Star Wars Outlaws in 2026: A Loving Film Set With a Blaster and a Pet Gremlin

I’ve been playing Star Wars Outlaws again in 2026, and my feelings are still a messy little pile of holotapes. It’s not the scoundrel fantasy I dreamed about, but it is a Star Wars thing that sometimes nails the exact smell of a Tatooine junk shop. So let me talk you through it like we’re sharing a booth in a cantina. 🎮

First, the basics. Developed by Massive Entertainment and published by Ubisoft, Outlaws launched on August 30, 2024, for Windows and consoles. You play Kay Vess, a thief who flees her home planet after a job goes wrong. Her companion is Nix, a fur-axolotl crime gremlin who is honestly the best character in the game. The story is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and it leans hard into syndicates, scum, and villainy. That sounds great. Sometimes it is.

The weirdest thing about Outlaws is that its planets and cities do not feel like living places. They feel like film sets. That’s not always a bad thing. Mirogana’s streets unfold like a theme park built for heists, with vents and pet doors practically winking at you. I mean, the city is less a city and more a backlot with a crime problem. You don’t live there. You perform there. And when the performance works, it’s a lovely bit of Star Wars cosplay. ✨

The game is a potpourri of other games. I can see The Witcher 3 in the gun-for-hire quests and card games. I can see Watch Dogs in Kay’s sneaking and Nix’s remote hacking. I can see Uncharted in all the climbing, Far Cry 3 in enemy camps and binocular tagging, Red Dead Redemption 2 in wanted levels and gambling minigames. Ghost of Tsushima was named as a reference, but I don’t feel its flowing stealth or diegetic guidance here. It’s more like a bunch of systems got duct-taped together and then painted with Star Wars sauce.

Combat is only tense because enemies can drop Kay in one or two shots. Meanwhile, I can blind fire from cover with perfect accuracy. That is not a great rhythm. Stealth is even sillier. I once knocked out an imperial officer in the middle of a conversation and nobody cared. I dropped loudly from a walkway a few feet from a stormtrooper, and he just waited for my canned takedown animation. It’s hard to feel like a clever scoundrel when the Empire’s finest are basically sleepy toddlers in armor.

But here’s the thing: I still had fun. Holding off waves of stormtroopers while your crew fixes the loading bay, hearing that elastic blaster pew echo around the docking bay, escaping an imperial station on high alert and finding your mate waiting with speeder bikes — that stuff hits a dusky Star Wars thrill. It’s not elegant. It’s panto. But I’m participating.

Climbing is its own oddity. Kay doesn’t jump or clamber so much as magnetize to ledges, as if the rock face is pulling her in. The ladder asks permission from her. The yellow paint debate? I can take it or leave it, but I will say Outlaws sometimes breaks up climbing with giant fans and moving blocks that can knock Kay into a death pit. Environmental hazards in my blockbuster climbing section? Low bar, sure, but it made me pay attention.

Space is better. A braver game might have gone full Freelancer, scrapped the open plains, and expanded trading for parts and faction reputation. Here, reputation mostly means you have to sneak into some areas instead of walking through them. Angering the wrong syndicate locks out certain side jobs. Affiliated merchants sell cheaper, better gear. It’s conceptually interesting but minimally impactful. Still, the space above Toshara is gorgeous: junk particles, rusted debris, ochre nebulae, like clouds of disturbed sand at low tide. I’d bet the concept art is stunning. 🚀

Then there’s Nix. This is how you make an obligatory merchandise creature lovable. He’s incredibly useful. He rolls around in front of a camera, play-acting a spleen explosion so Kay can sneak past. He activates switches behind laser barriers. He can trigger explosive barrels in tiny increments so you time the last blip for when stormtroopers walk by. More importantly, the relationship between Kay and Nix gives the game its most authentic and touching story beats. Kay is not super convincing as a blasé Han Solo type, but I absolutely buy her as a hardworking pet owner who wants the best life for her beloved crime gremlin.

Small moments are where Outlaws gets Star Wars right. Tatooine’s cities feel like dioramas, but a tucked-away junk shop is all sparking wires, dust motes, and droid chatter. You can practically smell the soldering. Alien bands in cantina alcoves score animated and reasonably fun Sabacc matches. For a game that won’t let Kay enjoy a meal without a quicktime event, it at least fills its dioramas with interactables, minigames, and wayward souls you can cheer up with a quick chat.

It can be very endearing, but it also feels a bit false, a bit watery. Sometimes it draws out tedium from moments that should be breezy. “The core goes here, I guess?” Kay muses as she ponderously slots a battery into a door, finally letting me through many seconds after I politely ask the game to let me progress. And yet, escaping an imperial station on high alert and zipping across sand dunes still evokes a certain Star Wars thrill.

In 2026, if you’re not a die-hard fan, I’d still say Ubisoft+ is the smarter way to try it. The regular price tag isn’t cheap, and the game is not a breathtaking looker. But its accessibility options are vast and varied, and it’s very mouse-and-keyboard friendly. I don’t love Outlaws. I’m not mad at it either. The clipped hug that fish lady gave me was too nice for that. Sometimes a game can just be an okay Star Wars entertainment with a few great, authentic moments. That’s a star war. This is a star war. And I know that one.