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 Sabacc – 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 Sabacc, 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 August 29 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 Sabacc, 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 August 29 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.

[Julius]

Feels to me like the game has got even buggier since yesterday; in the last 24 hours, I've had three hard crashes and an endless loading screen. At least two of those, though, were down to trying up a menu just after a cutscene – maybe it's an issue with the load-in? 

Thoughts generally unchanged  just finishing up on the third planet, on the verge of reaching max rank with the Hutt Cartel, so then it's the fourth and I imagine a finale not too long after considering we're assembling a team spread across these planets, as well as dragging up my rating with Crimson Dawn. According to the PS5 itself I'm 71% through the game, so I imagine I'll have it wrapped up by the end of tomorrow unless something comes up. 

Not quite sure if I'll be fully upgrading The Trailblazer after all, seems like I'll be running between spots to buy upgrades and I'm fine with how my ship has turned out anyways. Yellow exhausts, silver hull and all 

Edited August 28 by Julius

[Julius]

A bit over 26 hours in now and according to the PS5 hub I am 85% of the way through the game's story. I'm one or two missions away from maxing out my reputation with the fourth and final syndicate, Crimson Dawn, and besides that I have just a handful of missions I want to see through to the end alongside the main story (namely, that Jabba quest everyone made a fuss about being a pre-order bonus pre-launch and the Sabacc line, I'm really having a blast playing Sabacc and I'll 100% be picking up a Sabacc play set in the future). Nix is still being his adorable self, and there have been a couple of cameos - some more involved than others, and one in particular I'm over the moon over (unless they turn up again later on?) as it's handled in the way that I personally love, which is more of a "blink and you'll miss it", "make sure to keep your eyes wide open" type of cameo. I can see this being completed before I reach the 30 hour mark, honestly. 

However, there has been a twist in the tale of the game's early access launch on PS5 specifically which seems like it risks putting my entire playthrough at jeopardy: Ubisoft are asking players to install a new update for the game, V1.000.002, due to potential game-breaking bugs – and this involves RESTARTING the game from scratch. 

My reaction upon seeing this knowing I'm in the endgame:

Now, maybe it's a bit disingenuous to say that players paid the £90+ or whatever it was for the Gold or Ultimate Editions of the game, as their price is roughly equivalent to that of the base game + season pass, and there's no doubt that is what might legally cover Ubisoft's asses here. 

Goes without saying that this is kind of disgusting and absurd, and in my case I've taken time off work to play this during a well-timed Bank Holiday week. I remember seeing on the game's main menu around 15 hours in (reloading after a crash, of course!) something about "playing the newest version" but it wouldn't let me select it, I checked for an update but nothing, and so far seems to be chugging along  I'll be avoiding the update if I can help it, during my playthrough my game has kept disconnecting from Ubisoft Connect during short breaks, so maybe that's helped me to get by too? Certainly didn't help when I had a crippling audio glitch where what can be best described as "droid background processing noise from Star Wars" was playing during cutscenes, fights, etc., and even loading up a save wouldn't do it, I had to hard quit. 

Anyways, there's definitely a conversation to have here I think about these early access types of deals which have been growing in popularity. Personally I knew it was a bit of a risk - same way I do when a game arrives early, heck oftentimes Day 1 patches aren't even enough! - but, well, a new Star Wars game releasing during a week I was planning to take off from work anyways never happens, and worst case I could've found something else to do or play. 

For now, honestly, my mind is kind of just stuck on the fact that I find myself almost needing to finish the game in my next sitting with how things stand – no, I absolutely won't be playing this game again if the save is lost, so it definitely feels like a bit of a race against the clock. 

