Star Wars Outlaws tells a tight story across specific locations with "strong, thriving underworlds" – but your reputation could change everything

The more I learn about Star Wars Outlaws, the more it starts to sound something like a sci-fi Red Dead Redemption 2. We already know that the Outer Rim scoundrel Kay Vess's story takes place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi in terms of the Star Wars timeline, but the thing I'm finding most interesting is how reputation will affect your experience in "the most iconic corners of the galaxy" and those "new and exotic locations" alike.

Ubisoft Massive creative director Julian Gerighty says reputation is one way that Star Wars Outlaws allows players to find nuance in an otherwise focussed, tightly-written story. "As a scoundrel you live and die by your reputation, meaning that Kay will have to navigate the underworld and its various crime syndicates, making choices that will impact her reputation, her experience, and her support throughout the game." In short, it sounds like getting into a certain faction's good books might earn you another's ire, proving that no good deed or petty crime in a galaxy far, far away will go unpunished in this upcoming Star Wars game. 

It's good to see that Ubisoft Massive wants to make notoriety and reputation a substantial part of the game's storytelling. If done right, Star Wars Outlaws could be set to join the greats when it comes to crafting a well-written story that still feels dynamic and changeable even if the narrative itself is headed one way.

Law and fallen order 

There's nothing I find more frustrating than the pretense of choice in video games. Ubisoft Massive is being mercifully upfront with us in that respect; much like Respawn's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the studio has confirmed that Star Wars Outlaws will have only one ending due to its deliberate narrative constraints to fit into the franchise's canon.

That is a huge relief to me as someone who felt rightfully cheated by Hogwarts Legacy's non-existent multiple endings, having mistakenly assumed my choices would actually impact the story. Hogwarts Legacy featured a half-baked, misleading morality system that never actually worked and was mostly cut from the game, leaving a few remnants here and there to suggest that once upon a time, it actually sought consequences for your actions. Thankfully, Massive's crime and pursuit system in Star Wars Outlaws sounds more akin to the likes of Bully, GTA, and other Rockstar titles: we're playing an underhand scoundrel who lives below the law, frequently breaks it, and other gangs will respond in kind should you cross them.

Not every game wants to threaten players with punitive action when you do something "bad". This happens to be the route Avalanche Software took with Hogwarts Legacy in the end. Cookie-cutter morality systems that deem you good or evil like the iconic one in Fable might be fairly old guard by now, but I always feel they add layers to RPGs and action games that give me something else to work around, making the world feel deeper and more reactive, and helping to create a personalized experience from player-to-player.

In the case of Star Wars Outlaws, the reputation system described by Gerighty adds conditional values to which missions and areas you have access to at a given time. "A good reputation could lead to some of the most lucrative opportunities," Gerighty says, "and a bad reputation could result in [Kay Vess] facing a syndicate's wrath as they hunt her down."

Hearing this makes me immediately think of 2006's Bully, where helping out rival schoolyard gangs causes you to earn and lose respect depending upon each clique's sworn enemy. I doubt Kay Vess will be lending a hand to the Preps or the Greasers in Star Wars Outlaws, but I'm looking forward to learning more about these different crime syndicates, rivalries, and how Kay's alliance with any one of them might sway her alignment. 

Situationship

As a scoundrel and outlaw, it will be interesting to see how the game's "wanted" system pans out. Just how far will these space gangs hunt her across the galaxy? Setting and location are major cogs in the Star Wars Outlaws storytelling machine, and with so many crime lords slinking about the Outer Rim's dark underbelly, I expect our journey will see us planet-hopping to meet them all. 

The Star Wars universe has become staggeringly huge, so Gerighty says that being selective with scene setting was crucial. "Each of the locations featured in Star Wars Outlaws are crucial to Kay’s story, which was really the starting point," he says. "Then, we evaluated the locations based on their themes and the gameplay opportunities they presented, ensuring each had a strong, thriving underworld that would offer unique and interesting situations for a new outlaw such as Kay." 

"From Tatooine, which is the ultimate hive of scum and villainy and home to Jabba the Hutt, to Toshara, a new moon created specifically for Kay’s story – each location will offer players unique experiences, biomes, and stories," says Gerighty of how the reputation system goes hand-in-hand with Massive's location-specific storytelling. It all sounds like it makes for a greater sense of depth and immersion, whether you're exploring familiar territories or brand new ones created for Star Wars Outlaws specifically.

Even if small choices in games don't lead to one of many multiple endings, they can grant you the freedom to play your own way across a range of unique locations and set pieces. Star Wars Outlaws sounds like it's promising precisely that; Kay can be an honorable scoundrel or an absolute menace on the run from every syndicate in town, and that will be your call to make as the player when the game launches later this year.