In a pretty fundamental way, Star Wars Outlaws has a different feel from most every other Star Wars game I’ve ever played. More than any other Star Wars game, it puts its focus on what it might be like to live in that universe, struggling to eke out a living while constantly navigating around people who are more powerful, better connected, and more dangerous than you are.
I recently played around four hours of Star Wars Outlaws during a preview event that put a lot of focus on exploring its open world as a scoundrel type of character. You play as Kay Vess, a thief who sets about trying to establish herself in the criminal underworld of the Outer Rim. What was striking was how much Kay feels like a regular person who happens to be wandering around in Star Wars. She’s a capable thief and a bit of a gunslinger at times, but she also dies fast from blaster shots, she’s not particularly smooth in conversations with scary people, and she’s very much on the run from power brokers who want her dead. Kay gives Outlaws a vibe that’s pretty distinct from the Empire-fighting, lightsaber-wielding protagonists we’re used to in Respawn’s Jedi games, as well as the exceptionally talented soldiers and pilots of Battlefront and Rogue Squadron and well-equipped bounty hunters in The Old Republic.
Making Kay something of a regular person in the Star Wars universe, who starts from nothing and has to work her way up, is a choice that gives developer Massive Entertainment an opportunity to explore a different aspect of the Star Wars universe than players are used to seeing.