Star Wars: Outlaws (Ubisoft)

[Julius]

Planets trailer: 

Quote

Get to know some of the worlds you'll be visiting in Star Wars Outlaws, including Akiva, Toshara, Kijimi, and Tatooine, in this new trailer for Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment's upcoming open-world single-player Star Wars scoundrel adventure.

 

[Julius]

Launch trailer:

Reviews are going to be dropping on Monday 26th at 13:00 BST. 

My expectations are low, but my body is ready 

[Happenstance]

Still not sure how this is going to turn out so I'm tempted to just sign up to Ubisoft+ for a month and play it that way.

[Julius]

So, this has turned up 3 days early...

So, my gaming plans for my week off are being tweaked I guess, wasn't expecting this  I was planning to finish KOTOR today (still the plan), squeeze something smaller scale in between now and Tuesday, then I'd get on Outlaws. 

Now we're doing back-to-back Star Wars, because, well, is there any other reasonable option? 

[Hero-of-Time]

Very nice! Look forward to reading how you get on with it.

[drahkon]

    21 minutes ago, Julius said:

    squeeze something smaller

I hate my childish brain sometimes

But yay, can't wait to hear more about something Star Wars...

Just kidding, looking forward to your impressions
 

[Julius]

Got about 3 hours in last night, and came away pretty mixed on the game so far – which, let's be clear, is not at all unexpected. 

To start out on a brief but much needed positive, let's get this out of the way first: the game's art direction is spot on, and it really does look spectacular at times. 

(yes, that's a screenshot)

So, assuming that back in June the previews were based on the tutorial/opening mission...I absolutely understand their negative response to the game. Holy smokes does it just kind of suck as an opening. You don't really get much of a sense of what's actually going on with Kay and why she's trying to break into this place beyond "because she is, and because someone else is too with her", it's an incredibly linear sequence which has you walk through and around a bit of lower Canto Bight to set the tone before getting to the first heist which sets things in motion, but it does all feel like not much more than set dressing when it comes to the place and it's inhabitants. It doesn't showcase much of the game loop at all. I'm shocked that in a world where Uncharted exists and you pull some inspiration from it, you don't pick up the lesson on the importance of strong starts.

I'll admit I spent way too long messing with the options, of which there are an overwhelming amount, but it is nice to see for those that want them – and there's a good set of accessibility options which I scrolled through, too. Turned off the haptic feedback in the end because it is on for LITERALLY EVERYTHING, and let me just point out that this is something I have very rarely done since the launch of the PS5. Every time you move up or down in the menu. Thumping music in a club. It's a pain in the ass and just felt like way too much. Initially couldn't decide between Performance and Quality, but settled on Performance because Quality comes with the camera jitters of a lower frame rate. Chromatic Aberration/Motion Blur/Film Grain all turned off for me, but Motion Blur had separate options for being By Object and the general blur being applied, which I thought was neat. Very customisable. Turned down the sensitivity as it seemed very high. 

The game also is in this 2.39:1 aspect ratio by default, so while the art direction is FREAKING FANTASTIC...

...it does look pretty atrocious in the way it awkwardly cuts off. I'm going to try the full screen mode today, but when I tested it for a few minutes yesterday it seemed like it was zoomed in more than it was simply removing the black bars the 2.39:1 aspect ratio adds, which is backed by the menu text being much larger when in full screen mode, like the full screen mode is a cropped and zoomed in version of the 2.39:1? Very strange. While I appreciate the inclusion of a Photo Mode and know that it's become a bit of an industry standard in AAA offerings, I do wish I could assign it to a particular button, but way more games need to that I feel. 

I also really feel the need to highlight the game's performance: I'm playing it early, and so that means I was a bit nervous about performance. Maybe Quality gets straightened out a bit at launch, but outside of sprinting in a bustling city which does cause the frames to drop a little bit, I'm astounded by how well this game is running so far with my chosen settings before a Day 1 patch. Kudos to you, Massive, seriously. 

