Star Wars Outlaws hands you a speeder bike, a blaster with an electromagnetic pulse mode, and a small creature named Nix, then drops you onto four planets and asks you to cheat your way to freedom. It is the first open world Star Wars game, developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, and it is at its best when it commits to being a scoundrel story instead of a Jedi one.
Kay Vess is not a hero. She is a woman stuck on Cantonica who wants out, and the game takes that want seriously. The result is a sprawling, uneven adventure that understands the assignment better than most licensed games do.
Trailer, via Ubisoft.
Kay Vess and the vault on Cantonica
The setup is clean. Shortly after the Battle of Hoth, Sliro Barsha, leader of the Zerek Besh syndicate, murders his rival bosses to consolidate power. Kay, desperate to escape Cantonica and start over in the Core Worlds, signs on with a crew led by Dennion to rob Sliro’s vault.
She cracks it. Then everything goes wrong. Dennion’s crew turns out to be Rebel Alliance operatives whose real target was freeing their captured leader, Asara Deyn. Kay gets shot with a stun blast and left to run. Sliro blames her for the break-in and puts a death mark on her head.
That is a strong opening. It gives Kay a reason to be angry, a reason to be hunted, and a reason to take stupid jobs for dangerous people. It also sets the tone: this is a galaxy where the Empire is background noise and the crime syndicates are the actual weather.
Kay steals the Trailblazer and jumps to Toshara, where she crash lands. From there the game opens up into its real shape — a scoundrel doing favors for syndicates to pay for ship repairs, choosing who to help and who to betray.
Four planets, one speeder bike, and a lot of syndicates
The open world spans Akiva, Kijimi, Tatooine, and Toshara, with Cantonica appearing in specific story missions. You travel between them on the Trailblazer and cross planetary surfaces on a speeder bike. You can also fly around the orbits of planets and moons and fight in space with laser cannons and missiles. Space stations serve as hubs for trade and side missions.
Combat mixes melee and blaster fire. Kay has an Adrenaline ability that charges during fights and slows time, letting her line up a burst of shots on marked targets. She can use explosive barrels and other environmental objects. She can also go quiet, sneaking past or taking out enemies with stealth.
Her toolkit includes a grappling hook and an electronic hacking device. Nix, voiced by Dee Bradley Baker, can scan the environment, interact with objects, and distract or attack enemies. Humberly González provides both the voice and the motion capture for Kay.
The game features four explorable planets: Akiva, Kijimi, Tatooine, and Toshara. The factions Kay deals with include the Ashiga Clan and other syndicates, and the game gives you chances to help or betray each group as you build standing with them.
Where the scoundrel fantasy holds up
The syndicate system is the spine of the game. Every job you take nudges your standing with one faction up and another down. It gives the open world a political texture that most games of this size lack. You are not liberating outposts. You are managing relationships with criminals.
Nix is the other clear win. The little creature is not a gimmick. He scans, he steals, he bites. He turns stealth into a two-character act and gives Kay someone to talk to when the writing needs a beat that is not exposition.
The space sections are thinner. Flying the Trailblazer works, and you can engage in space combat with laser cannons and missiles, but it never becomes the reason you boot the game. It is connective tissue between the parts that matter.
The heist that keeps getting interrupted
The story’s second half asks Kay to assemble a crew and hit Sliro’s vault again. Along the way she meets the outlaw Jaylen Vrax and his droid enforcer ND-5, who pull her out of a jam after the mechanic Waka double-crosses her and is killed by the bounty hunter Vail Tormin.
Vail Tormin is a problem. The death mark on Kay should be a constant pressure, a clock ticking in the background. The threat never feels like it is closing in. Waka betrays Kay, then dies, and the game moves on quickly.
The crew assembly structure is familiar, and Star Wars Outlaws does not reinvent it. You recruit, you plan, you execute. The execution brings the game’s combat and stealth work together, and it mostly lands.
What the syndicates get right
The faction system changes how you read every mission. A job is not just a job. It is a decision about who you want on your side later.
The upgrade path runs through experts. You find them, you do their assignments, you unlock new skills for Kay, Nix, the blaster, the speeder, and the Trailblazer. It is a clean loop that rewards exploration without turning the map into a checklist.
Credits earned from activities buy items and gear. The economy keeps you moving without forcing you to grind.
The parts that work:
- Syndicate reputation that shifts with every job and every betrayal
- Nix as a genuine second character in stealth and combat
- Speeder bike traversal across four distinct planets
- Humberly González’s performance as Kay Vess
- Adrenaline combat that rewards aggressive, timed play
The parts that do not:
- Vail Tormin’s death mark never generates real dread
- Space combat is functional but forgettable
- Waka’s betrayal and death land with no weight
The verdict on Star Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws is a good game with a clear identity problem in its back half. It wants to be a scoundrel story, and when it is one, it works. When it reaches for a bigger shape, it loses the thread.
Ubisoft reported in October 2024 that sales underperformed expectations. That is a business fact, not a quality judgment, but it is worth noting because it speaks to how hard it is to sell a Star Wars game that refuses to put a lightsaber in your hand. The game was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on August 30, 2024, and came to Nintendo Switch 2 on September 4, 2025.
The syndicate system is the reason to play. It is the part that feels new. Kay Vess is not a Jedi, and the game is better for it. The open world may not be the most detailed one you will visit this year, but it is the one where your choices about who to screw over actually stick.
Star Wars Outlaws scores 7.6 of 10.
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