This was a game I was constantly hearing bad or lukewarm things about at launch and how it isn't exactly a "great" game. I wouldn't consider it SW Outlaws to be great but for the most part, I do consider it to be an decent enough and generally compentently designed if nothing remarkable game like a lot of the modern Ubisoft games I played outside of the recent Prince of Persia the Lost Crown. Considering how much questionable content the SW franchise has produced in recent times, I'm just happy I got some enjoyment out of this at all. When it comes to SW games, I consider Outlaws to be somewhere in the middle rather than "good" or "bad".
I'll start with the story and it's just, "okay" more than anything, it's not really terrible or remarkable. Just somewhere in the middle just like the rest of the game. My big issue is that Kay Vass doesn't really grow as a character that much in the middle portions of the game since the missions on each planet can be completed in a random order so most of the game is spent building the crew for the big heist and Kay herself never really goes through any big stuggles or disagreements. ND-5 is a decent character, is well acted and has some decent interactions but since he and Jaylen are the only things connecting all 3 of the main questlines together, I don't think enough legwork was done between ND-5 and Kay to make me want to see them win and succeed. I would've liked some more disagreements and hostility between the two instead of Kay being so "okay" with everything.
Jaylen is a solid character, I do like how he tries to keep calm and make the best of every setback that comes to him, and he comes off as being a decent manipulator, even if one late twist was really obvious due to his character design.
The rest of the characters are also just "okay" and nothing special, this is probably in large part due to Kay not interacting with them that much after their main questline on each planet wrapping up. They pretty much disappear from the story after you recruit them.
It's a decent story overall, it's easy to tell that it's just trying to be a fun heist story rather than something deep and meaningful which I don't mind.
The gameplay is mostly on "it's decent enough" side. There is one thing that will make or break the game for many people and that is the heavy reliance on stealth gameplay especially in the early hours and late hours. I wouldn't call the stealth gameplay in Outlaws "bad" by any means but it's not amazing or stand out either.
I say the stealth is decent because you get much of the essentials to be effective at sneaking like a crouch button, guards don't instantly spot you when they get a glimpse of your body, a whistle, a distraction, and the best part all though it can vary is that when you alert one enemy seconds after being spotted which helps make much of it's stealth gameplay bearable.
However this can vary since the AI can be very twitchy in spots. Sometimes guards can spot you from afar and at other times knocking out guards seconds after they spot you do notice the hivemind, and at times guards can hear me knocking out other guards even it is a distance apart and sometimes they won't, it's this inconsistencies like this that bugs me. This makes the last few stealth sections towards the end of the game feel like a game of luck at times.
The rest of the game consist of your usual fare, there's cover shooting, driving vehicles, and ship combat. None of these things are done suberbly well but have enough polish in them to atleast feel decently stimulating.
Shooting can feel quite challenging in the early game since your base pistol does such little damage but once you get rapid fire plasma, power blaster upgrade, get some upgrades to take more damage and hold more health packs, shooting mostly becomes pretty easy to manage unless if there is an overwhelming amount of enemies thrown at you which can happen during some Imperial base missions. I do love the first configuration for your power blaster since it is very similar to the Spartan Laser from Halo which is a high damage weapon that is projectile and takes quite a little time to charge up. I love the Spartan Laser so it's to something like that in this game. Two handed guns which you can't take with you outside of the combat arenas you find them can take out many of the basic infantry units in the game. Grenade launcher enemies are pretty annoying especially in cramped rooms.
The vehicle combat is borderline non existent since all you have to fight back is the Splinter Cell Conviction mark and execute to fight back, enemies are easy to get away from so I don't mind.
Ship combat is there more than anything, it's just there to complete the idea of the power fantasy of having an "open galaxy" game. Dog fighting generally doesn't involve much skill but I don't mind since I'm not good at fligth games.
Overall, SW Outlaws is an okay if nothing special game like much of modern Ubi's efforts.
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