Something which has pleasantly surprised me has been the abundance of mini-games, be it gambling on the Fathier races, a couple of arcade cabinets, or getting to a game of Sabaac – which I think the game does a pretty decent job of explaining, as it definitely strikes me as a game you can overcomplicate when explaining. 

So, let's talk about what has sucked probably the most so far, and that's the sneaking parts of missions. The stealth in this game, I'm sorry, plays like that of an overreaching and overly ambitious, overpromising indie game or small AA effort from early last gen (think The Order but...way, way worse) much more than it does a genuine AAA offering. I'm not talking about the sneaking which can go wrong and then develop into a shootout - that's actually kind of fun - but a few times I've been asked to go into a particular crime syndicate's territory to nab something, and doing so early in the game you do so with a Poor rating for that syndicate (we'll get to it) and so are forced to sneak around, and you're also unable to use a gun despite it being on you because..? And very limited resources; honestly, at this stage, the best you can really do is use your little companion Nix (we'll get to it) as a distraction and knock the guys out or hope the AI is generous and sneaky around them entirely. Look, maybe I'm just having a hard time getting into the flow of Ubi stealth having not played many of their big AAA offerings before, but I had to redo certain sections multiple times and the problem is that they kick you all the way back to the start, and in these stealth-only sections you seem to lose any treasure you've picked up too, so you then need to wait for everyone to get back into place before trying to knock them out/get by them again, so maybe you rush a little when stealthing feels super slow, etc. More often than not, these sections have boiled down to getting slightly spotted or using Nix to lure people over to a corner and knock them out as they turn it...but then it's not consistent because sometimes hitting Square to knock someone out won't at the same time and so you get spotted. These stealth-only sections in particular, I'd argue, are mechanically devoid frustrations more than anything else, so I'm curious to see how others react to them, and if I warm up to them by the end of the game – maybe they'll add some sort of unlockable thing which doesn't make them a pain. You don't even get a real chance to react to being caught, so I've seen this screen way more than I feel I should as someone who ADORES and engages with genuinely good stealth gameplay in other games. 

The shooting is serviceable, but nothing great; weirdly, again, it's the little touches more akin to the mini-games when it comes to the non-stealth-only stealth sections, like figuring out how I can or who I can pay off to access somewhere I shouldn't be, a trial and error hacking mini-game, or, what might quickly become my favourite lock-picking in any game? Basically you need to tap R2 to the rhythm of some beeps and it genuinely feels great. 

I've had very limited exposure to the Underworld alliances being so early into the game, which does kind of scream WB's unfortunately patented Nemesis System. Basically, your partnership levels are going to fluctuate as the game goes on, and taking certain missions will improve your standing with one syndicate and lower it with another, but on rare occasions you'll get dialogue options which explicitly state who they'll improve your standing with, and the first one I came across took some mulling over: it was a decision where I was choosing between reporting an internal feud the Pykes were having to the Pykes or Crimson Dawn, and because I'd already looked in-game at the options opening up to me at Good, Excellent and Max rep with the Pykes, Crimson Dawn and the Hutts, I knew that the Pykes offered an Imperial disguise at Max rep which just seems useful. Now, I hate the Pykes - blame The Clone Wars - but knowing they offer an Imperial disguise, which I imagine might make it easier to move around certain locales or maybe convince other Imperials of my standing? I've decided to side with the Pykes until I reach Max rep with them, basically cosying up to them until I get what I want, and they'll betray them all the way until the end of the game once I have what I want from them. As fun as an exercise that was to think about and go through, the crazy part is that it wouldn't have happened if I didn't go out of my way to check what was in offer from the menus first, and so I find myself scratching my head as to why Massive weren't forcing players to look at that stuff earlier, because thinking about what you get out of your standing with the syndicates should be such a key part of the gameplay loop because it causes that questioning on what decision to make. The Hutts even have a very Sabine-like chest plate and jacket combo I know I have to have! Whereas Crimson Dawn are styling. They should have placed so much more emphasis on the rewards! 

