After crazy announcements, the Journal du Geek is still in Los Angeles this week to cover Summer Game Fest 2024, the new edition which definitely plans to replace E3. Many publishers and developers have met in the city of angels to meet and present the games that will make the best of our PCs and consoles by the end of the year.
Among these games, Star Wars Outlaws, the next big title from Ubisoft Massive which is expected at the end of August 2024. After a nice half-hour presentation with the development teams, we were able to play the title for an hour to discover the first adventures of Kay Vess, an outlaw and at the same time, the main protagonist of this new game and her companion Nix. Does it smell good? Can we hope for a real revolution and novelty from Ubisoft with a new formula? First elements of response straight away.
Star Wars Outlaws: Han Solo had better watch out
Star Wars Outlaws will invite you to discover a brand new original adventure, specially written for the game. The story of Kay Vess has therefore never been discussed in any media Star Wars (whether in film, series or comics). The story takes place between Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back And Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi. We are therefore in the midst of the oppression of the Empire.
Star Wars Outlaws is simply the first game Star Wars in open world. The latter will allow us to visit several planets and fly ships from one system to another. This adventure features Kay Vess, a smuggler who travels in search of contracts to survive in this galaxy far, far away. She will be accompanied by her little companion Nix, a very cute little four-legged being who will be very useful to us in carrying out certain missions and distracting our enemies.
Star Wars Outlaws will invite you to explore the galaxy with many planets with lively cities and cantinas. One of the great moments of the presentation was when we were able to board a ship to leave an Empire base and escape to a planet. Because yes, you will be able to pilot your ships and even land yourself on the different planets that can be visited in the game. On these, it will also be possible to pilot your ship and other speeders to freely explore the different planets. Starfieldtake some seed.
Each planet promises new adventures, with unique challenges and enticing rewards, as long as you’re not afraid to take risks. Like all open-world games, Star Wars Outlaws will offer main and secondary missions, allowing you to make money and improve your experience.
No Jedi on the horizon
With Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft decides to focus on contraband and sets aside the Jedis. So, don’t expect to wield a lightsaber. As an outlaw, you will be able to fight with your blaster, defeat your enemies using your gadgets and your stealth, or find the right moment to distract your opponents and gain the upper hand. Thanks to Nix, it will also be possible to divert the attention of your opponents to pass discreetly or to assassinate them discreetly. Of course, it will also be possible to fight with your bare hands, thanks to some rather nice hand-to-hand combat sequences.
The game’s missions will be varied, with stealthy and more open combat phases, vehicle combat, and space combat. During our preview, we were able to discover three different missions.
The first mission highlighted the platform phases. Kay had to escape from an underground complex, with many traps, and they had to find a way out of this situation. Of course, no Jedi powers to jump 10 meters high. Here, it is with the strength of your arms and the help of your grappling hook that you will have to make your way.
The gameplay on the platform part is quite enjoyable. The path is quite intuitive, and sometimes quite demanding, requiring you not to rush too much. As we progressed, we encountered several locked doors that could be opened by activating certain mechanisms. That’s when we had to call on Nix, our little companion who could infiltrate the air ducts to trip the various circuit breakers in order to clear the way for us.
The second mission was a little more intense. In the latter, Kay and Nix find themselves trapped in an Empire base. Their only option is to sneak their way to the ship hangar in order to steal one to escape. Of course, it won’t be easy to go unnoticed in this kind of place and very quickly the stormtroopers arrive and a gunfight begins.
Gameplay-wise, it’s very enjoyable. The aim is precise, you can easily take cover, change position, shoot and aim quickly. You have two options for firing your blaster. Or, in classic mode, allowing you to do great damage to your opponents. Either via electromagnetic pulses allowing you to stun your enemies or deactivate their shield. Although we are far from a very demanding “die & retry” game, this Star Wars Outlaws offers a little challenge to make certain gunfights quite intense.
A little trip on a ship?
Once the ship is in our possession, we manage to escape and a space combat sequence begins. This is always the tricky part in these kinds of games. It is generally quite complex to reproduce the sensations of speed in such large spaces. Here again, the direct comparison that comes to mind is Starfield which offered very soft confrontations.
In Star Wars Outlaws we feel this speed effect much more, although some will not yet be completely satisfied. Controller in hand, it remains pleasant and quite intuitive again. We have free aiming, as well as assisted aiming which will target an enemy ship to help us shoot it down. You have several weapons at your disposal, with missiles in addition to traditional blaster shots.
The ship pilots well, it is possible to do spins and U-turns to try to protect yourself and escape enemy fire. Once the battle was over, we were able to travel to a planet to land on it and enter our first cantina. Here again, the atmosphere of the town and the cantina is very good, with many NPCs (not just humans), who give a lot of life to the different places we visit.
Finally, for the last mission that we were able to discover, we went to a snowy planet to steal a relic. This was an infiltration-focused mission, where Kay had to break into an enemy camp to steal the artifact and escape to bring it back to her client.
The opportunity to discover interactions with Nix to distract our enemies and neutralize them without making noise. Unfortunately for us, the end of the mission resulted in a heated exchange with the opposing smugglers who ended up spotting us. An additional opportunity to test the gunfights which are definitely enjoyable.
Once the cleaning was done, we had to find a way to deactivate the protection systems around the relic. Star Wars Outlaws will offer you several mini-games and puzzle games with doors or computers to unlock passages or mechanisms. If these are rather pleasant and nice to do during a preview, it risks being quite redundant after several hours. Especially since certain mini-games (those to open doors) can very quickly give a hard time to players who are not comfortable with rhythm games.
First verdict
After an hour of play, controller in hand, the feedback is inevitably positive and very encouraging for this Star Wars Outlaws. The game is beautiful, it seems vast and terribly complete, perfectly respecting the Lore while offering numerous references that will captivate the hearts of fans. The missions that we were able to discover during the Summer Game Fest are original and change from the missions seen and reviewed that we can see in Ubisoft games (as was the case with the recent Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora).
This should give us even more hope and make us confident about the future. Star Wars Outlaws is expected for August 30, 2024 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. We will be sure to share our final opinion with you as the game’s release approaches.
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