Star Wars is a giant sandbox, a franchise with endless potential for all sorts of stories following all sorts of characters. Or, at least, that’s the theory. In reality, the vast majority of the franchise’s titles follow one story — the space fantasy. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but it just means that most Star Wars titles across movies, TV, and games are about Jedi knights fighting the evil Empire, occasionally rescuing princesses, and defeating dark knights.
There are exceptions, yes, but every time we get something different, it is either promptly abandoned (Solo supposedly leading to a Lando spin-off), or it turns into a more traditional story about clear good vs evil (Book of Boba Fett). That is, until Andor, which radically changed the idea of what a Star Wars story could be by delivering a gritty and grounded story of rebellion and oppression. Star Wars: Outlaws is doing it again by fulfilling a promise from almost 20 years ago.
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In Star Wars: Outlaws, you play as Kay Vess, a simple scoundrel trying to make her way in the universe. In the opening hours, the game makes a big impression by offering a different kind of Star Wars story, one set in a gritty and, most of all, dirty galaxy where law and order are nonexistent and chaos and treachery are the only rules. It takes a page out of Andor‘s book to make the galaxy and the time period (in this case, between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) feel alive and engrossing.
You feel the oppression of the Empire at a micro-level, like the ever-present long line of people being screened and questioned by aggressive stormtroopers before being granted entry to the city of Mirogana. The streets are filled with more space rats than Paris at night. If you run through the streets of the city and accidentally run straight at a stormtrooper, they’ll immediately lash out and insult or even threaten you. In short, life at this point in time simply sucks, so might as well game the system and make some credits for yourself.
The game is still very much a Star Wars story, and Outlaws still includes many staples of the franchise. You are still constantly fighting the Empire in one way or another, as they still technically control the galaxy. You get to play Sabacc, you assemble a crew, you engage in space dogfighting, and more. But it is the tone that sets the game apart. There is no “we’re fighting for a good cause” or even a “things are desperate, but there’s hope” message that would lead to rebellion.
Instead, it is much more centered on Kay’s personal quest not to be broke and powerless. She is in over her head, constantly telling her trusty sidekick and mascot Nix that “the next job will be better”—but it never is. Her hope is not for less oppression from the Empire, freedom for people, or even herself. She is all about gaming the system and gaining enough credits to stay out of the way.
The prologue makes it clear this is a wonderful time to be an outlaw and a mercenary, and Kay is not about to change that. Indeed, the game’s prologue literally has you encounter a noble group of Rebels on a rescue mission, before Kay just flips them and their noble cause off because you don’t care about doing the right thing, you’re in this for the profit. When you start doing jobs for the different crime syndicates in the game, you could argue about which of them is technically the better syndicate, the more humane one, the one that is theoretically doing the most damage to the Empire and the most good for the Rebellion. Outlaws, however, encourages you to simply bet one syndicate against the other and only be loyal to yourself, not to any cause.
This is what The Book of Boba Fett led us to believe it would be before it became a Mandalorian sequel and what The Mandalorian briefly was before it became about the larger canon and constant cameos. Star Wars: Outlaws feels like an echo of a different era—a pre-Disney era back when George Lucas was working on Star Wars: Underworld (the would-be first live-action show in the franchise that would focus on the criminals and the gangs struggling for power soon after the Empire was established).
This was also the time when LucasArts was developing Star Wars 1313 as a gritty game focusing on the lawless Coruscant underworld. At this time, Star Wars had finished telling the prequel stories, and Lucas was exploring different aspects of the franchise beyond the Jedi. The Clone Wars gave the spotlight to the titular clones and even the politicians behind the war, while Star Wars Detours would have been a comedy show in the vein of the Robot Chicken: Star Wars specials, delivering a vastly different tone of stories yet again.
Outlaws is the closest we’ve come to that promise of Star Wars being home to many types of stories that don’t have to involve the Jedi since Andor. The game is the perfect companion to that show’s gritty and grounded tone, focusing on showing a dark time in the galaxy’s history. Outlaws doesn’t just portray a nitty-gritty version of the Star Wars galaxy, but takes us to the back alleys infested with space rats and other vermin, the neon-lit markets and alleyways where you find the most wretched hive of scum and villainy. It is a promise of a much larger Star Wars.