There's also just some general niceties and quirks to touch on. Sell All options for valuables is great and doesn't include valuables which may be of use down the line (Nix still a big shot's ring which didn't auto-sell under Sell All despite potentially going for a hefty fee, and reading it's description it hints that I might be able to do something with it later, which has me intrigued); the city map sucks, you can't let me mark a waypoint in a cramped city with a bunch of alleyways and still force me to open up the map to get my bearings and point me in the right direction; when given options to bribe your way in, you can simply select to see how much of a bribe you're going to offer rather than being left completely in the dark; the hover bike feels fine so far, seems like there's plenty of customisation options for it and your ship, The Trailblazer. Plenty of customisation options in general, already got my eye on a few looks for Kay. Missions come in all shapes and sizes, too, and I like that I've come across some outlined in Datapads which I'll need to take the time to track down in the open world at some point. Kind of just steals Dead Eye from Red Dead, which I guess I'm cool with? But keep forgetting to use. Gunplay is fine if a bit on the loose side, you only have your blaster by default and can pick up other weapons during a shootout but can't equip or carry others permanently (at least I haven't been able to so far). Not in the slightest Star Wars but GTA, your gun up to this point at least has only accessible in shootouts, period. Which...yeah, kind of sucks and doesn't add much dynamism to the game. 

Anyways, with all of that said and done, let's talk about the absolute highlight of the game so far: your little merqaal companion, bestest boy, saviour of the universe and the anointed chosen one, Nix. 

Irresistibly adorable and absolutely hilarious, I'm going to say that the lil furry axolotl-looking Nix has made this early part of the gaming something more than bearable, as he's straight up made it enjoyable at times and given me a few good chuckles. The way he plays dead or jumps around to distract enemies during stealth sections, the way he tries to maul their faces when he attacks them, the way you can ask him to go off to retrieve treasure and steal from someone...he's the bestest boy in the whole damn Galaxy. Say what I will when my time with Outlaws comes to a close, or what I have in the past about the Jedi games, between Nix and BD-1, these Star Wars games may have questionable quality at times but there's no doubt that they've produced some S-tier companions (and yes, Nix is already S-tier). 

I mean, you can even get little accessories for him, and he's even included in the gear rewards for the syndicates! Even they appreciate him! 

And then there's the way you can ask him to look at your opponent's cards in Sabaac, which is hilariously adorable and endearing...

So, yeah, very mixed opening to the game, but I'll be continuing on with it of course.

I've barely touched the open world at this point, and haven't had a proper section where I've had to fly around or have a dogfight in the Trailblazer, so hopefully I'll have some thoughts to share on those aspects the next update 

Edited Sunday at 11:28 AM by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Those stealth sections sound awful. Baffles me that developers still continue to put stuff like that in their games. It very rarely goes down well with players.

Very happy to hear about the performance of the game. Given the state Jedi Survivor launched in, I didn't have high hopes for this but I'm glad it seems no where near as bad.

[Happenstance]

That stealth stuff doesn't fill me with confidence. I hate shitty stealth sections in games and have little patience for it.

[Happenstance]

 

Reviews are starting to hit.

I decided to try it after all so I've signed up to a month of Ubispft+ and im preloading the game now ready for early access at 11pm tonight.

[Julius]

@Happenstance (and anyone else picking up the game), some info I hope will be useful to minimise some of my own frustrations with the game:

When the game tells you that you've unlocked an ability, what it means is that it is unlocked for you to select and unlock via the menu. 

Because Ubisoft are actually useless, I swear they've forgotten to point players to the menu a bunch of times between this and my experience with the syndicate rewards  I'm not sure it would greatly improve my perspective on the stealth in the early sections of the game, but it would explain why I didn't have any chance of doing anything when I got caught (and it still doesn't totally negate it, so a lot of my criticisms still stand). 

