Star Wars Outlaws Teases What Could’ve Been a Great Stealth…

There is a lot to love about the open world in Star Wars Outlaws. Gameplay when boiled down to its meat and potatoes—stealth, shootouts, and dogfights—isn’t excessively refreshing or exciting on its own, to be fair, but exploration in town hubs populated densely with NPCs goes a long way in making each conversation or interaction rich. Unfortunately, many scripted or optional moments do lead to stealth, shootouts, and outer space dogfights in Star Wars Outlaws. Stealth is arguably the strongest of the three as it best allows Nix to strategically interact with enemies and environments. Still, it doesn’t push any envelopes.

A sequel would be exciting to see now that there’s a commendable framework for a scoundrel story entrenched in the original trilogy timeline to be told. Of course, that framework is somewhat awkwardly shoved into Star Wars Outlaws’ third act, where it decides to unload brief and unsatisfactory interactions between Kay Vess and her mother. A post-credits cutscene teases that there’s something of a daughter-mother relationship to possibly rekindle down the line, though, and it’s in this scene (as well as a playable sequence not long before it) that players are merely teased with a neat feature they never see elsewhere.

Star Wars Outlaws Sadly Dangles Stealth Disguises in Players’ Faces

The aforementioned playable sequence involves Kay dressing in a stormtrooper’s uniform as she pretends to escort a captured Gedeek through an ISB ship while trying to locate ND-5. This sequence isn’t terribly elaborate, but it nonetheless illustrates a feature that could’ve played a huge role in Star Wars Outlaws’ stealth gameplay and was apparently neglected.

Indeed, having outfits to slip into as disguises would have been incredibly neat as players are constantly stumbling into restricted areas that they can’t access without sneaking by undetected or blasting everyone in sight.

Getting to wear a stormtrooper uniform is a fun fan service reference as it emulates what Han Solo and Luke Skywalker do in A New Hope, but that entertainment factor soon dissipates when it’s understood that players should’ve been able to infiltrate Galactic Empire strongholds in Star Wars Outlaws with the same tactic. Likewise, the post-credits cutscene depicts Kay impersonating an officer as she goes to ‘interrogate’ her mother in holding, where it’s also strongly debatable that the Imperials should’ve been able to recognize who she is with her face exposed in this outfit after all the ruckus she’d caused not long before.

Star Wars Outlaws’ Stealth is a Mere Husk of What It Could’ve Been

It’s disappointing because while Kay’s reputation with criminal factions is what truly holds the key to intriguing interactions in gameplay, it could’ve been equally fun to pursue disguises that players could then wear when they need to access restricted areas. Such an overpowered feature could’ve been something players need to retrieve in restricted areas, too, in order to make their reward worthwhile and challenging enough from the beginning to obtain.

This way, once players have snuck far enough into a Crimson Dawn restricted area or even unlocked its vault, for instance, it would be profound to then masquerade as a Crimson Dawn lackey and roam freely in any Crimson Dawn hideout whether players had a Good reputation with them or not. Similarly, somehow acquiring a stormtrooper uniform could’ve let players inside huge Imperial outposts.

The challenge then could’ve been provided by enemies periodically approaching Kay and pressing players to make a quick decision or dialogue option that might blow their cover—the possibilities may have been endless. If Outlaws ever receives a sequel, it should hope to make such a feature a priority in gameplay design.

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