Star Wars Outlaws: A 2026 Review

February 9th 2026

Star Wars Outlaws - for PC, PS5, Xbox X/S, Switch 2 $69.99 Base Price with more expensive editions available. Also available on Xbox game pass and Ubisoft+
The TLDR: Since receiving some updates this game has gotten significantly better, but perhaps not at full price. I recommend picking this up on a sale.

Star Wars Life
In this game you play Kay Vess, a down on her luck thief looking for the next big score. On a failed heist on Cantonica, she finds herself with a death mark, a stolen ship and a mission: Assemble a crew from across the outer rim and pull of a heist against the Zerek Besh crime syndicate.

If you have played a ubisoft game in the past you will familiar with the structure of this games open world and play style. You play the game in a third person perspective, have an animal companion that can help detect enemies or open doors and engage in a mix of stealth and combat to solve problems along the way. If you playthrough the main quest line, you will get about 45-50 hours worth of play, but I highly recommend slowing down and enjoying what the game has to offer.

What works well?
Since its initial release, there have been a few quality of life updates that make the game a pleasure to play. When it was originally pushed, the game featured sloppy stealth mechanics and game over stealth missions that were essential to moving the story forward. This could lead to some infuriating gameplay where just catching a casual glance could set you back five minutes of play. The game still doesnt offer a save as you go feature, instead relying on mission checkpoints to hold progress, but I’m pleased to say that the majority of the game offers different ways to solve each mission. If you want to stealth around you can, if you want to go into each mission guns blazing, that is an option too. Also fixed is picking up guns from enemies. Where previously opening a box or climbing a ladder would cause the acquired gun to fall to the ground, these items stay with you until they are replaced.

The game does an amazing job at creating believable environments in the Star Wars Universe. Every location feels dirty and lived in. it gives a real sense of capturing the essence of Star Wars in it’s environments. So many places were created knowing that they would be seen for only a few moments but somehow possess so much detail.

What’s still lacking?
Aside from a few crashes to desktop there is one glaring problem with the main campaign: The final boss. Here the mandatory stealth sections return, if the boss gets within range you are instantly killed and after running this section for almost 45 minutes and countless retries, I almost considered quitting the campaign here. On this final level there are steam vents that could hide you and places to stand behind, but there appears to be a pathing issue where the boss will always walk towards you and, when they get close enough to steam that should obscure you they will find you outright. It’s a real shame because the story and pacing works really well up until this point and then its an immersion breaking nightmare until you finally break through this quest. If you do get to this point, I would strongly advise making amendments to the accessibility options for lockpicking.

Reputation
As you play the game, you will be approached by rival syndicates to do jobs and complete tasks. This plays an important role to where you can go in certain parts of the world. If you have poor reputation with a syndicate and travel into their territory, whether in a city or the vast open world environments, you will be attacked on sight. If you have good or excellent reputation, not only will you be welcomed, but you will also have access to certain parts of their base where you can find vendors and fun items to loot. If you are playing one of their missions as part of a story quest, you will often have reputation gained with one faction matched with a loss of a competitor’s reputation. These missions will also typically present you a choice of whether you want to complete the mission for the faction or betray them and finish the mission for their competition. This offers a nice spin if you want to gain reputation with a rival syndicate and can take the hit of reputation on the other.

Fixers and contract givers open up as you gain reputation for a faction. Hot tip is to find minor missions for each syndicate that give minor gains but don’t decrease reputation with other factions. Alternatively you can also gain rep by selling data discs you find scattered around the galaxy. These you can sell to faction vendors to gain very small reputation gains. This can often be what you need towards the mid / end game to get good reputation with everyone and free access to all the maps.

Also worth mentioning is, sometimes you might get caught doing a crime in a faction headquarters that you have a positive reputation with. This causes the guards to enact violence and presents you with a choice. You could fight your way out, kill everyone and steal everything which dings your reputation massively. I often chose just to run away and find a safe spot, causing a tiny reputation loss for trespassing or being a nuisance followed by guard amnesia.

Minigames and Skills
Your role as a thief sees you engage with lockpicking and slicing throughout the story. By default, the lock picking minigame is a rhythm challenge: listen to the rhythm then attempt to click the left mouse button with the same timing. This is fun for maybe the first or second puzzle but gets really old fast. By turning off this option, you can simply press left mouse three or four times to auto unlock the door. Slicing takes the form of a mastermind style puzzle. You will start with a three sequence puzzle and later progress to a sequence of five with 15ish options to choose. If you run through your available tries, guards will be alerted. On my runs I tended to kill most of the guards anyways so there was little to no consequence for failure, but know if you are looking for a full stealth option you are going to want to solve these puzzles as efficiently as possible.

Finally there is the game of Sabacc. This is Star War’s poker game and you will find yourself at tables across the rim, seeking to be the winner at the table. Without a doubt this is one of the best parts of the game, and really encourages you to slow down and enjoy the ambiance of the game. The goal for this minigame is to get a matching pair of cards with 1s being the best and 6s the worst. You start with a number of chips to spend on getting new cards, if you win the round you get your chips back, if you lose you don’t get anything back. This encourages either a nova hand where you spend as much as possible to get the best hand, or a conservative play where you only buy cards if you have one amazing card to try and match to.

Recommendation?

At $70, this still feels like its too expensive. If you have xbox game pass or ubisoft+ it’s a definite yes, but otherwise I would wait for the game to go on sale. The Wild Card DLC is great and I’m about to embark on the Pirate DLC tonight, so you will want to get the season pass or think about the DLC later down the line. This game captures so much of what makes the Star Wars universe amazing, but I always get the feeling after a long session that I want to play my own custom character in this world. The Sabacc game is really fun to boot.

If you do choose to pick up the game, I highly recommend slowing down, taking in the sights and sounds that the developers have lovingly put into the game and not rush towards the final mission. It’s a game where 50 hours doesn’t feel like a chore, all except for that final boss.

One more nitpick. During the post release updates, the devs fixed an issue with the objective markers and vehicle pathfinding. As you move towards a mission area, the objective marker will update with every bend in the road or sharp turn. All except for Akiva, a planet where you have to bike everywhere and is filled with impassible mountains. At one point during my playthrough, I realised I had to drive around the southside of a mountain, ignoring the objective marker altogether which was intent in having me drive into a wall.

Enjoy the game and I hope you get a good deal the next time its on sale!