It still feels weird that the initial announcement of Star Wars Outlaws did not make that much of a splash. It’s impressive how Disney and Lucasfilm have managed to make any brand new Star Wars announcement feel underwhelming or unimpressive, after so many bad shows, unnecessary bits of controversy, and that already seven year old Battlefront II lootbox fiasco. Outlaws is out this week, and I don’t think I saw a single person truly excited for it. Not that they should be, to be fair, as the game is just largely okay, as you will find out right now.

One thing I like about Outlaws is that the Empire is just there, a part of the setting, but the not focus of the plot.

The first true open world Star Wars game (if you don’t count Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga), aptly developed and published by Ubisoft. I don’t think there is a better way to start off this review by saying that Star Wars Outlaws is the quintessential Ubisoft open world game, with all the positives and negatives you’d expect from that statement, just drenched with a Star Wars coat of paint. A postmodern Star Wars coat of paint, by the way, so expect a lot of “dank farrik” shouts, references to more modern Disney Star Wars locales and characters, as well as a monstrous insistence in not using the classic Star Wars tunes from the first two trilogies.

I’ll say that the setting and some of the characters are some of the game’s strongest points. I may have loathed the fact it all started in the planet of Canto Bight (that stupid Dubrovnik-esque casino planet from The Last Jedi), but there isn’t a single Jedi in sight. This is all about criminals and “blue collar” characters merely trying to make a living while Luke and his friends are busy blowing Death Stars up. The protagonist, Kay Vess, isn’t as memorable as Jedi Fallen Order‘s Cal Kestis, but she isn’t unlikeable either. She’s basically a Force-less carbon copy of Luke Skywalker: a young underdog stuck in a crappy planet earning for a better life and some adventure in a new place. Oh, her pet axolotl is cute too.

Exploring planets on your speeder bike can often be fun. Just make sure to avoid any confrontations with biker gangs.

The problem with her is that she simply doesn’t shut the hell up. It doesn’t matter what’s in front of her, or what’s even near her. She’ll just start mentioning that she “needs to go there”, she “must get to the objective”, or just spit out random exposition to the player, with the excuse that she is just talking to her damn frog thing. I get that world building is important, but this is the same issue seen in games like Horizon Forbidden West and the Tomb Raider reboots. Sometimes, blissful silence is all we really want or need. The voice acting isn’t bad per se, but the sheer amount of times Kay has to simple talk for no reason got on my nerves.

My favorite thing about Star Wars Outlaws was the lack of Force abilities, or the Force in general. No monks with laser swords in sight. This is all about the seedy underworld of crime, with Kay meeting (and fighting against) several factions, occasionally performing favors to them, or damaging others, in a never-ending act of balancing your relationships between them. Just like in other Ubisoft open world games, such as Far Cry, do some deeds to a faction, and you’ll get bonuses. Hurt another gang, and a bounty might be put on your head.

Pretty simplistic but functional gun combat, reminiscent of Uncharted.

In order to deal with those bounties, you will need to use your blasting skills, as well as pilot ships and speeder bikes. The combat in Star Wars Outlaws is a tremendous mixed bag; whilst shooting at enemies felt like a simplified Uncharted, with the same emphasis on covering and shooting whenever possible, speeder bike combat was downright loathsome. I had to constantly run around in circles just to get near a rival biker, and then perform a McCree-esque, “it’s high noon” quick-draw in order to kill them. It took ages to properly aim and shoot at those enemies; I just started to ignore these battles whenever I was given the chance.

Just like most open world action-adventures, you also have the choice to simply use stealth and knock enemies out without alerting more guards. It’s not very fun, though. It’s not broken or unfair, but it’s just like any other stealth-based combat you’ve seen in literally dozens of other AAA games. In fact, it’s quite easy at times, as you can use your pet axolotl as a stunning mechanism of sorts: tell the damn thing to bite a foe, run towards them, and give ’em a good old Indiana Jones punch. Nighty night.

Nathan Drakay Vess.

Exploring a wide assortment of Star Wars planets in an open world structure sounds fun, but some of the planets in Outlaws just felt a bit empty and uninspired. My favorite locale to explore was Tatooine, and that’s also a big issue. The one planet we’ve all explored a trillion times before ended up being the most interesting to fool around and perform tasks. Side missions were your standard Ubisoft open world schtick, with base infiltration, escort missions, item retrieval, and stealth challenges being abundant. Not very creative, to say the least. In fact, not a lot in Outlaws stood out, be it positively or negatively.

How odd it is that nothing about the game managed to pique my interest. It wasn’t the most visually stunning game out there, mostly due to some ugly character models and terrible resolution settings clashing with the admittedly gorgeous environments. The plot felt a bit predictable, even if I ended up liking Kay’s relatable but clichéed underdog story. Platforming felt like a blatant carbon copy of Uncharted, complete with colored ledges and the same grappling hook mechanics seen in Uncharted 4. Everywhere I looked, everything I saw in the game, I was able to clearly identify another AAA title Outlaws had taken some inspiration from.

Kay’s character model is detailed and well-animated, but human NPCs look more alien than the aliens themselves.

I guess that is what disappointed me the most: Star Wars Outlaws just didn’t have a lot of cool elements to make it stand out from the rest of the crowd. There isn’t a lot in it that’s actually bad, broken, or unpolished, but rarely did it ever excite me. It’s your run-of-the-mill open world AAA game, one you’ve played a million times before from Ubisoft and other studios, with all the generic clichés you’d expect from the most default of titles in the genre. It just so happens to be drenched in a Star Wars coat of paint. But hey, it’s better than The Acolyte, at the very least…

Star Wars Outlaws is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC

Reviewed on PS5.

A copy of Star Wars Outlaws was provided by the publisher.