Hopefully that helps someone 

[Happenstance]

Gave the game a quick test this morning to make sure it was all working. Seems to run well on high settings. Ill try again after work to see what I can tweak to go higher.

I did get a glitch within the first few minutes though with a character calling me over to give me something then no dialogue and nothing handed over so that's a good start 😆

[Happenstance]

Shifted Star Wars up to Ultra settings and I'm still getting around 145fps in the opening area so that's promising. Need to check later to see if that included extra raytracing elements but as I'm just on my lunchbreak I wasn't going through every setting.

[Julius]

Right, I had a monster session with the game yesterday, and so I'm now standing at just under 14 hours played; according to the PS5's progression tracker I'm 47% in, but looking at story-related trophies and the fact that I'm only about halfway through my time on the second world at a guess, I have no idea how accurate that is; we had ND-5 (pronounced Andy, I guess?) join up with us and are now putting together a team.

I'm not going to post any screenshots this time around - I'm just going to save those for my eventual write-up I think, the PS App is too much of a pain to dig through - but I do have some clips to share with the class. Okay, maybe a lot of clips. I'll save those towards the end, but they range from silly to sillier, so please be excited 

With that being said, I really need to address the vibes and atmosphere of this game - I think they, along with Nix (the Bestest Boi, Conquerer of Worlds and Prince of the Universe) are the genuine consistent highlight of this game, I seriously can't stop myself from taking screenshots and it's becoming a problem (for my console storage).

The first planet you get to roam around on, Toshara, is an Outlaws-original planet...and unfortunately, it kind of shows – it feels like Koboh 2.0 (from Jedi Survivor): dull plains, canyons, just flat orange and dry greens with the Star Wars flair of "giant crystals and a donut mountain", it's a bit drab, save for the lighting because good lord does the sky make it seem much prettier at times. You get off the planet and into its space area, though? It's just so gosh darn pretty. Kijimi, the game-recommended second planet I headed to after being able to finally leave Toshara and a planet originating from Episode IX - you know...my least favourite Star Wars film? - is wonderfully captured, and it's that Disneyland-type feeling which I feel the game captures most, similar to the Jedi games or even EA's Battlefront games: no, I don't think any of these are the best Star Wars games, but the look? The sound design?

My WORD, once again, the soundtrack? Amazing stuff. Wilbert Roget II (who also worked on The Old Republic MMO, which I thought was pretty neat! He also did Helldivers 2 earlier this year!), Jon Everist, and Kazuma Jinnouchi did an excellent job. If I'm going to super nitpick - which I am, because I'm a Star Wars fan and also a huge Star Wars soundtrack nerd - this takes place between Episode V and Episode VI, meaning that their use of Episode IV's Imperial Theme is kind of out of place and should perhaps have been the Imperial March, BUT!! It feels damn good to hear that old and original Imperial Theme, and still works – again, just nitpicking. Really loving the theme we get in the PS5 menu as well as the game's main menu in particular so far, so when I load up I just sit and listen for a bit which feels great. 

10/10 on capturing the Star Wars look, feel, and sound. Well done guys. 

So, to return to talking about the gameplay and structure of the game...I'm still very mixed on it. I now have more than enough time in the open world and in space to comment on them. A couple of hours into my monster session yesterday I happily gave up trying to do everything - there is simply too much filler to it all, even for an open world game - and swore off the Plat (I've been trying to 100%/Plat fewer games, but this being Star Wars, I was considering it briefly). I just don't think it's a game structured well enough to go off and explore and do everything, because out in the open world you have question marks popping up every few hundred metres, but because you can't interact with things while on your speeder bike it means getting off, disrupting the flow of what you were in the middle of doing...well, yeah, no more of that for me. I maxed out my standing with the Pykes on the first planet so got my hands on that Imperial gear (also, a trophy/achievement pops for achieving "max rank" with them at only "excellent, so there's that) and bottomed out my relationship with Crimson Dawn. I think at this point my plan alongside the main story is to get max rank with every syndicate (which seems very doable) for the outfits, do the occasional contract, try to complete quests which improve my gear and fully upgrade the Trailblazer, but I don't think I'll do too much beyond that. 

