkward mis-clicks owing to their often sloppy handling of environmental cues, but these aren't that bad and other companies receive high praise even though they're just as guilty about this kind of thing.

The Good

1. I've never seen a better realization of a game world (actually, multiple worlds). Toshara's main city is basically a sprawling mall with all manner of shady goings-on and believable NPCs. The "cities" on Kijimi and Akiva aren't much, but Mos Eisley on Tatooine is extremely well-realized. You really feel a part of places you've seen in the movies, and Mos Eisley is a special achievement. Working from the bar in A New Hope, the developers imagined an expanded urban "hive of scum and villainy" with winding streets, junk shops, speeder garages, restaurants, back alley skulkers, and an imposing Imperial presence. It's all very true to the movie and evocative of every seedy but romantic desert watering hole in every '40s movie, from Casablanca to Marrakech.

2. The music is extremely good. It's not just recycled John Williams. It has his influence, but much of it is original. There's also a strange quasi-Bedouin undercurrent that goes perfectly with the settings and seems both alien and familiar. It reminds me of Sarah Schachner's score in Assassin Creed Origins. Recommended listening.

3. Everything else is . . . fine. The interface is good, the graphics are fine with lots of options, the performance is excellent. There's a certain clunkiness here and there, but on the whole, it's a workmanlike and very serviceable production.

I'm withholding judgment about the story since I haven't finished it. To be continued.