Ubisoft’s open-world Star Wars: Outlaws looks like another brilliant game in the galaxy far, far away, even after the impeccable Jedi: Survivor.
New gameplay shown during last night’s Ubisoft Connect conference shows one of the most engaging games in the series, but there’s one problem: no one ever shuts up.
In the new demo, Ubisoft shows protagonist Kay Vess and her companion Nix sneaking through an enemy base. The two move boxes to get to new places, take down guards and - of course - engage in an exhilarating blaster battle with explosions galore.
It’s the traditional E3 showing: a cinematic sneaking sesh into a bombastic gun fight, followed by a chase section with more gunfights. There’s one major difference though, a second chase/gunfight in space! With intergalactic hyperspace action! It’s pretty dang awesome.
There’s just one issue with Star Wars: Outlaws’ gameplay showing: Kay Vess doesn’t ever shut up. It’s an issue that a lot of games have; for example, Insomniac Games’ 2016 Ratchet and Clank can drive you crazy with how often its characters yap in your ear. And it seems that Outlaws is following that same incessantly annoying path.
“That worked,” the protagonist says after a single punch. “Nice one,” after her pet presses a button. “Ugh, shield,” after attempting to shoot a shield. “This is getting bad,” as more enemies funnel in. “Let’s try this out,” after getting a new gun and “Dank Farrik” after that gun runs out of juice.
It’s the Nathan Drake style of running commentary, a verbal diarrhea that aims to make sure every close call is made clear by saying: “that was close!” Of course, this isn’t new to Star Wars, lest us forget Rise of Skywalker’s infamous “they fly now!”
Now, this isn’t saying that Star Wars: Outlaws looks like a bad game, far from it. In fact, the game looks like Ubisoft’s best game in many-a-year. Kay Vess also seems like an awesome protagonist, the type of badass, smug hero that Han Solo made popular decades ago. In cutscenes, dialogue and especially gameplay, she’s cool, suave and pretty damn awesome.
There’s also a chance that some of these random combat barks are being exacerbated in the game’s first showcase. Well, we can only hope.
Star Wars: Outlaws launches on Xbox Series X/S, PS5 and PC sometime in 2024.
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