Everybody loves a good story. That’s especially true when that story has been told across two generations, garnering a massive fan following while inspiring countless games, TV shows, spin-offs and the like. Star Wars is one of those stories, and is a franchise that needs no introduction unless you’ve been living under a rock since the 1980s.
Its popularity, and the success of Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor, may have been factors in Massive Entertainment’s decision to hop on the bandwagon and release a unique take on the sci-fi franchise back in 2024. Ubisoft’s own struggles with a few lackluster releases and the utter failure of XDefiant to reverse its failing fortunes meant that Star Wars Outlaws carried a lot of weight on its shoulders at the time of its release.
However, things didn’t go quite according to plan, and a poor response to the bold take on the beloved franchise relegated Star Wars Outlaws to the background of a stage that saw other games take the spotlight away from it. However, there was a lot to like in the game despite its poor showing, and its makers have spared no effort in bringing it up to scratch.
Those efforts have paid off, and Star Wars Outlaws is now a game that fully leans into the ambitious vision and scope that its creators originally intended for it. How has the embattled title managed to turn things around? It’s time to find out.
A New Face In A Familiar Yet Flawed World
On paper, the two studios’ combined effort to bring an open-world Star Wars experience to life had a lot going for it. Introducing Kay Vess as part of the franchise’s criminal underworld allowed the studio to immediately do away with complex plotlines and a lot of posturing that could have come with a story focused around the Jedi and Sith.
Kay’s mission to earn enough credits to free herself from the clutches of the Crime Syndicate allowed Outlaws the freedom to bring multiple locations from the franchise to the table. It also gave Massive Entertainment the flexibility to bring popular characters who may not have had enough time to shine in the original films back into the limelight.
Placing the story right between events of the second and third films was another smart touch considering the amount of lore that could be tapped in the game’s narrative. However, none of these strengths were allowed to shine through when Outlaws was released, with bugs, technical issues, and poor design choices causing players to abandon ship fairly early in their playthrough.
The forced stealth sections in which being spotted meant the undoing of a fair bit of meticulous work were among the biggest complaints. Kay’s trusty speeder throwing her off when striking a rock that it should have flattened was another.
And don’t get us started on having to keep picking up an enemy weapon every single time we had to interact with something! All of these issues took away from what could have been an excellent experience for both Star Wars fans and new players alike, which was indeed tragic considering that the game really did live up to the reputation of its inspirations when it wasn’t actively shooting itself in the foot like a Stormtrooper would.
But there were other equally egregious issues plaguing the game. Mission progression could easily be broken by a bug. There were balancing issues that marred the combat experience that the game offered. Things weren’t looking good in this particular corner of a galaxy far, far, away and players who were very excited to visit it soon moved on to other worlds – or games.
For those who persisted with it, Outlaws managed to win them over despite its issues. In a world where players are quite discerning and likely to leave a faulty game behind, it was some critics and a few fans who saw Outlaws for what it was.
As it stood, Outlaws had a place on the Jedi Council, but was not granted the rank of Master. However, like many of our favourite Jedi, its creators refused to let their title be written off that easily despite its poor sales and underwhelming response.
Fix Things, They Did
If you did your best impression of Yoda when you saw that, you’re probably as big a fan of Star Wars as we are. So is Massive Entertainment, apparently. The studios continued to support their ambitious title, working hard to rectify its issues while also promising a roadmap of content that has since transformed Outlaws into an excellent game that is easy to recommend in 2025.
The first title update arrived in October 2024, addressing issues both major and minor. Kay’s time on her speeder became a lot easier, for starters, as did her time with the game’s stealth sections which did away with the annoying fail conditions entirely. Another significant addition was a dedicated bug reporter which allowed players to bring issues with the game to the developer’s notice.
There were also fixes that blocked player progression, allowing for a better story experience while a long list of performance and balancing fixes aimed to make the game a whole lot better with the promise of more to come. And the two teams behind the experience certainly delivered on that promise.
November 2024 brought further improvements to the stealth sections, giving players more flexibility in their approach, while improvements to how Kay handled weapons worked well with balancing changes to further improve the experience that the previous update brought to the table. It also brought Wild Card, the game’s first DLC expansion to its world, allowing Kay to engage with a character who earned quite the reputation back when the original films were a thing.
Further title updates in December 2025 and February 2025 paved the way for a massive new addition to the game in May 2025. The new update brought the long awaited Pirate’s Fortune expansion to the game, along with improvements to gameplay that included a free-fire ability for Kay to use while riding her speeder, seamless transitions between one-handed and two-handed weapons, and a new passive system for the Trailblazer, her spaceship.
Finally, June 2025 brought further refinements to the experience, making further tweaks and improvements across the board. But have all these improvements and fixes made a difference? The answer is a resounding yes!
The Force Is Now Strong With This One
With all of these improvements directly influencing the quality of the experience that Star Wars offers, it feels like an entirely new game from the one we played last year. Kay has plenty of options at her disposal in a variety of situations, allowing us to choose between a quiet, methodical approach or to simply go in all guns blazing just as Hans and Chewbacca might do.
Its story was always among its strengths and continues to be a great adventure that lives up to the franchise’s reputation. And now, the game’s open world, level design, and mission structures allow you to truly experience Massive Entertainment’s original vision for the game. With both DLC expansions now available to play, players who dropped off the game in its early days are going to have an absolute blast if they choose to dive back in today.
It’s one hell of an olive branch the game’s makers have extended to their disgruntled players, and is well worth grabbing on to considering the new and improved world that Outlaws now offers.
It’s a world in which new content comes to you as you’re out exploring a new biome. It’s a game in which you could simply ignore the main campaign for a while, hopping on your speeder to investigate a point of interest that you happen to spot in the distance.
With all of the fixes that its developers have brought to it over the past year, it is now a title that works with you instead of against you. And it’s all the more entertaining because of that.
Star Wars Outlaws is a game that we’d whole-heartedly recommend to anybody with a passing interest in the franchise or open world titles that they could easily get lost in. It’s immersive with a visually resplendent world that keeps bringing you new ways to enjoy it.
While some Star Wars fans are likely continuing to enjoy its ambitious take on the franchise, Star Wars Outlaws is now a game that even newcomers to the franchise could, and dare we say should, dive into in 2025. Massive have finally delivered on the experience they originally wanted for their players.
And while that could have been done from the get-go, it’s better late than never.
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
