Vess up: can Ubisoft’s galactic adventure deliver on big promises?

Developer/ publisher Format Origin Ubisoft (Massive Entertainment) PC, PS5, Xbox Series Sweden

Release August 30

Transitions have always been a key part of Star Wars. George Lucas’ liberal use of screen wipes was not just a nod to his twin influences of Flash Gordon serials and Akira Kurosawa but retained a continuity of motion between shots of Luke climbing into his speeder and zooming across the desert, and story momentum in scenes taking place on far sides of the galaxy. As the series makes its way into the hands of the publisher that defined the modern notion of open-world design, it’s only natural that Star Wars: Outlaws would lean into such smooth transitions.

The majority of our attention is taken up by the scenery. Outlaws always looks the part

The standout of our hour-long demo is an unbroken run that carries us from the interior of a space station out, via a hangar shootout, into open space for a dogfight, then down to the surface of the nearest planet, Toshara, through the streets of a port town and into a gambling den. There’s the odd cutscene, and an awful lot of upper-atmosphere cloud cover to hide the SSD being put to task, yet the sense of connectivity remains, magical enough to offset the rather basic nature of what we do along the way.