‘Star Wars: Outlaws’ is already attracting heavy skepticism, and for good reason

The 2010s were a tough time for Star Wars gaming fans. EA had a death grip on the license, turning out the two multiplayer-focused Battlefront games riddled with controversial microtransactions. Fortunately, things have improved over the last few years, with the Star Wars Jedi series providing two killer single-player experiences and Squadrons a VR dream for anyone who’s wanted to climb inside an X-Wing.

Now Star Wars Outlaws looks set to join them. This upcoming adventure is from The Division developers Ubisoft Massive, promises a vast open world, a story set during the Original Trilogy, and a compelling hero in scoundrel smuggler Kay (who has an adorable animal buddy). The first trailer debuted during yesterday’s Xbox Showcase, and while we didn’t get to see any gameplay, the atmosphere certainly looks very promising.

But for some gamers, there’s a fly in the ointment. Ubisoft is renowned for its open-world adventures, with the Assassin’s Creed series offering gargantuan maps bristling with all manner of secrets. After so many games in this mold, there’s a sense of open-world fatigue setting in, perhaps proven by the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Mirage making a selling point of being a smaller and shorter game.

Responses on Reddit suggest some have had enough with Ubisoft’s template. One reply says: “I’m ready to play the same 4 mission types in different locations across the map for 30 hours”, another sums it up as “essentially “follow/escort this character to X location”, “find a certain item and take it/use it on a certain location”, “go to X and solve the puzzle” and “fight your way out of the three previous situations”?”.

The most concise pessimistic response has to be:

“I’m betting it’ll be a another trademark design-by-committee go find the map unfogger, get 50 waypoints to benign opportunities, take out outposts, occasionally have story, but never come to an impactful conclusion because the last thing we want to is write out the possibility of live service additions (if this has an rpg stat system, monetized cosmetics) or sequel.”

We confess we’re also fairly burned out on the Ubisoft formula after the absurdly long Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, so if we find ourselves climbing a Star Wars-themed space tower to reveal a map bristling with pointless collectibles, we’re going to check out fast. Let’s hope Ubisoft Massive recognizes that this kind of trudging open-world repetitiveness is best left in the 2010s.