As I hurtled through the dry, ochre-toned wasteland of Toshara on the back of a rusty speeder, I quickly came to the realisation that Star Wars Outlaws could be the game I’ve always dreamed of. While there are timeless stories revolving around the plight of the Jedi and the Empire – the vast, colourful world of Star Wars always alluded to more beneath the hood and left me with one major question: what are the consequences of interstellar conflict for anyone that wasn’t born with magical powers?

During a recent preview event, I had the opportunity to play through two sections of the game for a full three hours – exploring a portion of its open world, and discovering a darker, more destitute setting where inhabitants must survive however they can. And it looks awesome. 

Kay Vess, our protagonist, is a perfect example of a survivor in a war-torn galaxy. Star Wars Outlaws is set between the events of “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back” and “Star Wars: Return of the Jedi”, and so Vader’s rule has rippled into even the most far-flung corners of the Galaxy Far, Far Away. On Toshara, a moon dominated by criminals, Kay is tasked with infiltrating the base of Gorak, a local kingpin. Stealth is key here, and as Kay, I deftly slip past meandering guards with an array of quiet takedowns at my disposal for anyone that spots me. Kay can also unlock additional abilities that’ll help – the Fast Talker ability offers a quick way to quickly yap your way out of a full-blown enemy showdown, for example.

What’s even better, is that Kay’s trusty companion Nix is also a handy tool, and can be commanded to create enemy distractions, attack if needed, or even collect a piece of loot that’s just out of reach. This is a mandatory stealth mission, but in the context of the plot it makes total sense – Kay isn’t here to go blasters blazing (this time), it’s a delicate mission that requires discretion. When things go awry, Kay ends up discovering information that is of use to Gorak, and is given a choice to tell him about it or keep it to herself.

This is where the power of choice and allegiances comes in. While playing, I was introduced to four different crime syndicates: Crimson Dawn, The Hutt Cartel, Ashiga Clan, and The Pyke Syndicate – each with their own designs on how to rule the underworld. Kay can foster good and bad reputations with each of the clans – having a good reputation will grant her privileged access to their districts and benefits. Having a negative reputation will make a syndicate less receptive, and even hostile in some cases.

Assisting one syndicate can affect how a different one feels about you too, so it pays to be cautious in who you align with. Gorak is aligned with the latter, and I chose to be generous with my information about a plot to overthrow him. I loved this element of decision-making; as a player, I’m not just on the rails of a pre-scripted story, but getting input in how the story plays out and how the world reacts to Kay, which feels great.

Once that exchange concluded, I stepped out onto the gritty, neon-soaked streets of Mirogana to explore freely. Here, you’ll find vendors offering new equipment, items, cosmetics for Kay that’ll offer new enhancements, and other goodies. The essence of a world ruled by crime is in full force here, characters around me spoke in hushed tones about objectionable schemes, while Empire guards slyly took bribes from enterprising scoundrels. All of this makes the settings of Star Wars Outlaws feel truly alive, and showcased the seedy underside of galaxy in all its questionable glory.

I was prompted to make several more reputation choices in the next few missions, the first coming at the end of a job for The Hutt Cartel. As Kay, I politely declined the request to double cross the Hutts and hand over my goods to Crimson Dawn, which resulted in a… less polite shootout with the clan’s double-crossing agent. Later, during a mission to upgrade Kay’s blaster, I was given the option to steal a necessary part from the Pyke Syndicate or Crimson Dawn, and, having already chosen to annoy the latter, opted to “liberate” the goods from their district. This variation in how to approach jobs and who to favour again plays magnificently into crafting your own version of the underworld, where allegiances can change in seconds and no one can be trusted. 

From there, I set out to explore the arid deserts of Toshara in my first taste of Star Wars Outlaws‘ open world environments. I zoomed past several points of interest, including desert-beaten structures housing collectables, loot, or random events. Exploring those structures led me to a cache of Empire loot ripe for the taking, while another saw me stand off against a band of pirates raiding a homestead. Just like walking around Mirogana, veering offroad to take care of these tasks makes Toshara feel like a living, dynamic place – and of course, snagging a bit of loot is never a bad thing. Even in this select area, the environments felt stuffed with little things to do and secrets to discover.

Another section of my preview took me to the stars, quite literally, and put me at the helm of Kay’s ship. Engaging in a swift battle against some TIE Fighters felt pretty approachable off the bat, the controls were smooth, similar to those of Starfield, and the ship’s tracking module made short work of pesky enemy ships. After that, I landed on the frigid, icy shores of Kijimi, to look for a safecracker. Kijimi is ruled by The Ashiga Clan, but, just like on Toshara, The Crimson Dawn is looking to dethrone them. 