Anyways, talking of speeder bikes - and this is MENTAL to me - the ONLY way to shoot at people when cruising around and they start chasing you is through the game's Dead Eye rip-off?! You can't freely shoot like you can when you're on, say, horseback in the Red Dead Redemption games. Similarly, you know how Rockstar basically made the Wanted system what it is today? And in all of their games provides the players with accessible ways to remove it, say go to a town and bribe someone, or make a call? How about if you're stuck in the open world getting chased, you have the options of waiting it out in the middle of nowhere for a good while, there's only one Imperial back in the city you can bribe, or straight up attacking an Imperial equivalent of a checkpoint to hack in and stop the chase? WHAT?! How does the make any sense? Oh, and also, not only can you only wield your blaster when the game wants you to, but say you're in a shootout and picked up a stormtrooper's E-11 but you interact with something, either punching someone in the face or trying to hack into something, you drop that blaster more suited for a shootout the same way you would drop a heavy weapon in Horizon Zero Dawn. 

The first planet weirdly reminds me of Koboh from Jedi Survivor...but it's worse. There's a lot of open and empty space - my problem with this in these games is it's not an atmospheric thing like it is in some of the better open world games like Breath of the Wild or Elden Ring or Ghost of Tsushima, they just didn't put anything there, period - and, man, this games "Metroidvania elements" had me incensed. "Go off and explore the open world!", the game tells you, and so I end up in the middle of nowhere, there are barely any fast travel points in this open world and so I attack a pirate camp searching for treasure with the nearest fast travel spot a good 2+ km away. I clear the place out of pirates, I'm told there are 4 pieces of treasure here, pick up 1, 2, 3 pieces of treasure...where's the 4th? Oh that looks like a cracked wall, let's try shooting it – no? How about a thermal detonator? No still? Turns out I seemingly needed a certain type of explosive round I simply didn't have access to at that point in the game (I have it now, haven't been able to test it out though), and so I'll never go back for that treasure. I don't have enough of a reason to care, and quite frankly, I think the game still cares less than I do. 

And my goodness the maps suck ass. A flat 2D map for a city with more than one floor? Stupid. No way of guiding yourself through the city or open world even when placing a waypoint, so you're just awkwardly checking the map as you go anyways? It only works in the space section because, hey, you can fly around obstacles, or perhaps even Kijimi does it marginally better because it's filled with straight lines from one place to another (until they start to overlap, at least). 

One of the highlights of my time with the game so far for me has to be raiding an Imperial Base, it felt almost MGS-like...though obviously seriously lacking the quality of anything close to MGS. Sneaking in, taking guys out, making sure I've obscured cameras while sneaking my way up to a tower and then having the alarms sound while I pelt it to the small hatch I entered from? The game was at its best because it's letting me play around with its systems in a way which would be unique to me, and which I feel is just about the entire point of open world games like this: it is a feeling of ownership over your adventure and encounters. 

The space stuff is also just kind of solid? It's nothing mind-blowing but because there's very little in the way besides dogfights and points of interest, it feels like it strips back all the busywork of the open world on the planet below. 

And while I've been playing through this game, I've felt this way a lot: this game is taking bits and pieces from so many games but not carving out any real identity for itself as a VIDEO GAME – it feels like it is Star Wars first and a game second. GTA/Rockstar's Wanted system. Red Dead's Dead Eye. Uncharted's treasure hunting and climbing around. WB's Nemesis System. Stealth I'm not sure what from but it feels barely serviceable beyond what it was for MJ in the Insomniac Spider-Man games. 

