Star Wars Outlaws is an OK video game wrapped in a stunning simulacrum of the galaxy far, far away

It is a period of unrest in the Star Wars franchise — and that makes it an interesting time for a game like Star Wars Outlaws to launch.

Disney's fortunes with the property have seen better days. The newest streaming series, The Acolyte, launched to mixed reviews and was not renewed after its first season. At Walt Disney World, the Galactic Starcruiser hotel closed in 2023 after only 18 months in operation.

The fortunes of Star Wars games these days are similarly mixed. Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor were well reviewed. But several recent projects have been stalled with no release date in sight or have been cancelled altogether — including what would have been a first-person shooter based on the hit Mandalorian series.

Outlaws's focus on bounty hunters and gunslingers rather than jedi and sith makes it nearly unbelievable that development — led by Ubisoft's Massive Entertainment studio in Sweden, with key support from Toronto and Montreal — made it past the finish line.

In it, we meet Kay Vess (played by Latina Canadian actor Humberly González), down on her luck doing odd black-market jobs on Canto, home to the gambling megacity Canto Bight, seen in The Last Jedi. After a major job goes wrong, she's given a so-called death mark, making her one of the most-hunted people in the galaxy.

It's up to Kay — and the player — to navigate her rep among the leading criminal syndicates and build a team to pull off one last heist to ride off into hyperspace rich and free.

Kay, to her credit, is far more likeable than the scoundrel label that Ubisoft has pummelled gamers with in their marketing. You'll get moments when Kay's pushed to the limit and is ready to get her hands bloody, but she leans more on the charming side than the arrogant, sus Han Solo we meet at the outset of A New Hope.

González told CBC that, when we meet Kay, she's only begun her "hero's journey" toward becoming a legendary figure in the underworld.

"You do get to see that vulnerable side to her that comes out ... because there's still so much growing for her to do," she said. 

"She is going to have these experiences that are going to shape her, toughen her up, kind of give her a reality check. And where she needs to protect herself, how she comes off — she doesn't always learn the easy way."

If you've played a third-person action game in the last decade and a half, chances are most of Outlaws will feel familiar. You'll be sneaking around enemy compounds, taking out guards silently from behind and breaking out your blaster if or when you are spotted.

Most of the mechanics feel like they've been done better in other games. Kay often has to depend on stealth as she infiltrates criminal lounges or Imperial stations, but it's not as finely tuned as in an Assassin's Creed game, for example.

Often while playing, I accidentally alerted a guard when trying to attack them from behind when button prompts suggested I should be out of sight. Sometimes the camera angles hide patrolling enemies from your line of vision, putting you in immediate danger.

In between encounters, you'll do some light platforming. Leaping across gaps with Kay's grappling hook gives you a momentary rush. But climbing ledges and fences ad nauseum hasn't been fun for years, so it's puzzling that Outlaws relies on it so much.