Star Wars Outlaws is a vast, impressive game filled with endless missions, bounties, and quests, all of which require you to deploy specialist skills and tricks against near-insurmountable forces. Kay Vess is a force to be reckoned with, and across this game, her path grows ever-more-dangerous, and ever-more-deadly, with risks around every corner. You’ll need to stay alert as you leap through obstacles, and put your best foot forward with aplomb.
For a head start on this journey, read on. Here’s 11 tips on how best to survive the world of Star Wars Outlaws.
Table of Contents
1. Understand the game’s Abilities menu early
Kay Vess does not level up traditionally in Star Wars Outlaws. Rather, she gains new skills by learning from Experts. You should take the time to understand this system before you head off on galactic adventures, as it’s a bit different from what you’d normally expect.
It’s also a good idea to check out each Expert individually, and which skills they can help unlock. Each skill is unlocked by performing certain actions, so you might like to analyse what goals you need to hit, and then work towards unlocking skills in each mission you undertake.
2. Know you’ll need to survive alone in your first hours
In the first five or so hours of Star Wars Outlaws, Kay Vess will largely be travelling alone. That means fending for yourself, and getting by on the goodwill of others. You’ll have to earn the major story moment that sees you meet ND-5 and kick off the “real” events of the story, so stay patient if you find the game’s first few hours slower or more lonely.
3. Don’t take on too many enemies at once
Kay’s abilities are largely tailored towards stealth (at least, at first) and you should be mindful of this when entering enemy territory. Using Nix to distract or attack enemies, you can usually take up to two enemies at once while maintaining stealth cover – but if they’re in view of other enemies, you may end up breaking cover, and entering an unwinnable battle.
To ensure the best odds when taking on these battles, it’s best to go in slow, and plan your route of attack. Send Nix to attack or distract enemies, guiding them away from your position. Then, when their back is turned, you can leap out of cover and take them down with as little noise as possible. If you can’t attack enemies quietly, consider that there may be another route you could take.
4. Change up your blaster for different enemies
As an added note, when your blaster needs to be deployed in battle, ensure it’s on the right setting for your chosen enemy. The regular setting is great for most enemies, but the Ion module should be used when shields are in play. Additionally, the Power module can be used to blast enemy droids to pieces. You should also consider that some enemies will be taken down faster in hand-to-hand combat.
5. There’s always another way forward
If you find yourself constantly facing a wall of enemies, with seemingly little way to get ahead, know this: there’s usually another path. Massive Entertainment has included a strong sense of freedom in each of Star Wars Outlaws‘ main missions and structures. If you want (and you’re prepared), you can go in “all guns blazing” and attempt to defeat enemies head on.
But, if you look carefully, you might be able to spot a pathway overhead, or a vent to climb through, or a particular spot of cover that would be handy for blasting from cover. Analyse your surrounds before you make a leap, and you should be able to proceed.
6. Activate Nix’s senses to plan your course
Another handy tip for making your way through Star Wars Outlaws is to activate Nix’s sensor abilities before you begin picking off enemies in various bases. While these senses are limited at first, they provide a basic outline of enemy arrangements, and can help you figure out where you can move, and what risks you take by attacking enemies.
The senses won’t identify absolutely every risk you face, but they will give a ghost-like impression of your surrounds, and let you know of immediate dangers.
7. Sabotage the alarm during high-risk missions
To ensure you can pull off risky moves with less-risky consequences, it’s best to sabotage the alarm of each mission location before you attempt to take out enemies. It becomes much, much harder to complete certain missions with the alarm blaring, as this can summon deadly reinforcements, so make sure you’re protecting yourself by ensuring no alarm can sound. This won’t always be possible, but where an alarm appears and is easily accessibly, it should be destroyed.
8. Equip a Nix Treat for more abilities
Nix is an incredibly handy combatant to have by your side, but to unlock their full abilities you will need to put in some (very fun) work. Visiting various planets, you will find special food vendors – like Kijimi’s Duradan Soup shop – which will serve Nix and Kay a meal. Complete a food-based mini-game, and you’ll then be able to equip that treat in the Equipment menu, to add a new ability to Nix’s arsenal.
9. Close your eyes when solving data spike puzzles
Beep. Beep-beep. Beep. Solving data spike puzzles to unlock doors can be difficult, particularly if you lack a sense of rhythm. The way to solve these puzzles is to stop, analyse the sound pattern, and then repeat it exactly in sequence – but you can get confused by the look of the puzzles, and the way their lights flash.
If you’re really struggling, you can actually skip the puzzles via the accessibility menu. But if you do want to knuckle down and solve them for yourself, the easiest way to solve them is to close your eyes. Each puzzle is made of beeps and clicks, and it’s easy to figure out when to press buttons if you’ve only got the sounds to concentrate on.
Close your eyes, memorise the tune, and then hit the buttons when you hear the beats. It takes some time to master these puzzles, but you’ll get it eventually.
10. Use Fast Travel between missions
Star Wars Outlaws doesn’t make this plainly obvious, but Fast Travel is available between locations and planets pretty much as soon as you start the game. So, if you want to jump between main missions to locations you’ve already visited, you can easily do so – and you should. This will save a lot of time, and let you complete a variety of missions, even when they ask you to planet hop and jump through hoops. Simply click on the map, find your nearest Fast Travel point, and with a button click, you’ll be at your chosen destination.
11. If you’re struggling, see an Expert
As mentioned, Experts in Star Wars Outlaws provide Kay with special skills that can help her to overcome enemies. If you attempt a mission and find it too difficult, it may be a literal skill issue. Exit the mission, check out the skills offered by your friendly Experts, and you may find a solution to your current challenge.
Sometimes, you will need to take a break from the main story mission to actually unlock those Experts and their subsequent skills, but it’s always worth your while. While you can plow ahead with the main story and ignore these Experts, they have plenty of wonderful skills to offer.
Star Wars Outlaws launches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on 29 August 2024.
This guide was prepared with an early copy provided by Ubisoft.