It has me wanting to play Uncharted: Lost Legacy, Ghost of Tsushima, a GTA game, Metal Gear Solid V, and I can't remember the last time I was actively playing a game, recognising its watered down systems, and wanting to play the games it had taken things from. I'm honestly not sure I've ever found myself thinking so actively about other games, or pining so much for something else from Star Wars, I mean if we're going to be dead set on not doing our own things let's really ape off other things, right? A captured Rebel commando team escaping prison a la Metal Gear Solid crossed with some Apocalypse Now? A straight up galaxy-spanning treasure hunt a la Uncharted? An outright OUTLAWS game where I can wield my weapon when and wherever I want, shoot whoever I want in the face, play the game how I want to play it, like a cross between Red Dead and The Outer Worlds?

I'm really hoping that Lucasfilm Games are Lucasfilm have better ownership and understanding of the IP and game quality after giving the IP to EA for a decade and having their first non-EA game come from Ubisoft, but I'm not sure they will learn. And it's such a shame. 

I'm gobsmacked by the game getting the positivity it has – yes it nails the Star Wars vibes and atmosphere, but the rest of the game is letting those vibes and atmosphere down, and I guess it does raise a question of a Star Wars review score bump but also how much vibes and atmosphere factor into a review score? I mean, look at these scores: 

I'm not trying to say that anyone should hate the game, and by all means enjoy it for what it's worth and people have put hard work into this, but this game is not, in mind, worthy of the scores it's ended up with. There is no way in God's green earth that this games is a high 70s game, it simply isn't. I haven't yet watched their review, because I'm still playing the game, but Greg Miller over at Kinda Funny giving the game a 4/10 sounds kind of in line with where I stand on the game so far – I don't like to score games, though I think I will share my opinion on a score I would've given it when all is said and done in this thread, because I went in expecting and hoping for a 6/10 and I think the game's potentially falling short even of that. There is no way I would still be continuing to play this game if it wasn't Star Wars. 

Alright, enough being a Negative Nancy, let's get to some clips to lighten the mood. For context, yes the game performs well in Performance Mode on PS5, and I've also gone full screen as it turns out it was the UI getting much bigger which was throwing me off and giving the illusion that the image was cropped, but as mentioned by @Happenstance, it really is leaning heavily on the buggy side of things. Not at all unexpected for an open world, much less Ubisoft, but I felt the need to share, because some of these gave me a good giggle  I'll give context where I can for these. 

On my way to the first Imperial Base I'd try to sneak into, things went a bit awry. 

This guy has a unique moisturising technique. 

This next one showcases that upon death/capture, the game forgets who you've taken out and resets everyone, but some in...unique and interesting positions. 

This next one just looks painful. 

Here I interacted with the Mon Cala to gain access to the backroom for a game of high stakes Sabaac, but it bugged out and wouldn't let me interact with anything. Fixed with a quick reload. 

This cantina was bopping along until it awkwardly and suddenly wasn't. 

Anything the light touches is lava. 

Just shy of a T-pose, but changing outfits on a ladder into an Imperial uniform really improves your posture, apparently. 

Doors are an illusion. 

This guy was playing MMX World Tour I guess? 

And Kay has butterfingers, aka I couldn't interact with this object for a good 2 minutes to continue my mission and the game hasn't auto-saved for 10 minutes because of it being a stealth mission. 

I'm sure I'll be back with more thoughts at some point, but for now, back to it tell you what though, if nothing else, this game has really got me in the mood to re-watch Solo for the first time, so I guess that's a win? 

Edited 7 hours ago by Julius

[Happenstance]

I was hoping some of the negative reviews were exaggerating but I guess not. Pretty glad I didn't buy Outlaws outright because I'd have been a lot more disappointed.

I haven't played too much yet but this already feels like the weakest start to a Star Wars game in years. I don't care about the main character at all and they throw you into the first mission so quickly that I had no idea what I was doing or why. The character also feels horrible to control, just a bit too slow so no movements feel natural. I'll stick with it for a while longer but if it doesn't get better I can see myself dropping it.