Star Wars Outlaws Is A Crappy Masterpiece

Ubisoft's latest is the perfect example of the bewildering dissonance of modern AAA gaming

[HansyJ]

Just crappy

[anast]

Crappy masterpiece is another way of saying, "I really want to tear apart this game, but I need review codes to do my job."

[KyRo]

The Elder Scrolls and Fallout fall under this umbrella too.

[TheNamelessOne]

Two of the most popular, most awarded RPG series on the market in general.

[GhostScholar]

Yeah especially since Microsoft bought them huh 🤔

[90sGamingWasBetter]

For very different reasons though.

[-Foxtrot]

If any other developer made a game like this and it was something original, not Star Wars related, it would have been torn apart by journalists. I wouldn’t even seen anything past an 8, and that would have been pushing it.

We all know it, we just don’t like to talk about it for some reason.

[st_vex]

You're just bullshiting the game for some reason

[-Foxtrot]

No.

Just being honest

We’ve seen games called out and scored lower for less

Bugs, glitches, bad AI, repetitive gameplay, feeling samey etc

[Christopher]

Going to be honest, for AAA, this is scored like most games. It's not a Ubisoft thing, it's a AAA thing.

[gold_drake]

absolutely agree

[Chard]

I think it's pretty widely understood that modern ubisoft doesn't make great games

[mkis007]

I really don't get it. I'm having a ton of fun with the game. Admittedly a good portion of my fun is coming from the star wars aspect of it, but it is fun to me regardless. I've put in at least 20 hours at this point, and I'm still excited for the next thing I haven't seen yet. Game is at least a 7 to me at some points it's an 8. It's better now that I get how the stealth system works.

[--Onilink--]

Its Kotaku, practically no one gives them review copies anymore, why do you think the review os so late?

[neutralgamer1992]

A **masterpiece** is a work of exceptional quality, skill, or artistry, often considered the best or most outstanding work created by an artist, writer, or other creator. It can refer to a piece of work that demonstrates mastery in a particular field, whether in the arts, literature, music, or craftsmanship. Historically, the term was used to describe a piece of work submitted by an apprentice or journeyman to a guild for approval to become a master craftsman

So no SWO is just crappy nowhere near a masterpiece

[Crows90]

Words have lost all meaning...so yeah not surprising

[neutralgamer1992]

That’s so true. We throw around masterpiece, game of be generation, game of decades and perfect scores. They lost all value and impact. Now if a AAA game doesn’t get 9’s many people just say it’s a game not worth playing. I remember when 10/10 was something shocking. I still remember the conversation around MGS4 getting 10/10 and how there was shock factor too. Now almost any AAA game that comes out will have few perfect scores

[Armaggedon]

Cant be that crappy, most of the people in these comments wouldnt even be able to lift a finger towards building even an asset in the game.

[Alos88]

Funny how people never make this claim if people like something, only when they dislike it. Does liking a game make my opinion still invalid? I've never made one.

[zaanan]

Whilst I agree with you - armchair quarterbacks are annoying - these are trained professionals who make games as their chosen profession. Potential customers have every right to evaluate the game on the merits and call out shoddy work. If Ford makes a vehicle that is butt ugly and runs like crap, people are justified in calling it crappy and not buying it.

[Armaggedon]

@Alos88
People must learn to wield opinions better. So many brandish them with reckless abandon. Knowing how to build or create a thing gives greater understanding. This understanding helps us to assess the reasoning behind certain implemented aspects of a game.

[bunt-custardly]

Erm a masterpiece of being crappy is what I get from the title.

[MrBaskerville]

It's neither crappy nor a masterpiece. But it's pretty good.

[I_am_Batman]

Would've been even better if they finished it before releasing it.

[MrBaskerville]

You didn't play, that much is apparent.

[I_am_Batman]

@MrBaskerville: I never claimed to have played it. I'm refusing to buy unfinished games out of principle. It didn't have a complete gold master, meaning they've shipped a ton of discs that don't even contain a working build of the game.

[xenz]

I’m curious about what makes this game good?

[MrBaskerville]

It has really nicely done enviroments and personally I enjoy the stealth gameplay. It's basic, but it works, atleast on hard mode. I also enjoy all the space stuff. Also like the general content, lots of fun stuff to do but without the game being cluttered like Valhalla.

My biggest complaint is the upgrade systems. There are stores where you can upgrade your ship and speeder, but you need all kinds of crafting stuff to buy anything. It gets a little confusing, I wish I only needed cash.