Which is to say: 

Edited August 29 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

1 hour ago, Julius said:

 

Goes without saying that this is kind of disgusting and absurd, and in my case I've taken time off work to play this during a well-timed Bank Holiday week. I remember seeing on the game's main menu around 15 hours in (reloading after a crash, of course!) something about "playing the newest version" but it wouldn't let me select it, I checked for an update but nothing, and so far seems to be chugging along  I'll be avoiding the update if I can help it, during my playthrough my game has kept disconnecting from Ubisoft Connect during short breaks, so maybe that's helped me to get by too? Certainly didn't help when I had a crippling audio glitch where what can be best described as "droid background processing noise from Star Wars" was playing during cutscenes, fights, etc., and even loading up a save wouldn't do it, I had to hard quit. 

Anyways, there's definitely a conversation to have here I think about these early access types of deals which have been growing in popularity. Personally I knew it was a bit of a risk - same way I do when a game arrives early, heck oftentimes Day 1 patches aren't even enough! - but, well, a new Star Wars game releasing during a week I was planning to take off from work anyways never happens, and worst case I could've found something else to do or play. 

For now, honestly, my mind is kind of just stuck on the fact that I find myself almost needing to finish the game in my next sitting with how things stand – no, I absolutely won't be playing this game again if the save is lost, so it definitely feels like a bit of a race against the clock. 

 

It's just flat out ridiculous. These types of early access deals from the AAA publishers are supposed to reel players in so that they can play the games early, not to beta test stuff. It's why you are paying a premium. Of course, this situation with this game doesn't surprise me in the slightest. I mean, just look how rough Jedi Survivor was at launch. Honestly, it's getting worse and worse when it comes to buying day one, especially when it comes to Western developed games. I suppose the plus point of games costing £60+ means that I now avoid all of this because by the time it is down to a reasonable price, a lot of the issues should have been sorted.

 

[Nicktendo]

@Julius email Ubisoft quickly. There are...

*checks notes*

An in-game Trailblazer trinket and *gasp* 100 Ubisoft Connect Units to pick up for free for this surely very minor inconvenience. 

Thank you for being a Ubisoft customer. 

Quote

"On August 27, our teams identified an issue where some PS5 players were playing on a previous version of the game. We quickly deployed an update and informed affected players to ensure their game was updated to the latest version (1.000.002) and advised that they begin a new save to avoid additional issues and progression blockers. We've followed up with affected PS5 players today to inform them we have provided them an in-game Trailblazer trinket as well as 100 Ubisoft Connect Units (to redeem for in-game rewards, for example) to make their return to the Outer Rim a little more special."

Source: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/open-world/early-star-wars-outlaws-ps5-players-paid-dollar110-only-to-have-ubisoft-issue-a-new-patch-and-tell-them-to-start-a-new-save-file-or-face-game-breaking-bugs/

[Happenstance]

To be honest I'm finding it more frustrating than annoying. Its an unfortunate bug that they didn't find and sometimes that just happens.

[Julius]

Finished this yesterday afternoon with 29½ hours on the clock. 

I hate to say it, but I don't think it improved all that much towards the end, and so my verdict on the game by and large remains the same: even with low hopes and expectations going in, it's really hard to not come away disappointed. 

A lot of the positives that are there I've already gone over: the sights and the sounds and the music, the VIBE of this game is spot on (as has been the case for every AAA Star Wars game since the Disney buyout in fairness), the game is visually stunning at times and I took a lot of screenshots where I'm just in awe at some of the art direction, and I'm especially impressed when it comes to realising planets already presented in other media like Kijimi and Tatooine, not to mention just how freaking fantastic some of these space sections look. Nix is an absolute S-tier companion, I love the little guy, and ND-5 has come out of this as probably my favourite Separatist droid across Star Wars (even if only going by his former employer)? And is honestly in the running for one of my favourite droids in the franchise – who knew a commando droid in a trench coat which is and does everything you'd expect him to be and do would land so well? Sabacc was really fun and took me by surprise, I'm genuinely going to be looking into sets to ask for for my birthday from my brother and sister. I absolutely ADORED some of the Imperial Base sneaking around and MGS-knockoff feelings going on. I could go on and on, but honestly, there's not much new to say here: a lot of the good I've already spoken about. 

