Set between "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi," Star Wars: Outlaws puts players in control of Kay Vess, a young and down-on-her-luck would-be elite criminal who lives on the casino city of Canto Bight. When her attempt to break into the big game goes badly, she's forced to flee home with a bounty on her head from one of the biggest criminal organizations in the galaxy. Her only hope to survive is to find a way to get rid of the bounty before she ends up as another forgotten corpse littering the dank underbelly of the Star Wars universe.

For the most part, Outlaws is a fun Star Wars romp. It doesn't break out of what you might expect for the franchise; it relies heavily on references and cameos, but it does so in a genuinely enjoyable way. If I had one criticism about the story, it takes Kay a very long time to feel like a competent character. The story frontloads her being bad at everything for such a long time that it gets pretty annoying, especially when she keeps trying to badly bluff her way out of situations and everyone calls her on it. I get that the development team is going for a Han Solo-esque charismatic fool, but Kay doesn't quite have the charisma of Harrison Ford to pull that off. Beyond a certain point in the story, she starts to feel more solid as a character, but it takes long enough that I was aggravated by her up until that point. I ended up liking her, but a good portion of that involves her relationship with her pet Nyx, who absolutely steals the show.

Outlaws is an open-world game, but it's not set in one location. You'll be able to visit multiple planets across the galaxy, and each environment is fairly different. Some planets are entirely new to the game while others, like Canto Bight and Tatooine, come right from the films. There's a snow-covered area that takes places entirely in a small town. Tatooine is a huge desert landscape where you can explore tons of areas and visit everything from Mos Eisley's Cantina to Toshi Station (home of the power converters). The end result is that the open world areas are somewhat smaller and less dense than they would be in an Assassin's Creed or the like.

Truthfully, I liked it a fair bit. It prevents the areas from feeling overly empty or overwhelmingly (and unnecessarily) packed with things to do. There's enough space to provide context for the travel distance, but most of what you do is focused on large settlements or the occasional out-of-the-way crime lair. Not every area in the game is created equal, but it's equal enough that I prefer it to having one giant open-world area.

Kay is a standard third-person shooter protagonist. She can run, dodge, slide, punch enemies, stealth around and shoot folks in the head. Rather than having a large selection of guns, she has a customizable blaster pistol. The pistol can be adjusted to be a regular gun, a rapid-fire machine gun or a slower-firing heavy pistol. It can also have multiple firing modes, such as an ion blast or an explosive power shot, and they can also be further customized. Instead of ammo, you have a heat meter that, when filled, can be cooled down using a Gears of War-style active reload.

Kay is more than capable of fighting her way through situations, but Outlaws gives you a lot of tools to avoid combat. Most challenges can be circumvented by finding hidden vents, secret climbable paths, areas you can use a grappling hook to swing across, or various other stealth options. Kay has access to various gadgets that let her do things like hack into computers or force open doors, but this requires a minigame, so it takes a few seconds of real time while enemies might come around.

By far her most powerful tool is Nyx. Kay's adorable little pet is a near-unstoppable ally. At any time, Kay can order him to perform one of over a dozen different context actions. She can have him distract foes with his adorableness, or leap onto their face and attack them, which allows her to knock them out with a single punch. He can go through narrow passages to activate switches, fetch items, and more. He can even let out a sonar burst that allows him (and Kay) to locate nearby enemies. Once he gets upgrades, he can do things like sneak over to an unlucky Stormtrooper and activate an explosive on their belt. He's basically invincible, and Kay sometimes feels like his sidekick.

Combat is fast-paced and pleasantly weighty, and the ability to quickly shift between different actions keeps it fun. Being able to seamlessly swap from telling Nyx to sic an enemy while you blast his ally feels endlessly satisfying, and the ability to customize weapons is sustaining. However, combat is never very difficult, which is something to keep in mind if you're looking to be challenged instead of living Han Solo's dream, where players can stand still and shoot at a battalion of Stormtroopers while they constantly miss you.

Rather interestingly, Outlaws doesn't have a standard leveling system or skill tree. As you progress through the story, you'll find side-quests that can lead to experts, who have their own side-quests that eventually unlock a new ability for Kay or her vehicle. There are  also a series of challenges that unlock permanent upgrades.