I couldn’t resist a quick roam around Kijimi’s surroundings (and a few bets placed on the virtual Fathier Racing holo table situated in the bar) simply because these environments are absolutely stunning. Total care has gone in to make Toshara and Kimiji feel vibrant and authentic, and I can’t wait to see what other notable Star Wars locations look like.

But enough of looking at the buildings, there are several objectives at hand. Kay needs to win favour with the Ashiga Clan and their Queen, culminating in a mission to steal a mysterious relic. Having already made my way through a stealth mission back on Toshara, I opted for the most chaotic entrance possible, blasting guards and foes into oblivion in fierce firefights, while commanding Nix to attack anyone that proved to be more laserproof than expected. The blaster combat feels extremely satisfying – hits pack a punch, much like grenades, and the option to take out shields with ease or simply stun foes gave a breadth of options in how to clean up what became a pretty outrageous gunfight in the middle of a tranquil setting, which was extremely fun.

The choice that Star Wars Outlaws gives you to craft your own reputation as Kay’s unfolds feels excellent – and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to explore and immerse myself in both new and familiar locations from the Star Wars universe. However, quite uniquely, I’m seeing them from Kay’s nebulous perspective as a well-meaning outcast just doing her best to survive in an underworld brimming with duplicitous characters, and I can’t wait to play more. Thankfully, there’s not much longer to wait either – Star Wars Outlaws launches on Xbox Series X|S on August 30. 

Star Wars Outlaws

UBISOFT

☆☆☆☆☆
12

★★★★★

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Experience the first-ever open world Star Wars action-adventure game and explore distinct locations across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as scoundrel Kay Vess, seeking freedom and the means to start a new life. Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates as you join the galaxy’s most wanted.

If you’re willing to take the risk, the galaxy is full of opportunity.

DISCOVER A GALAXY OF OPPORTUNITY
Explore distinct locations with bustling cities and cantinas. Race across sprawling outdoor landscapes on your speeder. Each location brings new adventures, unique challenges, and enticing rewards if you’re willing to take the risk.

EXPERIENCE AN ORIGINAL SCOUNDREL STORY
Live the high-stakes lifestyle of an outlaw. Turn any situation to your advantage with Nix by your side: fight with your blaster, overcome enemies with stealth and gadgets, or find the right moments to distract enemies and gain the upper hand.

EMBARK ON HIGH-STAKES MISSIONS
Take on high-risk, high-reward missions from the galaxy’s crime syndicates. Steal valuable goods, infiltrate secret locations, and outwit enemies as one of the galaxy’s most wanted. Every choice you make influences your ever-changing reputation.

JUMP INTO THE PILOT SEAT
Pilot your ship, the Trailblazer, as you engage in thrilling dogfights with the Empire and other foes. Find the right opportunities to chase, evade, and attack to get the upper hand.

Path of Exile 2’s character screen sets the mood early by featuring a variety of classes, each with a noose around their necks. Once I confirm my selection, the trap is sprung, and every neck is snapped save for mine as the rope gives way. My witch scurries away into the nearby brush and the adventure begins. The message is clear: this place is evil.

The original Path of Exile carved a path of innovation for the action role-playing genre when it was released on PC in 2013 (and in 2017 on Xbox). It was an instant classic that would go on to develop a fervent following, be hailed by critics, and establish a compelling new world to explore. Now, Grinding Gear Games is on the verge of sending us back to the world of Wraeclast with the upcoming Path of Exile 2. Originally planned as a massive expansion, PoE 2 has grown into its own beast with a slew of innovations while retaining what made the original so great to begin with — we got a feel for this recently during a hands-on session.

“For Path of Exile 2 we really want to make sure that we are keeping all the depth that PoE is known for, while removing a lot of unnecessary barriers that new players could easily stumble over. There were a lot of systems in PoE1 that added complexity without really adding any depth,” says Path of Exile 2 Game Director Jonathan Rogers.

“A great example was skill slots being tied to items in PoE1. Now your character just has skill slots for gems by default (more on this in a bit). In PoE2 we get to keep all the customization that itemized skills gave us, but without all the annoying details around having to change your items out whenever you want to try out a new skill combo. You can build your character with interesting combos between unique items, passive skills and abilities, but it should be a lot more accessible.”

The game is building not just on the mechanics of the original, but the story, too. Path of Exile 2 is set some 20 years after the events of the original game. Since the destruction of the first game’s big bad, the Beast, the world has been freed of its corruption and Wraeclast, your primary location from the original game, has been reclaimed; but that has created its own issues as well. The gods that were once kept in check by the Beast are now ravaging parts of the plagued continent, while others are controlled by tyrants seizing the opportunity for power. This is where you come in, as your character is dropped into a small area to the north called Ogham, where the land appears to be sickening once more. Again, it taps into the deliciously evil surroundings; dire and dread seem to be key tenants of Path of Exile 2’s world design.

