An open-world game based in the Star Wars universe should be one of the best games ever, even better than Red Dead Redemption 2, if that were possible. But no amount of franchise notoriety matters if the protagonist, the guy you’re supposed to root for, is a garbage human being. Not an anti-hero or even a flawed person, but an outright scumbag.
There was so much potential in Star Wars: Outlaws but it has all the signs of a rush-to-market product. I don’t hold developers responsible, but management. I’m sure developers are very aware of all the problems and despise all of them, and if it were up to the devs, this game would not even see an internal beta release.
I think Outlaws was supposed to have a branching morality system mechanic, too. The player is forced to play as Kay Vess, basically a young Han Solo learning the ropes—the Han Solo from the original trilogy, not the retconned irresponsible jerk from the Disney sequel trilogy. Outlaws has no character creation, one of the hallmarks of this game genre. This was well-known before the release, so it makes me think that was planned.
A morality system mechanic determined by player choice would make a whole lot more sense, and the linear path Vess taken simply would have been one of the branches, if you can believe the weird miasma of confusing reactions of secondary characters to Vess’ in-game decisions. Here, too, was wasted potential, given Vess’ admittedly jumbled backstory. Should she align with the Empire? The Rebellion? One of the many crime syndicates she takes jobs for? Come clean as a neutral party or become an independent consultant? So many different ways to make a great story, flushed into the sewer by immutable release dates set by Disney and Ubersoft leadership.
MauLer’s analysis is ridiculously long but the video starts at Vess’ character analysis.
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It was easily the most disappointing story in the entire franchise.