Star Wars Outlaws review – a love letter to lore, Lucas and laser guns

PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S
A genuinely likable new lead and intense attention to the mythology of the Star Wars films made this a nostalgic thrill

Nostalgia is a funny thing – there are times it just swoops in out of nowhere like a TIE fighter and blasts you right in the guts, leaving you confused and in pain. An hour into playing Star Wars Outlaws, I didn’t expect to become emotionally overwhelmed during a minor quest that involved buying spare parts from a group of Jawas. But then I rode my speeder out into the Dune Sea and saw their transport there, black and monolithic under the low suns, and then those little chaps were scuttling about, fixing droids … and it took me right back to being 12 years old, watching Star Wars on VHS in our living room, eating a bowl of Monster Munch my mum had brought to me, repeating the lines along with Luke. There are many moments like this in Ubisoft’s sprawling adventure, and they save its life on more than one occasion.

For all the pre-release talk about this not being a typical Ubisoft open-world game, Star Wars Outlaws sure feels a lot like a typical Ubisoft open-world game. You play as Kay Vess, a street thief quietly living off her guile until a lucrative heist goes wrong and she ends up stealing a spaceship, then crashing it on the remote moon of Toshara. From here, she must survive by working for the galaxy’s many criminal gangs, playing them off against each other and building a rep for herself as a skilled mercenary and thief. This is where things become familiar. You’re instantly plied with main story quests, dozens of optional minor tasks and also the opportunity to take on side jobs for various smugglers and ne’er-do-wells, usually involving travelling somewhere and fetching things or blowing them up – like in Assassin’s Creed. Or Far Cry. Or Watch Dogs. It’s Star Wars: The Busy Work Strikes Back.