A few hours with Kay Vess

Taking a break in Star Wars Outlaws

Everybody,

Apologies again for the radio silence, I’ve been buried in the production of my latest play. Check out our fancy “we got some great reviews poster” below by the brilliant Lara Antal.

It’s been a labor of love, and it’s got people in my general vicinity talking, and I’ve had some great handshakes with actors, writers and directors I admire. So that’s all wonderful!

But fatigue is a real thing when you’re Muppet Showing as hard as you can, so last weekend, I popped up to the house where I keep my PS5 (out of my usual reach, to save my attention span) and fired up Star Wars Outlaws for the first time. I gave myself about five hours to play around in its Open World, playing thinly veiled tutorial missions and figuring out the factions system.

Usually I’m first in and last out on a Star Wars game, but I hadn’t given it a shot after it had been out for a few weeks, so I’d read a few reviews that has the usual complaints (“buggy” “samey”) for any new open world type game. I figured I am the target audience for it and I am not someone who is very into the concept of perfection, so I guessed I would not be very concerned about the usual issues.

So, first of all, I will say that the game does take its time to open up, and many of the missions I played felt as if they were, basically, old-fashioned on-a-rail type “this is the obvious path, unless you find this open grate” sneaking missions. Nothing too profound from a gameplay perspective, although it certainly was fun. It’s a little like Assassin’s Creed (duh, Ubi Soft) including its penchant for being a stealth game that is only-so-good at delivering stealth.

But by the time I had to turn the game off and head back to the show? I didn’t want to put it down. Because it is, in fact, the game I always wanted: Star Wars that you can just live in, hang out in, enjoy, sit in, look at. Just walking through the first world of Toshara (which is gorgeous, like Crait mixed with Sedona, Arizona), into the market places, the small towns, the wide open expanses, the music, it eventually creeps up on you. After I got past learning how to do things, and ingesting the type of game I was playing, I was able to think about who and where I was, and that made all the difference.

I remember when I was at Galaxy’s Edge. The best part to me were those few moments I walked through the gift shop/market. How it felt on all sides like I was on the set, fully surrounded by the feeling of being in Star Wars. A feeling I’d imagined ever since I was a kid in 1980, as early as I could imagine Star Wars at all.

Here is a game where I get to go from my own ship to my speeder to a market to playing Kessel Sabacc at my leisure, taking jobs just to fill up my coffers, hoping to make Kay feel just a little more free. There’s even a rewarding mini-game that’s just about appreciating a great meal with Nix, your companion and pet. I mean, when a game is like “Let’s let these two friends just enjoy a satisfying meal” I’m hooked.

This is the thing with Star Wars video games: I want to live in it, not just shoot at it. I remember marveling at Rogue Squadron with the VR headset and thinking “I cannot believe how incredible this is” and also wishing that everyone would stop shooting at me so I could just enojy being in a B Wing. Yes, Outlaws has missions where you fight and they’re fun, but its meeting people, talking to them, figuring yourself out, and just taking a seat to listen to the ambient sounds of the diner or the cantina that really won me over.

Star Wars is, as much as anything, an escape. There are times, when I can’t sleep, I imagine what it must be like to fall asleep on the Millennium Falcon, with the hum of the ship, in deep space, far from anyone. I’ve had that thought since I was kid, that idea of that kind of peaceful elsewhere. So, even though Outlaws has fiery speeders and rogues and tons of datapads to read, more than anything, it feels like a place to go and be. Which, I mean, that’s all I really wanted out of it.

I also love Kay Vess, a terrific character. Who Kay is really depends on the player, because she’s clearly something of a loner and out for herself, but also, someone who has the capacity for caring and compassion. It’s hard to create a character that is not a blank slate, but also feels somewhere shaky enough that you can see her betraying her friends or refusing to. It felt easy to see, from where I stopped playing, that her arc is going to be about gaining a community. It’s a better fit for Kay than it was Boba Fett in his series, a similar arc, I expect.

Anyhow, there’s more to say about Kay and Nix (adorable thief) and characters to come, but I just wanted to share how much I enjoyed my first few hours in that world, and how much I’m looking forward to hiding in it again when things quiet down. I’ve barely scratched the surface - I’m still on Toshara! - but I’m sure there’s a lot more to come and I’ll happily update when I go further into the story.

And if you’re curious, so far, I’m siding with Crimson Dawn. We’ll see how long it takes them to stab me in the back!