When Star Wars Outlaws launched in September, I immediately became a fan. I played for seven hours that first weekend and was immediately impressed by its approach to building a believable Star Wars-style world with an open-world design inspired by Red Dead Redemption 2.
But playing this much in a short period of time also gave me a crash course in some of the game's bizarre design choices. I was a fan, but I couldn't stop writing articles about all the things that were wrong.
Here's another one for good measure:
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Stealth and speeder were annoying, but now they're fine
Along with many other players, I was annoyed by the way stealth worked. When Outlaws launched, its stealth encounters had inconsistent rules. In some missions you might give it your all right from the start and win the challenge on the strength of your firepower. In others, you would fail immediately if you were noticed, forcing you to spot the infiltration perfectly or risk instant failure.
This old-school choice distracted from the fact that, when it let you play the game your way, it was a fun stealth action game in the Horizon Zero Dawn mold. I always enjoyed using my bow to stealthily strike enemies in that game, and Outlaws had a similar feel. The problem was that not all challenges were like this and the insta-fail sections slowed down the entire game a bit.
Now it's gone. Ubisoft has eliminated the vast majority of insta-fail sections, so now you can play all but a few scenarios without worrying that an extra second in a guard's field of vision will ruin 30 minutes of hard work.
The game's speeder was equally complicated. Not the actual controls, which were good, but the way it interacted with small obstacles in the environment. I often sent Kay Vess flying through the air when I hit a toothpick-sized pole or ran onto a rock that was slightly higher than the rest of the environment.
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Now that isn't even there anymore. Unless you're running full speed into a cliff, the game's physics are likely to work in your favor. Instead of shooting you into space for small miscalculations, it feels like the game is on your side. Thanks to the change, I'm having a lot more fun driving around Tatooine, jumping ravines, and outrunning Krayt dragons.
Carrying weapons used to be annoying, but now it's okay
Outlaws also changed how the weapon system works. I still have some doubts: why do I have to press three buttons to throw a grenade? – but one big problem has been solved. In the launch version of the game, you could pick up enemy weapons but drop them as soon as you needed to interact with anything else. Do you need to climb a ladder? Hello, gun. Do you need to climb a rock? Goodbye, blasters. Do you need to use a panel to open a door? Sayonara, sniper.
It was a bizarre choice and Massive eliminated it from the game. Now, *Obama voice*, if you like your gun, you can keep it. Not indefinitely, mind you. You will have to leave it to Some point. But using it the entire time you're clearing an enemy camp is now a viable strategy.
All of these changes add up to Star Wars Outlaws looking like what Massive always wanted. Instead of fighting the game over a bunch of little things, it feels like the game works with you. The overall design has always done this – like I said, I've been a fan of it from the start – but the minor immersion issues have been ironed out.
Games don't get a second chance after the first impression, so many players have left and will stay. But if you liked Star Wars Outlaws but decided to move on to something else, come back. Try it. You might be surprised at how good the game is now.
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