Star Wars Outlaws: Release date, trailers, open world and story

I am not shocked we’re getting more Star Wars, but I am hella surprised that Star Wars Outlaws is developed by none other than Ubisoft, whereas, traditionally, EA has taken the reins of the Star Wars IP in gaming.

Another satisfying surprise was not seeing any lightsabers in the opening trailer for Star Wars Outlaws, which, as you may tell from the title, is not about Jedi. And considering when this game takes place, it makes sense — although, I wouldn’t count it out completely.

Here’s everything we know so far about Star Wars Outlaws, from the release date and story to the gameplay and trailers.

Star Wars Outlaws release date

Star Wars Outlaws was first announced during the Xbox livestream on June 11, 2023 and had a proper reveal at the Ubisoft Forward event on June 12, but the official release date will fall some time in 2024.

Star Wars Outlaws will launch for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X as well as last-gen consoles.

Star Wars Outlaws story

The narrative of Star Wars Outlaws doesn’t revolve around a Jedi or even someone affiliated with either side of the Empire vs. Rebellion conflict. No, we play an outlaw named Kay Vess on the Outer Rim of space during the height of the civil war in the galaxy (between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi).

As Kay Vess (portrayed by Humberly González), we get to hang out with a fun cast of characters, including her companion Nix (portrayed by Dee Bradley Baker) and a cool droid named ND-5. I wouldn’t be surprised if we made more enemies and friends since there are branching dialogue choices available.

The overall narrative seems to be a coming of age story about Kay Vess making her way through the galaxy as an outlaw. That simple premise is really all we need out of a story like this. I’m sure it gets deeper than that, but I do hope we don’t get dragged into a Rebel vs. Empire conflict. From what we’ve seen, it sounds like our enemies will likely be the criminal syndicates of the universe.

Star Wars Outlaws gameplay

Star Wars Outlaws is right in Ubisoft’s wheelhouse in terms of being a third-person action-adventure open world game.

Very much in the spirit of Assassin’s Creed, there are stealth mechanics and stealth-based abilities like takedowns. There’s gunplay and hacking, similar to Watch Dogs. And there’s even vehicle and space combat, similar to Starlink: Battle for Atlas.

The coolest part about Star Wars Outlaws is that it is an open world game. It’s exciting to see aspects of the world open up in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, but actually free roaming planets and engaging in space combat in Star Wars Outlaws is a whole other level of awesome.

Some other things I’ve noticed during the gameplay trailer was that there’s a workbench, so there’s probably a crafting system. You can control your little partner Nix and get him to either attack, distract, or click environmental objects. You can even false-surrender and quick-draw on enemies. The guns we saw were energy based, and they appear to have different settings, like Stun or Kill. There are also Modules that seem like gun attachments, which have names like Focused or Blaster.

Star Wars Outlaws trailers

There are several trailers for Star Wars Outlaws, showcasing the gameplay, artstyle, and more. 

Star Wars Outlaws PC requirements

There aren’t any official PC specs for Star Wars Outlaws just yet, but we can get an idea of what Ubisoft might require by taking a look at its other games.

For example, Far Cry 6 requires a minimum of an AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or Intel Core i5-4460 CPU, 8GB of RAM, and an AMD RX 460 (4GB) or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (4GB) GPU. Meanwhile, the recommended requirements call for an AMD Ryzen 5 3600X or Intel Core i7-7700 CPU, 16GB of RAM, and an AMD RX Vega 64 (8GB) or NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB) GPU.

Some of the best cheap gaming laptops sport a fresh Nvidia GeForce RTX 3060 GPU, which should be more than enough to get you through Star Wars Outlaws.

Outlook

Star Wars Outlaws is an incredibly exciting title — we haven’t seen a AAA game focusing away from the main conflict of Star Wars before. Trust me, I love slicing up a Rancor with a lightsaber as much as the next person, but there are so many interesting stories to be told outside of the battle between light and dark.