And I've talked a lot about the bad, too, and I don't really want to go the route of chewing everyone's ear off - much as I would like to go off about this game, it just doesn't feel very productive - but perhaps I can summarise similar to how I did a friend today how I feel about the open world in Outlaws. 

The best way I can describe this game's use of its open world is to imagine a very casual gamer who looks at mechanics at a surface level and enjoys modern open worlds, and has done for the last 10-15 years. Red Dead Redemption. GTA. Ghost of Tsushima. They enjoy the climbing and treasure hunting in games like Uncharted. They really liked the Nemesis System from the Middle-earth: Shadow of games. Heck, maybe even if only a little bit related, they've enjoyed raiding some military bases in Metal Gear Solid games in the past.

Okay, well now imagine this person gets transported back to 2005 and describes the future of open world games to a game developer from memory, not realising the fundamentals and inner workings beyond the surface level of what made some of those open worlds and their mechanics and systems so great, or the more linear parts of, say, bases in Metal Gear Solid V and the treasure hunting and climbing around from Uncharted, or the Nemesis System from WB games. That developer they talked to? They go on to create a game like Star Wars Outlaws: kitted out in everything that's going to be big in open worlds, except? The tech isn't there, and neither is the forethought to match the ambition.

That is how this game's open world feels: it feels regressive for open world styled games, like it came out 10 or 15 years ago and hasn't learned any of the lessons the rest of the industry has learned since. I know there are people here at N-E who see an open world game and their interest dips, well okay, this is basically the embodiment from my perspective of so much of what those people think is wrong with open world games. It goes beyond being a formula, it is totally unambitious and lazy in its use of its open world, falling back on tenets of yesteryear's open world game design and even then still falling short. 

To speak to the last few hours with the game, they were by far the buggiest for me during my playthrough, I probably had to reload a save every 25 minutes or so, whether it be for an audio glitch or being unable to interact with things in the world, or the game just getting stuck on a loading screen. So that sucked. 

The story ended up being...fine? Just fine. If entirely predictable, I saw almost every twist and turn coming from a mile away, and as a Star Wars fan...just, I was rolling my eyes at times when something would happen which reminded me of one other particular story we've had from the new Star Wars games because I'm just going "oh, this, again? Really?" and there were certainly one or two moments where I was half way to my jaw dropping before catching myself and going "you really just couldn't help yourselves, huh? You couldn't resist, could you?" There are one or two lines from the game I do like, such as thus one in particular which feels like a response to Jyn's "Rebellion's are built on hope" like from Rogue One, something to the effect of "Rebellion's can't just be built on hope" which felt like a really nice and welcome take, but so many of these characters are very one note and forgettable. And the ones who aren't, and are somewhat interesting? Outside of Nix and ND-5, they're all pre-existing characters, and so I feel like a lot of the interest in what's going on with them is built into their character. 

I did mention it before, but this game does pull off one cameo really well; honestly, it's more of an Easter Egg in the sense of being an ACTUAL, "hey, pay some attention or you'll miss this" Easter Egg, rather than the modern day "every nod and wink counts as one" Easter Egg - which I just adored. Reminded me of cameos in the older Star Wars game like Republic Commando, when you see a familiar face but don't really get the chance to interact, and it makes the galaxy feel oh so much bigger.

Also, I haven't touched on it, and maybe it caught me off guard because I haven't seen this in a long time in such an obvious way as this: pre-rendered, game trailer level cutscenes? Really? In 2024? Maybe it's something they do with their other games, but it's bizarre for me to see, very jarring to experience even if it did look cool as hell. And I touched on them not using the Imperial March before, they also don't use Jabba's leitmotif from Return of the Jedi at all, which was just...bizarre? 

Anyways, to wrap it up, I said I'd score this game before and sticking to my word, I'd give it a 4/10.

