2024 is shaping up to be a legitimately solid year for Ubisoft, with the second half of the year in particular having a couple of major releases lined up for the company. The one that’s coming up next – and the one that, as such, most people currently have their eye on – is Star Wars Outlaws, a game that we’ve already seen plenty of across multiple showings. And with the open world space-faring game’s August release drawing closer, at the recent Ubisoft Forward showcase, developer Massive Entertainment brought another showing of the game with a new, extensive gameplay deep dive. Here, we’re going to go over all the key details that deep dive revealed.
EXPERTS
Protagonist Kay Vess’ journey in Star Wars Outlaws will encompass her efforts to put together a crew of Experts who will be able to help her pull off a seemingly impossible heist. Recruiting those Experts will, as you might imagine, be a crucial part of the game, with each of them allowing Kay to unlock unique abilities and skills, based on their particular field of expertise. The Bartender, for instance, will let give Kay access to skills such as melee combat and combos, lockpicking doors and containers, or being able to briefly distract enemies before they become alerted to your presence during stealth.
SHERIFF QUINT
The Expert that Kay and her adorable companion Nyx are out looking for in the section of Star Wars Outlaws Ubisoft recently demonstrated is Sheriff Quint, a.k.a. The Gunslinger, a Weequay and former pirate who lives on Tatooine and uses her skills to help the people of the settlement known as Wayfar, having turned away from her life of crime long ago. Like all other Experts, Sheriff Quint is a key character that Kay can agree to help out in exchange for recruiting her to her cause, following which she’ll be able to learn new skills related to her blaster from the Expert.
TATTOOINE AND MOS EISLEY
We’ve seen glimpses of a number of different planets and locations in all that Ubisoft has showcased of Star Wars Outlaws so far, but the open world game’s recent Ubisoft Forward demonstration was focused first and foremost on a rather familiar planet- Tatooine. Specifically, the city of Mos Eisley, a spaceport that is, of course, famous for being a wretched hive of scum and villainy. The entire iconic city is free to explore in the game, which not only includes familiar locations that Star Wars fans will recognize, but also entirely new areas that have never been seen before.
SPACE COMBAT
Grounded combat, traversal, and exploration is obviously where Star Wars Outlaws will have you spend most of your time, but it is being billed as a swashbuckling, planet-hopping space journey, which of course means you’re also going to be doing plenty of flying and fighting in outer space. We got a taste of what that will look like in the recent gameplay deep dive, with Kay’s ship, the Trailblazer, going up against a fleet of pirates in an optional dogfight. What kinds of different threats (if any) different types of ships will bring remains to be seen, but from what we’ve seen so far, space combat in Star Wars Outlaws is certainly looking promising.
WORLD EVENTS
While exploring Star Wars Outlaws’ planets and outer space locations, players will run into several optional activities known as world events, which will dynamically impact your reputation with the game’s various factions depending on how you choose to engage with them. For instance, in the optional dogfight during the recent gameplay demonstration that we spoke about earlier, Kay was able to rescue members of the Pyke cartel from pirates, which in turn positively impacted her reputation with the Pyke syndicate. World events will be scattered throughout the galaxy, and players will be able to engage with them in different ways depending on what their reputations are like with all the different factions.
SPEEDER EXPLORATION
On planets, outside of cities – which will be designed as dense, urban hubs – players will find themselves in larger and more open-ended landscapes of wilderness, where there will still be plenty to do (including the aforementioned world events). Traversal across these landscapes will be done primarily on Kay’s speeder (which can be summoned with the press of a button), and during their journeys, players will be able to find rams to jump off of, Jawas and Sandcrawlers to do some trading with, Imperial shuttles to follow to some Imperial activity and interesting risk-reward opportunities, and more.
STEALTH
Stealth is seemingly going to be an important part of Star Wars Outlaws’ core gameplay loop, and we saw a fair bit of it in the recent demo, with plenty of abilities being showcased. Nyx can move in on enemies and distract them, giving Kay a brief window to move in and finish them off. Nyx can also send out pulses that effectively act as scans, highlighting nearby enemies. Kay can also crouch, take cover, silently take down enemies from behind cover, lockpick doors and safes, and the like, so it does look like she’s going to have a fairly versatile stable of stealth moves at her disposal- assuming, of course, that there’s more abilities that the game hasn’t yet revealed.
BLASTER MODULES
In out and out combat, Kay will be relying primarily on weapons such as her blaster, and that blaster, in turn, will have multiple different functions depending on which of its modules you’re using. You’ll be able to quickly and seamlessly switch between different modules, with the ion module being particularly useful against droids or other enemies that are susceptible to being disrupted, the power module being capable of unleashing heavier and more damaging shots, and the stun module doing exactly what its name suggests. Whether we’ll be able to find more modules and upgrade the ones we have remains to be seen.
ENEMY TYPES
Throughout Star Wars Outlaws’ recent gameplay deep dive, we were shown glimpses of a number of different enemy types that we’ll be locking horns with in the game. That includes the KX series of Enforcer Droids that we’ve seen in plenty of Star Wars media over the years; Massifs, which are quadruped predators that are native to Tatooine and thick, scaly hides, spiky spines, and razor sharp fangs; Gamorreans, a humanois species familiar to Star Wars fans, who have been hired as bodyguards by Jabba the Hutt and his syndicate; Death Troopers, an elite variant of Stormtrooper that Kay will have to deal with if she attracts too much of the Empire’s attention; and even a Rancor.
CANTINAS
Star Wars Outlaws is being billed by Ubisoft as the ultimate Star Wars scoundrel fantasy, which obviously means you’re going to be spending plenty of time in cantinas. In these locations, you’ll be able to talk to various NPCs to pick up leads and learn information related to quests and side quests, while in addition to that, you’ll also have the option to engage in various side activities. That will include playing games of sabacc (where you’re going to have to both, contend with cheaters and find ways to cheat yourself), playing various arcade games (which we saw a little bit of in the recent gameplay demonstration), and more.
