The main thing I took away from an extended play session with Star Wars Outlaws was a new understanding of its focus. Most Star Wars games are action titles, where you fight knock-down, drag-out fights against scores of enemies using blasters, lightsabers, thermal detonators, and any number of vehicles. Star Wars Outlaws, on the other hand, is a stealth game, where combat is best avoided and shooting your way out of a situation is a scrambling, desperate affair that doesn’t often end well.
I recently played about four hours of Star Wars Outlaws at a preview event for journalists. Unlike the Summer Game Fest hands-on session, which was a shorter look that emphasized moment-to-moment gameplay, this preview was meant to show how Star Wars Outlaws functions as a quest-driven open-world game.
The gist here is that protagonist Kay Vess is a scoundrel, a person of Han Solo’s ilk, making her way through the galaxy far, far away by swimming in its dark sea of crime and corruption. Star Wars Outlaws takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, a period during which the Empire is fully engaged in its war with the Rebellion, having nearly wiped it out on Hoth and eager to finish the job. That focus has left room for the underworld to thrive, particularly on the Outer Rim, and several criminal syndicates are vying with each other for control and profit amid the galaxy’s farther-flung planets and systems.