The faction system is also a bit basic, but that's to be expected. It does lead to some fun chaos from time to time.

[Crows90]

@mrbaskerville

He asked what makes the game good....all you said is how basic it is

[MrBaskerville]

@Crows90
Basic isn't bad. The game is a sum of it's parts. It all works well together and results in a decent 8/10 game.

[neutralgamer1992]

Basker

Basic isn’t 8/10 though. What you described screams 6-7/10. Still not a bad game but also no where near good enough. It’s average so basically it’s a UBI game

[GhostScholar]

For me the world, characters, gameplay, and the exploration.

[outsider1624]

How you enjoy the stealth mode ill never understand. And this is an Ubisoft game who made SplinterCell with it's almost perfect stealth.
The stealth here is laughable. And her punches to knockout someone..lol.

[Rebel_Scum]

Its a mediocre game but a decent Ubisoft game.

What makes it good is the setting, tone, style and music. The map is ultra decluttered for Ubisoft standands. Faction system is alright.

The bad is the story, characters, animation sometimes, stealth missions that end immediately when caught.

So far only encountered one bug which crashed my PS5 but it resumed where I left off.

[GhostScholar]

Agree

[Rebel_Scum]

Flawed diamond in the rough is probably a better oxymoron for it.

[isarai]

Well you got half of that right

[CrimsonWing69]

Man, I feel like Butters in that South Park episode where they all watch Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls. Like everyone is puking and crying from how atrocious the movie was and Butters is standing in the middle of the chaos saying, “I didn’t think it was all that bad.”

Granted I’ve only played a few hours, but I really enjoy what I’m seeing and doing. It’s not the Second Coming or anything, but holy sh*t it is not terrible by any stretch of the imagination. There’s a lot good in it and there’s some mixed or uninspired aspects. Overall, this is a game I feel like the sum is greater than its parts.

[MrBaskerville]

Some of it is just people offended by the main character. These days a game is either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever, there's no inbetween. Gaming culture has turned to complete shit tbh.

[Crows90]

It can be in between. Just don't call it a masterpiece...

[MrBaskerville]

It really can't. Metacritic is proof of this. But yeah sure, this game is the worst game ever released. It's the Gollum of 2024. Worse actually. It's ugly, buggier than Cyberpunk at release day and gameplay is completely broken. That's what 10 minutes on metacritic would tell you.

I hate modern gaming discourse with a passion. Noskypeno gets it.

[Noskypeno]

This is what I hate about this generation. Sometimes things are just supposed to be dumb fun. They want everything to be a masterpiece. There are people watching Sports and be like He's only got one Championship win, he's barely considered good, all his stats are padded. That's what happens when we allow certain teams to win championships almost every year, it just cheapens the effort. Am I going to not like a sports team because they couldnt win the biggest game? Am I going to hate a TV show or movie because some YouTuber tells me it's bad? I think almost everyone has a guilty pleasure they don't want to tell even their friends about. Like enjoying something like the Manifest TV show or something like that, everyone wants to say something generic like Breaking bad or Game of Thrones or something in the 9s on imdb, nobody wants to say that something rated 7/10 is good and enjoyable and sometimes they are more enjoyable than the 9s just because they aren't trying to please scorcese or whoever people try too hard to get the approval of, and just focusing on the fun stuff even if it has cringe moments.

[Michiel1989]

I feel the same, its hivemind mentality. The constant need for validation that a game they like is a 9+ or the opposite, a game they don't like is utter trash even when it's pretty decent to justify them not buying it. I think a lot of people here would enjoy some games they now deem "trash" if they just give it a try with a different mindset.

[GhostScholar]

If you haven’t noticed this site isn’t about honest opinions lol it’s just for fanboys to shit on each other or be critical of any and everything.

[isarai]

It's not JUST that it's a "meh" game, it's everything around it aswell. Graphics look outdated, performance is inconsistent, AI is trash, it's very buggy, writing is completely unremarkable, and even animations just seem uninspired and dumb except NIX which seems to have more passion put into it's animations than everything else in the game combined.

Top that with $70 price tag, self proclaiming to be a AAAA game, and the gull to charge $110+ for early access that you had to delete AND NOT OFFER REFUNDS?!

AA/mid-tier $50-$60 games release regularly in better form and are better games than this. We're tired of this happening to nearly every release from UBI/EA/ACTI

[Christopher]

***writing is completely unremarkable***

Nah, it's good. Probably the only thing is does well. The rest is okay. The storytelling is good, though.

