Learning the art of theft

Star wars outlaws tells the story of young thief Kay Vess and her little helper Nix, who dreams of leaving her home planet. She steals some items to gather money and get out of there, until she tries a bolder plan to escape the planet, but ends up being discovered and needs to find a way to escape in a hurry.

She ends up accepting a very complex mission in desperation to flee, which also goes wrong, but as a good thief she is great at improvising, so after a lot of hassle, she manages to escape, until another accident happens and from there the story unfolds with Kay having to fend for herself throughout the universe.

The game's story is very cool, I know a good part of the universe, and this lore part is very nice, talking about outlaws, how the world works from a perspective other than the Jedi's, of normal people without powers, is very interesting, especially because it hasn't been well addressed in other games, much less on this scale.

And how it is told is also great, the game manages to balance the cutscene moments and gameplay in a way that you don't get lost in a situation where you have to pay attention to the story and at the same time do various tasks or intense combat, something that could hinder the enjoyment of these moments.

Speaking of combat, up to the point I played, they were all quite smooth, the game managed to distribute the amount of enemies well throughout the map areas, and it is also interesting how the environment itself contributes to the intensity of the fight, as being caught by cameras or not turning off alarms, enemies can keep appearing, especially because you can play in complete stealth and not engage in direct combat.

Furthermore, if you are found, the areas have mechanisms like ventilation ducts where you can re-stealth and disappear from their view, so that the NPCs' alert level decreases, besides the fact that these ducts can be a way to move through the map more easily and safely.

There are also other mechanics spread throughout the map, such as lock picking, which here has a different and fun way to do it, it's a rhythm mini-game, where you must listen to the beats and then press the left button at the corresponding cadence, it may seem a bit complicated, but it is quite simple and intuitive.

Now you see me, now you don't

Stealth is one of the most important parts of the gameplay, but it is not limited to your character not being seen, one of the main game mechanics is how you use Nix, this pet is really very useful and essential in several parts of the gameplay.

You can use it in several ways, give the command for it to grab an item without being seen, to pickpocket an NPC's pockets, open doors in places that are inaccessible to Kay, distract enemies by doing tricks or even jumping in their face and attacking them, and these are just some of the available functions that I was able to use, but I know it has even more interaction possibilities.

And believe it or not, this mechanic encourages the player to explore the map more, as the best method to get money, at least that I found in the time I played, was to steal various items and NPCs around the city, so that you can resell the stolen items and combined with the money you got, you can buy what you need.

But exploring ended up being a problem at times, the game is very heavy, even having a setup above the recommended and using the suggested settings, at times the FPS did not reach 60, when in the city where there are various NPCs and things happening, and in open areas it reached 70, but still with some losses.

But that's not even the biggest problem, as the game was very heavy, loading the areas was slower, so at times you reached points that were not loaded and ended up falling out of the map, this happened three times during my gameplay, I even lost 1 save because of this problem, I fell into an area impossible to get out of and the game saved automatically, so I had to start all over again.

Moreover, if you died or needed to go back to a checkpoint it was very annoying, as the game's loading screens can be extremely long, I even had one of 5 minutes, which is very exaggerated, because even though the game is heavy, it shouldn't take that long.

But we can still say that over time it may be better optimized, with updates these problems can be fixed, because overall the game is excellent, a feast for fans of the saga, it would be very sad if these technical problems were what ruins the game, as it has everything to be very successful.

The vastness of the universe

Star Wars Outlaws is the first open-world game of the saga, and thinking about it is an excellent combination, probably the dream of every avid fan was to have a game like this, with the possibility of exploring the entire galaxy and having contact with every bit of this incredible universe, and now my friend, you will be able to and do it in great style.

The game in general is very beautiful, both in the detail of the characters, the buildings and also the scenarios, it is the thing that stands out most in the game at first glance, and also in the following, as you play and see new things it is always surprising, constantly there is that feeling of "wow, what a beautiful game".

I had this moment of being impressed a few times in the game, but the greatest one was when I was going for the first time to the city of toshara with my speeder, the space bike, through an open field, the feeling of riding through all that open terrain with a wonderful scenario was jaw-dropping.

Everything is very well crafted, from the details of the weapons and their effects, the setting of the cities is surreal, like the first city, which is a poorer, dirtier place, the environment is denser, smoky, you only see buildings, shady people, robots, and junk. But when you go to do the second robbery in a rich city, the environment is different, completely different, everything very clean and full of nature.

We also cannot forget to mention the cutscenes, these are really spectacular, in the moments they come in it really seems like you are watching a movie, everything very beautiful, impeccable audio, I didn't find any flaws in them, the only problem occurred due to some freezes, where I believe the game was loading the next area during the scene, so I think that was the reason for this defect during the video.

The sound aspect is also very good, both the sound effects and the music, they managed to work a good sound quality with new things, but also implement many of the sounds and music that are already trademarks of the franchise and give that sensational touch of nostalgia to the player.

For all that, I believe that Star Wars Outlaws could be an incredible game, as it has a good narrative, looks very beautiful, and has fun gameplay, besides having a very loyal fan base, the only point that still needs to be well worked on is the optimization of the game, but I believe that this is an achievable goal with the various updates that will come over time.

We sincerely thank Ubisoft for providing early access to the game and allowing this review to be made.