Last year we wrote that Star Wars Outlaws looked like the best thing Ubisoft has made in years, and it hinted at a big enough scope that I was a little skeptical it would actually be released in 2024. But not only is it truly coming this year, it's coming this summer: Ubisoft announced an August 30 release date in a new trailer that's heavy on cutscenes, characters, and a lot of very Star Wars-y action moments.
In about two-and-a-half minutes of trailer, we get all of the following:
- An absolute smorgasbord of alien races
- A Mon Calamari doing the gravelly voice
- A ridiculous Star Wars name in the villain, "Sliro"
- AT-STs, aka chicken walkers
- A Jabba and Han Solo in carbonite cameo
- Stealing a ship from an Imperial hangar
- Spaceship dogfighting
- The Sarlacc pit
Outlaws is Star Wars through and through, but what really caught my eye is the abundance of aliens Ubisoft has packed into these worlds. It's hardly the first Star Wars game to pull on the films' various races—Rodians like Greedo, Twi'leks with their long head tails, yada yada. But even in this short glance they seem really well represented here, which makes sense given Outlaws' focus on the criminal underworld and other folks on the galactic rim.
In the lore the Empire is pretty racist and favors humans over aliens, and this Outlaws trailer opens with a roundtable of mostly alien crime lords and we see a Stormtrooper flagging down a random Rodian a few seconds later. Aliens actually seem to outnumber humans altogether in the trailer, though it's hard to say how representative this cutscene-heavy look at the game is of the whole experience.
For me it's a pleasant surprise, though. We've had plenty of Jedi vs. Empire games; I hope this one feels like a true adventure down the galaxy's lesser-trod paths.
According to Ubisoft's press release, Outlaws will release on August 30 on the Ubisoft Connect app and Amazon Luna cloud platform, in addition to consoles. It makes no mention of either Steam or the Epic Games store.
Update: After the trailer dropped, PC Gamer confirmed there is a pre-order page for Outlaws up on the Epic Store, consistent with Ubisoft's last couple years of PC releases.
