Ubisoft finally did it. After years of being maligned (perhaps unfairly) for creating several stock open world game design templates and refining them to death, they finally made a mostly new and different thing. And it’s all tucked inside the confines of a huge IP, no less. I’ve played about a third of the game’s lengthy campaign as well as exploring several of its side tales, and it’s already an easy inclusion on my personal top ten list for the year.
Star Wars Outlaws’ marketing campaign constantly repeats the line that this is “the first open world Star Wars game.” This statement isn’t as explicitly true as they think, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, 2022’s Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga exists, and although it’s not as freeform or intense as some other examples of the genre, it’s definitely an open world game in the Star Wars universe. It even has three times as many locations to explore as this new Ubisoft release.
The second inaccuracy is more profound, and has wide implications for whether or not you’ll enjoy this game. When you hear Star Wars open world, you might think of exploring vast spaces, stealing vehicles, or blasting everything to experience the general mayhem of a clockwork open world like GTA. In reality, Outlaws is far subtler, and more risky from a design perspective. It’s actually a stealth action game that…
