Star Wars Outlaws Review: The Scoundrel Fantasy Done Right

Living the Dream We Were Promised

For as long as I have been a Star Wars fan — which is to say, longer than I have been a dad, and that is saying something — I have wanted one specific thing from a Star Wars game. Not a Jedi. Not a chosen one. Not another lightsaber-swinging destiny. I wanted to be a scoundrel. A nobody with a blaster, a fast ship, a furry sidekick, and a long list of people I owed money to.

Star Wars Outlaws is that game. Finally.

You play as Kay Vess, a small-time thief from Canto Bight who gets in over her head and ends up chasing one last big score across the galaxy. At her side is Nix, a little axolotl-like creature who fetches items, distracts guards, and does more emotional heavy lifting than half the human cast. Together they slip between the cracks of a galaxy at war — not the war between the Rebellion and the Empire, but the quieter, dirtier one between the criminal syndicates who run everything the Empire does not.

And here is the headline, before I get into the weeds: the story is the reason to play this. It is told in a genuinely exciting, engaging way, and it carries the entire experience on its back. The open world around it is a little rough. But the story? The story is the real thing.

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The Scoundrel Fantasy, Set Between the Films

Outlaws lands in one of the best windows in the whole saga: between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Han is in carbonite. The Empire is at the height of its power and its paranoia. And in the shadows beneath all of that, the syndicates are circling like nerf-herders around a fresh kill.

This is the perfect setting for a criminal story, because the galaxy is at its most lawless and most dangerous. You are not saving the galaxy. You are trying to survive it — and ideally get rich doing so.

The genius of the writing is that it never pretends Kay is a hero. She is a thief with a code, which is not the same thing. She lies, she steals, she double-crosses, and the game lets you lean into that. The central mechanic is the syndicate reputation system: four major criminal organizations who all want different things, and your standing with each one shifts based on who you help and who you rob.

Do a job for the Hutts and you might burn a bridge with the Pykes. Help the Crimson Dawn and the Ashiga Clan starts shooting you on sight. It is the digital version of being a freelancer who keeps taking gigs from competing clients and hoping nobody compares notes. Any dad who has ever tried to keep two sets of in-laws happy at the same Christmas will understand the tension immediately.

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Kay and Nix: The Heart of It

A scoundrel story lives or dies on its scoundrel, and Kay Vess is a good one. She is not a snarky quip-machine, which I appreciated. She is tired, ambitious, and just competent enough to be dangerous. Her arc — from small-time pickpocket to someone who can actually pull off the big score — is the spine of the whole adventure, and it is paced beautifully.

But the secret weapon is Nix.

Nix is your companion, your tool, and your emotional anchor all at once. In gameplay terms, he distracts guards, retrieves objects, presses switches you cannot reach, and attacks enemies on command. In every other terms, he is a beautifully animated little creature who tilts his head, gets excited about food, and sells the bond between him and Kay without a single line of dialogue.

I will be honest: the relationship between Kay and Nix is the thing I remember most. It is the closest a game has come to capturing that Han-and-Chewie energy of two people (well, one person and one small lizard) who would do anything for each other. As a dad, watching a story carried by loyalty and partnership rather than destiny hit a particular nerve. Nix is the best non-human companion in a Star Wars game since BD-1, and BD-1 should be nervous.

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Star Wars Outlaws (PS5) (opens in a new tab)

The full scoundrel fantasy: speeder bikes, blaster fights, sabacc, and a galaxy of syndicates to play against each other.

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A Galaxy You Want to Get Lost In

Massive built a genuinely gorgeous galaxy here. You travel between several planets and moons — the neon-soaked sprawl of Mirogana, the deserts and dunes that scream classic Star Wars, the dense moon of Kijimi, and more. Each one has its own underworld, its own syndicates, its own flavor of trouble.

And it is dense in the right way. The cantinas are full of life. There is sabacc to play (the card game Han won the Falcon with), and it is properly addictive — I have lost more in-game credits to sabacc than to any actual mission failure. There are speeder bikes that handle with a satisfying weight, space combat in your ship the Trailblazer, and a constant hum of background detail that makes the whole thing feel like the films looked.

The audio deserves a specific shout-out. The score leans on the classic Star Wars sound without just lifting John Williams wholesale, and the ambient noise of a busy cantina — the murmur, the music, the clink of glasses — is some of the best world-building audio I have heard. Put on a decent headset and the galaxy comes alive around you.

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The Honest Part: Why It’s an 8, Not a 10

Here is where my devotion as a Star Wars fan and my honesty as a reviewer have to shake hands and agree on a number. Star Wars Outlaws is an 8. A strong, confident 8 — but an 8.

The reason is simple: it is not quite as good as the Star Wars Jedi games.

For me, Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor are the gold standard of Star Wars gaming. They are tight, polished, brilliantly designed action-adventures where every system feels considered and the combat is a genuine joy. Outlaws does not reach that bar, and it is worth being clear about why.