Its story is inoffensive if safe; its characters overwhelmingly one-note and forgettable; its open world is buggy, wasted, unambitious and ultimately a lazy hodge-podge of the open worlds and modern classics of yesteryear with no grasp on what made those games great - and I'm not being hyperbolic here, but I'm picky enough with the open world games I play, and have made sure I've played few enough of them, to definitively say that this is the worst one I've ever played through. I think the real killing blow for me is realising in retrospect that I wouldn't have played this game beyond the 5-hour mark if not for it being a Star Wars game, and that heavily tips the scales away from my glowing praise of this game's vibes and atmosphere, as well as the scattering of other positives I've mentioned in this thread, which is to say that my love of Nix and the game's vibes are what is bumping that score up to a 4. 

My advice for anyone who hasn't picked this up yet is to wait for a sale even if you really want to play this...or just don't, save your time and your money because you're not missing out on a great, good, or even an okay game in my eyes – just Nix and some solid Star Wars vibes. 

Edited August 30 by Julius

[Hero-of-Time]

Looks like the force is weak with this one.

 

[Julius]

42 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Looks like the force is weak with this one.

 

Feel like it's a tough one to get a read on considering the might of digital sales in the UK these days, not to mention Ubisoft+ Premium having Early Access bundled in, etc. 

That being said, I'm still a bit surprised. I know they said before that they were ramping up marketing and spending more than they ever have before, and I defended them when they announced it because I didn't think it would pick up until August, but anecdotally, I just haven't seen it. 

I don't even think it's down to the reviews, though perhaps the Early Access word of mouth has only strengthened the general "mixed bag" outlook on the game (even if I personally still think this game has got off very lightly, all things considered), what with the bugs and it just feeling very uninspired (or, perhaps, inspired by too many different places).  I think it's simply a case, honestly, of this not being an Outlaws game which goes all the way (a la GTA), and so it perhaps lacks that appeal when compared to a generally linear game where you get to play as a Jedi with a lightsaber, and not being marketed well enough. Perhaps it's the pricing, too – it's a known quantity that Ubisoft games get steep discounts just a few months after release, and so asking for £70 for a game which has perfectly timed its release to be £30 or less during Black Friday sales was always asking a lot. 

I'm not sure I'd feel confident in basing this off of this info coming out, but I do also wonder if we've just hit another strange time for Star Wars where the general conversation just isn't there, perhaps with there being too much content all at once. This isn't the first time that Star Wars has released a game so close to a Disney+ show, what with Fallen Order coming out during the initial S1 run of The Mandalorian and Jedi Survivor coming off the back of The Mandalorian S3 last year, but this is the first time it's happened during the summer and it's off the back of a very middling show in The Acolyte. There were other reasons for Solo's unfortunate failure, but reactions to The Last Jedi being so contentious was certainly one of them. 

Guess we'll just need to wait and see what happens with upcoming Star Wars projects, though there aren't any ready to come out hot on the heels of this. Off the top of my head we have Respawn's strategy game which we know nothing about, Respawn's Jedi trilogy closer (which, let's be honest, will probably not hit until 2026/2027 towards the end of this gen), Eclipse which seems stuck in limbo because Quantic Dream, the KOTOR Remake which seems very unlikely to ever see the light of day, and Amy Hennig's second attempt at a Star Wars game with Skydance. 

Yeah, not exactly inspiring much confidence in me right now 

 

 

UPDATE:

 

Edited September 3 by Julius

[Julius]

Well, seems like we have the timely follow-up Dring's earlier report on the Ubisoft end, with shares losing 10% in the last two days and Ubi nearing a 10-year low in the Paris Stock Exchange. 

Welp, yikes, and jinkies, that ain't a great look any way you try to spin it. 

[Julius]

Ubisoft be reacting all over the shop – this is coming to Steam on November 21st! 

Quote

Additionally, despite solid ratings (Metacritic 76) and user scores across the First Party and Epic stores (3.9/5) that reflect an immersive and authentic Star Wars universe, Star Wars Outlaws initial sales proved softer than expected. In response to player feedback, Ubisoft's development teams are currently fully mobilized to swiftly implement a series of updates to polish and improve the player experience in order to engage a large audience during the holiday season to position Star Wars Outlaws as a strong long-term performer. The game will be available on Steam on November 21.

This from their Trading Update.