It always helps when those in the driving seat understand the subject material because it gives the fans comfort to know they’ll get a product worth playing. Massive Entertainment knows its stuff, and Star Wars Outlaws is filled with lore from the wider reaches of the galaxy, nods to centuries gone by, and small pockets of the franchise’s history that those in the know are going to love. Instead of beating you over the head with Skywalkers, Death Stars, or Sith with breathing problems, it tells a brand new story with unknown characters. While it does feature familiar faces and locations, it stands on its own, and is all the better for it.

Kay Vess is a scoundrel who’s about to pull off the biggest heist of her life so she can live in peace and finally have the freedom she craves. Star Wars Outlaws takes you on a journey to various planets and moons, trying to assemble a team to steal millions of credits from Sliro, who’s hunting you down every step of the way. While the main adventure is filled with exciting set pieces and a more-than-serviceable story, it’s the characters that make it much more enjoyable. The BX Commando Droid ND-5 is one of the coolest new characters to come to a galaxy far, far away in a while, but nothing can prepare you for how much you’ll fall in love with Nix.

It wasn’t until the little guy was stolen and almost sold to the Hutt Cartel that I realised how much I warmed to them, and would quite literally die to make sure they were safe. A lot of what you do as Kay revolves around using Nix to help you distract enemies and attack them: pull switches or press buttons, drop down ladders, trigger explosions, pickpocket unsuspecting civilians or officers, and more. Nix is a vital part of Star Wars Outlaws, and they are a further extension of what Kay Vess can do. Whether breaking into an Imperial Base or an old Clone Wars factory, the traversal is rather satisfying, as are the stealth elements.

Travelling through vents, swinging across drops with your grappling hook, climbing up walls and across massive structures, sneaking around huge compounds and avoiding detection, Kay has a lot to think about, but there’re opportunities to reach your objectives all over the place. With various entry points and ways to approach infiltration, you’re always having to think about the best way to sneak into a base of operations. Do you find an underground tunnel or a way to drop in from a nearby cliffside? Do you distract the Stormtroopers and hack a terminal to drop the blast doors? Whatever you choose, each base is filled with ways to find both an entry and exit point.

Hacking terminals to turn off security cameras, disable turrets, and more provides a minigame that sees you picking symbols in the correct sequence, which is a little confusing at first, but starts to make sense the more you have to do it. Certain doorways or crates need you to use your splicing tool as well. You’ll have to break into a lot of buildings and bases, but these add further immersion and satisfaction to how you reach your goal. Stealth is almost always an option, and while it can become tiresome at times, especially when you’d much prefer to blast the hell out of the enemy, it’s almost always a necessity.

Nix can scan areas to highlight enemies, and if you send them to attack someone, you can follow it up with a silent takedown. If an enemy does become alerted, they might raise the alarm and bring hellfire down upon you, meaning you’ll have to rely on your handiwork with a blaster to escape. It doesn’t seem to take much for your health to suffer, and while bacta vials can heal you, they tend to work slowly or feel a little unresponsive. This can be frustrating when you’re in the heat of battle, but most load points are only just before the section where you were eliminated.

When you’re not knee-deep in infiltration, you’re free to roam the various cities, eavesdropping on conversations for intel, betting on races or playing on arcades in the cantinas, shopping for parts to upgrade your blaster, ship, or speeder, or just existing in the hugely ambitious world that Massive Entertainment has built. Every location is packed full of opportunities to steal resources, loot treasures, and built a life for Kay and Nix while the dangerous upcoming heist looms over you. These planets and moons are wonderfully detailed, with each one feeling different to the last.

While Tattooine has featured in practically every Star Wars-related game known to man, there’s a reason for it. With Star Wars Outlaws, it is home to Jabba the Hutt and his clan, which you’ll be doing plenty of dealings with throughout the course of the game. What is cool is how you get to see Akiva, a world only really seen in the Aftermath novels. Kijimi, another world barely explored ouitside of Rise of Skywalker, feels so much more different to the other environments, playing home to a new crime syndicate, the Ashiga Clan. Toshara, the moon you play much of the opening hours on, is also beautifully designed and filled with loads to do.