The culprit is the Ubisoft open-world machinery bolted onto a great story. You know the rhythm: map markers, repeatable activities, gear upgrades gated behind specific tasks, the occasional sense that you are filling a checklist rather than living an adventure. It is not egregious — Outlaws is one of the more restrained Ubisoft open worlds — but the seams show.

The bigger frustration is stealth. A huge amount of the game funnels you into sneaking through Imperial bases and syndicate hideouts, and the stealth design is the weakest pillar. Detection can feel inconsistent, instant-fail stealth sections grate against an otherwise freeform game, and there were moments where I died, reloaded, and did the exact same thing only for it to suddenly work. For a game built around being a clever, slippery scoundrel, the stealth too often makes you feel clumsy instead.

There are smaller rough edges too — occasional janky animations, the odd bug, traversal that is not quite as fluid as the Jedi games’ wall-running grace. None of it is a deal-breaker. All of it is the difference between a 10 and an 8.

But — and this is the crucial but — the world and the story carry it past all of that. I never stopped wanting to play. The narrative pull is strong enough that I forgave the systems around it. That is the mark of a game whose heart is in the right place even when its hands are a little clumsy.

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Outlaws looks its best on PS5 — the neon cantinas and desert vistas are reference-grade eye candy in performance mode.

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Outlaws vs the Jedi Games — Where It Lands

Since the comparison is the whole reason this game is an 8 and not higher, let me lay it out plainly. If you only own one Star Wars game, the table below should help you decide which experience you are actually after.

The short version: the Jedi games are the better-made games. Outlaws is the better fantasy if a scoundrel is what your heart wants. They scratch completely different itches, and as a fan I am thrilled both exist. But if you are asking which is the more refined experience, it is the Jedi games, and that is reflected honestly in the score.

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👨 The Dad Angle — Family-Friendly Scoundreling

Here is a genuine point in Outlaws’ favor for the dad crowd: it is rated T for Teen, and it earns that rating gently. The violence is blaster-fire, not gore. There is no sexual content. The language is mild. Tobacco appears in the gritty cantina atmosphere, but nothing about this game makes you reach for the remote when a kid wanders into the room.

That matters. Red Dead Redemption 2 is a “wait until the kids are asleep” game. Outlaws is not. If you have a Star Wars-loving kid old enough to watch the films, this is a game you can largely play with them in the room, narrating the story as you go. The neon worlds, the cute companion, the speeder bikes, the it looks just like the movies presentation — it is genuinely good shared screen-time, even if a younger one is just watching Nix do tricks.

On time investment: the main story runs a manageable 25–30 hours, with side contracts pushing it toward 40. That is a refreshing length in 2024 — long enough to feel substantial, short enough that a busy dad can actually finish it before the next big release buries it. You can play it in hour-long evening chunks without losing the thread, which is exactly the kind of pacing a parent’s schedule demands.

On the setup: this is a game that rewards a good screen and good audio. The lighting and the score do a lot of the heavy lifting, so a capable TV and a decent headset turn it from “nice” into “transporting.”

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The Verdict from a Lifelong Fan

I went into Star Wars Outlaws braced for disappointment — a Ubisoft open world wearing a beloved skin is a recipe for heartbreak. I came out genuinely happy. Not because it is flawless, but because it understands the one thing it needed to understand: the fantasy of being a small-time crook in a galaxy too big and too dangerous to care about you.

It is rough around the edges. The stealth frustrated me. The open-world scaffolding occasionally creaks. But Kay and Nix, the syndicate intrigue, the gorgeous galaxy, and a story told with real energy and confidence all add up to something I would recommend to any Star Wars fan without hesitation.

For a fan, this is a must-play. Just go in knowing it is a notch below the Jedi games — and that the notch is entirely about polish, not about heart.

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FAQ

Is Star Wars Outlaws worth playing?

Yes, especially for Star Wars fans. The story is genuinely exciting and the world is gorgeous. Just go in expecting a Ubisoft open world, not the tight design of the Jedi games.

How does Star Wars Outlaws compare to the Star Wars Jedi games?

The Jedi games (Fallen Order and Survivor) are tighter, more polished, and remain the gold standard of Star Wars gaming. Outlaws is a notch below — rougher systems and weaker stealth — but its scoundrel story and open world are a different, very enjoyable kind of fun.

When is Star Wars Outlaws set in the timeline?

It takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, during the height of the Empire’s power and the chaos of the criminal underworld.

Is Star Wars Outlaws family-friendly to have on screen?

It is rated T for Teen for violence, language, and tobacco use. There is no gore or sexual content, so it is relatively family-friendly to have on in the room compared to most modern open-world games.

How long is Star Wars Outlaws?

The main story runs roughly 25 to 30 hours. Completing the side contracts, syndicate work, and exploration pushes it toward 40 or more.