Star Wars Outlaws makes a strong case as being the best Star Wars game of recent years. Don’t get me wrong, I like Cal Kestis well enough, and I enjoyed Star Wars Hunters’ riff on Overwatch, but neither of them captured the universe of Star Wars in the way that Outlaws does. It’s helped immensely by lead Kay Vess, a charismatic swindler who never gives up despite finding herself drawn into shady shenanigans far bigger than she could imagine. While it’s been a long time coming, Outlaws finally arrives on Nintendo Switch 2, and Nintendo’s new handheld proves a perfect place to experience Kay’s adventures.
Starting in the casino city of Canto Bight – memorably last seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi – Kay, and her alien companion Nix, immediately show that they’re not the squeaky clean heroes we’re used to portraying in many other gaming universes. She skulks around the city’s backstreets, readying herself for a big score, stealing credits and insinuating herself into the right place at the right time. Soon enough, she makes the mistake of stealing from the wrong people, leaving the planet with the vicious Zliro at her heels.
It’s a great setup, and after crashing on Toshara, you find yourself balancing dirty work between a multitude of shady organisations, trying to curry favour with one, while attempting not to piss the others off too much. Actions have consequences to the story and the options that you’ll have later on, and it feels organic and interconnected, even as you’re embroiled in another unsavoury score with a different alien group.
When the time for being quiet is done, Kay is more than capable of making a hell of a lot of noise, blasting enemies into oblivion, and Outlaws’ mix of sneaking and shooting comes away feeling more like a Star Wars take on Uncharted than the many Assassin’s Creed comparisons. In fact, that’s nigh-on what it is, with plenty of clambering to be done between the quipping and thieving. Nathan Drake would be proud if he wasn’t at the other end of a galaxy, far, far away, and, you know, fictional.
Credit: Ubisoft via Nintendo
Here on Switch 2, you’re likely clamouring to know about performance, and while there have been clear cuts made from the PC, PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series consoles’ visuals, Switch 2 continues to impress as a viable place to play large, graphically intensive open-world games like we’ve seen with the Switch 2 port of Hogwarts Legacy.
The first cut is to the frame rate, with the maximum refresh rate sitting at an expected 30fps. Anyone who claims that this is no longer playable hasn’t spent the last twenty years gaming, and it’s a locked 30fps too, making everything feel consistent, smooth and reliable. Would it feel better at 60fps? Yes, of course it would, but if that’s what you’re demanding, then you need to look at playing games of this scale and scope on other, more stationary platforms. This strikes the right balance for Switch 2.
Still, at times, Star Wars Outlaws looks amazing, and it manages to retain the same sense of scale and wonder that the original release did, even with a reduced resolution and trade offs with texture detail and foliage. That carries through to handheld mode, and while it’s a further step down in terms of resolution, it’s a thoroughly playable way to experience the game, with some smart changes to the UI to make it more palatable on the small screen.
Personally, the most noticeable differences are in the character models, and Kay Vess in particular looks far less detailed in in-engine cutscenes than she does on PC and the other more powerful systems. The character models were many players’ major complaint about those original versions, and they’re cut back further here.
However, you’re mostly going to view her from behind as she sneaks around and shoots aliens in the head, so personally, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. The stellar voice acting is fully present and correct, and the drama continues apace, even without a batch of hyper-detailed character models saying the lines.
Credit: Ubisoft via Nintendo
Distractions do come though, including the anti-aliasing shimmer around characters’ hair and beards, and there’s texture and shadow pop-in at what doesn’t always feel like the most obvious time. To be honest, the hair is the thing I dislike the most about the whole port, so I really hope they can find a way to alter that, or give you the option of turning some effects off. Crucially, none of these things alter the way the game plays, or how it feels, and they’re easy things to live with when you have a version of the game you can take outside.
There are a few different visual options that affect how you see Star Wars Outlaws, and the cinematic, 12:9 aspect ratio is probably key amongst them. This adds black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, while widening your field of view, and it really makes Outlaws feel more like a part of the Star Wars cinematic universe. You can add the film grain effect to that as well, but while I’m a fan of film grains in general, many will be glad to be able to toggle it off.
While these features were in the original versions, the Switch 2 gains a few exclusives of its own, and motion control is probably my favourite inclusion. Whether you’re playing in handheld or with a Pro Controller, you can utilise motion controls for some added nuance when aiming, and it makes a world of difference to how the gunplay feels and how precise you can be while playing. On top of that, there’s also a nice spot of HD rumble, bringing some extra feels to everything from footsteps to explosions, equivalent to a DualSense on PS5, and there’s the ability to use the touchscreen for menu management when you’re playing in handheld – something even Nintendo forget to include in many of their games!
Credit: Ubisoft via Nintendo
The final, and most stupefying thing, is the install size. This massive, open-world game – and all its previous DLC – has been compressed down to a measly 20GB. You’d expect the audio to have taken a massive hit as part of that, but it’s been done in such a way that I couldn’t tell, and I’m hugely sensitive to audio quality. It’s disappointing that this is yet another Switch 2 key card – apparently because the Switch 2 cartridge isn’t fast enough compared to internal SSD and microSD Express – but at least it’s not making your storage creak and groan any more than is necessary.