Getting around is another thing Massive Entertainment gets right. Your speeder can be called at almost every point in the larger maps, and you can cover plenty of land in a short time. The Trailblazer, Kay’s signature (and stolen) ship, is easy to control when in space and off-world, gunning down TIE fighters, scavenging wreckages, and scanning for important parts, but the best part of piloting the ship is travelling through hyperspace. Every way to travel in Star Wars Outlaws is seamless and you never get bored of exploring the far reaches of the galaxy.

Star Wars Outlaws doesn’t throw too many quests or jobs at you all at once. It feels anti-Ubisoft in this way, whereby the maps aren’t so crowded by markers that you feel there’s far too much to try and do. You get a lot of your intel from cantinas, whether by talking to the bartender or listening to others, or through contacts who’ll offer you information for a price. You have your main quests to progress the story, but the other quests don’t feel arbitrary as they all feed into your standing amongst the crime syndicates, help you to find Experts that provide new abilities, acquire new parts for your weapons, speeder, and ship, and follow up on intel that might lead to a pirate camp treasure location, or something else.

The most refreshing part of Star Wars Outlaws is its approach to new skills and abilities. There are no skill trees and no levelling up. You don’t gain XP for killing enemies or finishing missions. Instead, you have to find Experts across the galaxy that all help with a particular part of Kay and Nix’ abilities. Once you’ve found them, you can unlock new abilities by completing small tasks like finding a certain amount of credits from containers, taking down a certain number of enemies while Nix distracts them, or travelling a certain distance in the air on your speeder. Think Fortnite and the way you earn XP for completing small goals.

It’s a clever way to improve your character, loadout, and vehicles, and while you might complete these goals without noticing, you can also focus on which new skills to unlock. While the main story offers some exciting missions, the side content is equally entertaining. Finding new Experts is great, but the syndicate opportunities are also cool. By gaining favour with either the Pykes, Crimson Dawn, the Ashiga Clan, or the Hutts, you’ll earn exclusive rewards, better items from affiliated merchants, and be treated better when on their patch of land. The opposite can lead to negative encounters and effects, but you’re always given a choice.

Star Wars Outlaws doesn’t rely on Jedi or Sith. It doesn’t even require a knowledge of Star Wars for players to enjoy, although it helps massively to appreciate all the small nods, references, and Easter Eggs that are packed into its story. One of my favourite moments came from exploring an old High Republic ship. Not only was it an impressively detailed and fun set piece, I was able to find datapads that mentioned the Nihil and the Starlight Beacon. It is teeming with lore and I was always smiling at how it embraces every age of Star Wars. And make sure you overhear a conversation at a particular cantina on Tattooine near a specific seating area inside. So damn cool.

I loved every second of Star Wars Outlaws, but while I had a blast playing it, there were a few issues that brought down the enjoyment at times. Fast travel points are few and far between, so travelling across the deserts of Tattooine or the jungles of Akiva got frustrating, especially when you clip a hidden rock or tree trunk that sends you flying off your speeder. Enemies are also far too quick to spot you, which can lead to stealth being over before it begins. There’s also a lot of back and forth in certain missions which see you travel great distances only to travel back, then travel further again, which gets repetitive the more you have to do it.

Despite this, I believe Star Wars Outlaws is going to surprise a lot of people. Its smart approach to upgrading skills and abilities is a breath of fresh air. The stealth elements are varied and exciting, and when you do take part in a gunfight, it’s almost always thrilling. The lore of Star Wars is everywhere you look, and while you might spend hours infiltrating compounds belonging to the Empire, you also probably spend just as much time on the sabaac tables trying to beat a bunch of high rollers for some extra credits. Kay is a fantastic character who you root for every step of the way, and Nix, voiced by my hero Dee Bradley Baker, is the star of the show.