[Smellsforfree]

After dealing with the Prince of Persia Lost Crown game on Epic Store + Ubisoft launcher, I think I'll pass on this one. If it were on Steam I probably would have gotten it already. Epic is suck.

[GhostScholar]

Lost Crown was incredible actually

[MrCrimson]

and some corporate heads will determine that the problem is AAA games - and not the allocation of resources to making -fun- games. So, we'll get more crappy live service games- more micro transaction games, more mobile games; and less well- good fun games. That depresses me.

[jznrpg]

God I hope not. If any company is looking at Ubisoft to make any type of decisions something is seriously wrong with them. Just look at Ubisofts stock price and that should show them they don’t know what they are doing. Every company will make mistakes but Ubi keeps making the same mistakes repeatedly.

[Crows90]

Remove the master from the title and I think they nailed it

[jznrpg]

So it’s a decent game? You can’t be crappy and masterpiece together that makes no sense. If it has good and bad somewhat equally it’s a decent game or something in that range

[TheNamelessOne]

"crappy masterpiece"

And this take is just crappy in general.

[TicklefistCP]

Proof once and for all that "masterpiece" is an utterly meaningless word now.

[Michiel1989]

also proof people here get triggered way too easily

[GhostScholar]

I’m really enjoying the game myself. Sucks for those who aren’t though. Im fine with a straight up adventure game rather than a souls like or rogue lite game. I think the world is very fun to explore and the break from being a Jedi is cool.

[Demetrius]

Yeah luckily this didn't end a souls like, but if it did I bet mfs would rate it higher

[Toecutter00]

It's just obvious from playing that the game needed more time to refine all of its systems. They all work only just okay ; animation transitions are janky af, button map is overly complicated (it needn't be a multi-step process to throw a granade). But most the aggregious mistake was to center the game around and bland character and a nebulous story. Allowing the player to create his own "outlaw " and build him/her towards the player's own preferred style to be either more stealthy or guns a blazing is an obvious missed opportunity for the developers of this game. Disappointing because it was so close to being for Star Wars what Hogwarts Legacy was for Harry Potter.

[Inverno]

Every game these days is a flawed masterpiece. There are flawed masterpieces and then there's the same shite year after year from the usual publishers. Flawed masterpiece would be something like Shadow of The Colossus, great game with technical issues on its original hardware. Ubisoft however makes pretty looking games that aren't great.

[victorMaje]

Someone please explain to me how someone puts crappy and masterpiece together to describe anything? Are we just throwing words around now? And can one not differentiate actual quality from crap anymore?

[Demetrius]

I been having alot of fun but there are some annoying issues fr, crashed on me twice, hdr setting keeps turning off now it's stuck saying OFF. Stealth missions are too restricted, can't interact with NPCs, etc there are changes that can be made but knowing ubisoft those mfs won't listen to feed back. Outlaws might be lucky enough to get another update. Once that happen I doubt they'll support it like that, they suck at listening to feedback and then turn around to boast. They always fall short in delivering a full quality title lately smh sheesh ubisoft step it up. Look at devs like insomniac, Santa monica, no man's sky devs, they'll support their product, send good sized updates fixing issues and making a smoother experience

[Gamingsince1981]

Ubisofts stock has plummeted, next will be the AC African samurai game and ubisoft will be dead for good. They deserve what they get.

[Trilithon]

tail as old as time. people been tired of starwars for a minute now. wake up

[HyperMoused]

A crapsterpiece..ehh..ehhh...ill see myself out

[TheSenorCheese]

"I wanted to insult this game but then I forgot about my free trip to Disneyland."

[Knightofelemia]

I never grew up on Star Wars was never big into Star Wars I was and I lean more towards Star Trek. But this being a Ubisoft game give it time it will go on sale and that's when I might grab this crappy masterpiece. Just so many other games coming out I am more stoked for Squirrel with a Gun. Right now just working on Wukong. Just because you call it a crappy masterpiece doesn't mean there won't be somebody out there enjoying this game.

[babadivad]

Oxymoron

[druwepro]

great article!
he's so right

[where-eagles-dare]

I'm returning my copy early as it's already bored me to tears & frustration playing this mediocre title.

Everything about it is half baked, from the bland story filled with banal characters, muddy vaseline smeared pop up graphics, awful and nonsensical mechanics, appalling AI, dreadful map navigation, garbage lightweight melee system and terrible combat.

My score is 5.5 out of 10 and that is being generous.

[notatallsurprisinggg]

Spoken like a true N4G poster