Star Wars Outlaws Preview: Kay and Nix hit the road

Or is that, "hit the galaxy"?

Ahead of Ubisoft Forward, Stevivor was treated to 30 minutes of hands-off Star Wars Outlaws gameplay, as introduced by Massive’s Julian Gerighty. Starved for some new sci-fi, we jumped at the chance to do a preview.

“Star Wars Outlaws is set following the Battle of Hoth, at a time when the ruthless Galactic Empire rules with an iron fist,” Gerighty began, placing the game after The Empire Strikes Back.

“But, as civil unrest continues to consume the galaxy, the underworld thrives with criminal syndicates rising to power, creating a wealth of opportunities for ambitious young scoundrels,” Gerighty continued. “You’ll experience the story of Kay and Nix, who fight every day to survive, and dream of a life of freedom which would allow them to travel the galaxy without answering to anyone.”

In order to do just that, Kay and Nix must “convince a skilled crew of outlaws to join them and pull off one of the greatest heists the galaxy has ever seen,” hence the name of Massive’s latest adventure.

That’s Kay and Nix in the image above, with Kay being the human (or at least, humanoid), and Nix the Merqaal to her right. Neither of them are Stormtroopers, and for obvious reasons. In true OG shoot first Han Solo fashion, the duo aren’t overly friendly with the Empire (or likely the Rebellion), and do their best to blend into the background.

In order to accomplish this whilst pulling off the heist of a lifetime — or, rather, a series of them tied to main and side missions — Kay comes complete with a data spike, slicing kit, grappling hook and Solo’s weapon of choice, the blaster. The latter tool has three different firing types to suit the occasion; one is best for pure damage, the other for disabling shields or taking down droids, and the final delivers a one-shot stun and is tied to a cooldown so you’re not too OP.

More than a cute pet, Nix is a weapon in their own right, able to help with scouting, distractions, and actual combat.

Massive treated us to a series of different gameplay scenarios. In the first, Kay and Nix sneak through the floors of an Imperial ship, and it’s hear that Outlaws’ visuals impressed — things were as heavily polished as the ship’s floors, which were throwing off so many reflections as a result. Surveying the area, Kay sent out Nix to first distract a Stormtrooper, then snuck up behind them for a silent takedown.

Icons above enemies’ heads help to identify when Nix can be of help… though I imagine you could throw all the stealth to the wind and go in guns blazing if you really wanted. In a mixture of both styles, Kaye used a single shot from her blaster to pick off an isolated foe, and then splits the difference with Nix. Approaching two Stormtroopers who suddenly clued into their presence, Kay downed one while Nix took on the other.

Enemies cleared, Kay started to access ships’ systems in a manner that gave off some big Alien Isolation vibes — the displays managed to look both futuristic and from the 80s all at the same time. Kay’s data spike is a lockpick, plain and simple — though the hands-off sequence went too quickly for me to really figure out how to actually accomplish the feat.

I did notice a challenge counter though, which will seemingly reward you after Kay has picked three locks, in this particular instance. It’s unclear what reward comes with that feat, but at least you’re working towards something.

Blaster combat is in third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective, with Kaye at a nice distance from the camera; you’ve got a good view of your surroundings as you’re firing. While you can seemingly shoot from the hip, aiming down sights of course pulls the camera in a bit, perfect for precision shots. In one instance, Kay used an ability to slow down time, then individually marked a set of targets to then lay waste to before time reverted back to normal speed.

As is the way, a series of futuristic red space barrels help to dispatch large groups of foes. You’ll also have access to secondary items like grenades and smoke bombs as you fight. While the sequences shown illustrated how Kay can move from stealth mode to combat, I’m curious to see how well you can transition from combat back into steatlh.

A short transition later and Kay was piloting her ship, flying through debris and bringing up tooltips that identified treasure that you’ll likely be able to go back and loot when you’re not in the middle of a dogfight. Space buoys appear to help with this, taking the heat of Kay and her band of outlaws when activated so they can do just that.

Combat went pretty quickly — and looked relatively stock standard in terms of Star Wars space battles — but I did notice that in space, holding down the left trigger activates something called “Pursuit Mode”. That mode appears to help lock on to a target while you’re trying to shoot it.

In what appeared to be Ubisoft thumbing its nose at Starfield, we were also treated to a final space sequence in which Kay’s ship left active orbit of a planet, broke through cloud cover, and ended up landing directly on the planet. No (obvious) loading screens here.

While we didn’t see any in-game maps littered with standard Ubisoft fare (and by that, I mean lots of icons), there will likely be lots to do apart from a main mission questline. A reference to the card game of sabacc would suggest to me that Kay can pick up games throughout the galaxy… and to be honest, that suits me as I’m fresh out of Gwent or Queen’s Blood opponents.

On the whole, traversal looks fun, largely because of the grappling hook that’s part of Kay’s arsenal. She can clamber up and across scenery just like Cal Kestis, but without the need for any of those special Jedi superpowers. Our look at traversal ended with a quick look at a speeder, and honestly, that was the only bit of the whole 30 minute experience that looked a little rough and choppy.

Perhaps needlessly said, all the action I witnessed was accompanied with an extremely Star Wars sounding — aka thrilling — soundtrack. If you’re a fan of the franchise — and who isn’t, at least in some small part — this one looks like it’ll impress.

Update: Thanks to Ubisoft Forward, we’ve now got an extended gameplay walkthrough to show you, above. It pretty much mirrors the experiences we were shown in our hands-off preview session. Enjoy!

Star Wars Outlaws heads to Windows PC via Ubisoft Connect, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5 on 30 August. You can learn more about its special editions and pre-order bonuses here.