Rogers details about what goes into building such an enticingly creepy world to explore within Path of Exile 2: “The first step of any world area design is working out what it was used for, and what kind of people were there — we need to make sure that this process starts with a dark fantasy theme and can mean designing cultures with “off” elements to them. This is true even for the cultures that are friendly to the player.

“From there we try to find references for some kind of look that we are after. Usually, we want to make sure that there is some kind of “creepy” element to the area to evoke. Even something as simple as a style of rock can produce uneasy feelings in players, but there are a lot of other details to achieving this. A great example is lighting. We try to light the game like a horror movie. That means having high contrast shadows, and not using too much ambient lighting. Even a bright area like a Jungle in daytime can appear ‘dark’ in tone if you give it a good amount of contrast.”

When I jumped in and started playing within this creepy hellscape during my hands-on session, I picked the Witch, whose skills like summoning minions and casting spells track to how I like to play most action-RPGs. What struck me immediately was how pleasingly fluid my character felt moving through the world, not to mention how well it mapped to the Xbox controller, especially with the analog sticks. It was like playing a twin-stick shooter, with the left analog stick controlling the witch, while right analog stick would attack in the direction I focused my spells. I also liked the level of control I had over my skeleton minions and how I could invest in having a variety of roles for them, like two warriors and two snipers, for example.

“The biggest improvement in my opinion is the combat feel,” says Rogers. “There are a large number of little details that go into improving combat, but it’s things like being able to move while using many abilities, special animations for getting into range, dodge rolling, and the ability to retarget during an attack that all come together to make combat feel much better.”

With so many character choices built in already, I asked Rogers what some of the factors the team takes into consideration to balance each of them in the game; what’s the mantra the team follows to ensure each class feels like a Path of Exile class?

“We have really tried to make sure that each class has unique mechanics and ideas, but at the end of the day the real purpose of each class is to deliver on a fantasy that players have. The design needs to make sure we are fulfilling that — if you pick a druid, you want to turn into a bear! Since Path of Exile doesn’t have class restrictions, you can go outside of that and do some really weird combinations. It’s not a question of balancing one class against another, it’s a matter of balancing every individual skill across the entire game with all the others. The reason that classes need to exist is to give you something to latch on to when you start the game to give you a template for how you might build your character, but you can branch out and do anything.”

During my brief hands-on time, I didn’t do much branching out or experimentation here – it was just a short 30-minute session. I was having too much fun spawning skeletons and casting spells to consider the wider implications of how to distribute skill points for my character — I can tinker with that another time when early access for Path of Exile 2 is projected to kick off later in 2024 – but it’s already clear just how flexible the game will be.

“Path of Exile is a game with a lot of skills, and for PoE2 specifically we want the focus to be around using a good variety of abilities in different ways,” Rogers explains. “This just means that we must be able to solve the problem of having a lot of different abilities easily accessible. At the same time, we have a lot of different character classes and build choices, and the best layout tended to be quite different depending on what you were doing.”

This feeds into the game’s new Skill Gem system that will allow you to take a skill and modify it with up to five additional support gems, rather than having abilities attached to these skills. With 9 skill slots on your character, and each skill having up to 5 supports, you can come up with all sorts of ideas.

“A classic example is Multiple Projectiles. Put it on the Sorceress spell Fireball and you get multiple Fireballs when you cast it. But when you put it on the Monk attack Falling Thunder, it will generate extra projectiles. We try to make it so that if the player thinks ‘Maybe this will work?’ then it should work.”

Also new for Path of Exile 2 will be its console support, with the Xbox version launching alongside the PC release. Rogers explained to me that one of the first things that was super important to the team was to make sure console was a first-class platform and would support cross-play, which in turn led to cross-progression support, as well as implementing couch co-op for the console version.

“We need to make sure that players on console feel like they are part of the same community, and I think that that was one issue that we had with PoE 1. It always felt separate. But we were also thinking about things that we can take advantage of on console platforms that are unique experiences to those platforms, and couch co-op is one of those,” says Rogers.

“You can technically play couch co-op on a PC of course, and I’m sure some people have their PCs hooked up in their living room, but really the experience of sitting on a couch with your friend is something that you get from consoles that you don’t usually get from PC play. It’s also something that I have just personally always enjoyed, and there was a lot of excitement in the studio about it too. We thought it would be a lot of fun, so we decided to go for it.”

By every measure, it seems Grinding Gear Games has found a way to outdo itself and is primed to deliver another compelling entry in their Path of Exile franchise. With the incredible level of character customization, a dark and sinister world that we’re just dying to explore further, and a slew of console friendly features, Path of Exile 2 is firmly on our radar to be a must-play in 2024.