This is a really nice way to deal with leveling up. Tying it to specific actions and characters captures the feeling that Kay is learning from the various ne'er-do-wells of the galaxy and rewards you for taking on unusual situations. It also tends to make certain side-quests feel more meaningful because you get a tangible reward at the end rather than a batch of EXP. One criticism is that some pretty important stuff is hidden behind these challenges, especially when it comes to ship combat. You absolutely need to find and unlock certain characters to make ship combat feel properly weighted.

Vehicles play a big part in the game. On land, Kay has access to a speeder bike. This is primarily for fast transport, but once you unlock some upgrades, you can also fight while riding. In space you have your ship, the Trailblazer, which handles in an arcade-style. You have normal lasers, missiles, auto-firing cannons, and more, and the controls are easy to pick up. The sim elements are also easy to access and play through. The space environments are fairly fun to explore, ranging from the shattered hulks of spaceships to a giant nebula full of massive ice formations. However, you need to unlock characters to learn how to do things like make a U-turn or perform a reliable dodge, so the early impression of space combat isn't great.

While you have a main story to follow, a good chunk of the game is devoted to its faction system. When doing missions, you're usually working with at least one of the various underworld factions, such as the Hutts or the Crimson Dawn. Complete a mission for them, and they'll like you more and consider you to be an ally. This grants you access to special items and allows you into territory they control without risks. Betray or work against them, and you'll lose respect and become someone to shoot on sight. Since some factions require you to betray other factions, it effectively a balancing act. Some missions even allow you to betray your employer, so you take a reputation hit in exchange for better rewards.

While the idea is cool, it's a tad toothless. It's far too easy to take on generic faction missions that reward you with a fair amount of free reputation, and in doing so make sure everyone genuinely likes you. I really like the concept, but it's rarely worth bothering to balance out. Even if you take on a mission that leaves one side angry at you, you can take on a couple of missions that take only a few minutes and have them love you again.

There is a lot to do in the game, including missions that require you to sneak into bases unguarded or smuggle things, speeder races, playable arcade machines, and even a surprisingly in-depth Sabacca card game. The card game is markedly different from the other games I've played with it, but they justify that as being a special set of rules that turns the game into a cross between blackjack and a CCG. You can find various ways to cheat to assure your victory, but getting caught can get you tossed out of the clubs.

At its heart, Outlaws is very much a game for the fans of the seedier underbelly of the Star Wars universe and those who want a chance to explore it. It is filled to the brim with fan service and cameos, and it contains some of the most loving re-creations of Star Wars environments in memory. However, that means Outlaws might not suit fans of the lightsabers-and-magic aspect of Star Wars. The game uses its license extremely well, but it can feel bland if you're not a fan of Star Wars at all.

Visually, Outlaws looks fantastic. The environments are gorgeous and detailed, and it can be jaw-dropping during atmospheric conditions like rain or sunsets. The sight of Tatooine's twin suns setting below the horizon looks incredible, and the game generally does a fantastic job of capturing the tone and feeling of the areas. Some of the facial animation can be weak, but considering that 90 percent of what you see are aliens, robots, or people wearing helmets, it tends to not distract, and Kay looks great. The voice acting is solid, and there are some excellent performances. Kay sounds a little whiny at times but can be surprisingly likable. My largest complaint is when cameos from other parts of the franchise show up because they always sounded a bit "off."

That said, the game is a little rough in some spots. There were noticeable visual glitches pretty regularly in some areas, most memorably when going to and leaving planets. Interface bugs pop up from time to time that didn't interrupt my gameplay, but it meant I'd have annoying popups that never went away. At least one of the arcade machines glitches no matter where I play it, either displaying nonsense colors or not showing any gameplay. Once or twice, I ended up stuck inside a wall and had to reload. None of it ruined the game — at worst, it required a reload from an earlier save — but it occurred enough that it's worth mentioning.

Overall, Star Wars: Outlaws delivers pretty much exactly what it promised. Players have the chance to take on the role of a smuggler to blast, sneak and fast-talk their way through the Star Wars universe. It does an excellent job of capturing the tone and feel of the franchise, and it feels like a Star Wars game should. It has its flaws and imperfections, but if you're looking for the chance to zoom around blasting TIE Fighters and outwitting the Hutts, it's exactly what you'd want.

Score: 8.5/10