Star Wars Outlaws (Switch 2)

Star Wars Outlaws has now arrived on Switch 2. With all the expansions and updates, it's now a good Star Wars game, where conceptually, it's exciting to try to balance your relationships with the criminal world and explore parts of the universe that we otherwise rarely interact with.

Although smugglers, bounty hunters, and criminals in Star Wars are well-developed elements in other media, we rarely get to control these characters. I like that we don't have to be the chosen one or a Jedi. The adventure is relatively free of iconic characters aside from the expansions and focuses on things that happen in the background after Luke and the gang destroy the first Death Star. Both conceptually and temporally, the adventure offers an exciting perspective. I appreciate that, because I believe that the universe has so much more to offer than the typical perspectives.

The most important question is how the Switch 2 version relates to the other versions. Unfortunately, I have not tested the Xbox or PlayStation version, only the one on PC. This allows me to tell you to some extent how similar and different the versions are. Basically, this version is exactly the same game as the PC version, as the differences are of a technical nature. I am impressed by how Massive Entertainment has managed to convert this so painlessly to Nintendo's console, where despite many technical compromises, it flows well without any hacking or bugs of game-breaking quality.

If you put the PC version side-by-side, however, the visual flaws become obvious. The cutscenes are so low-resolution and contain graphical bugs that buttons and other things in the vehicles are rendered at half resolution and even weapons tend to disappear. The image also becomes quite mushy and I miss the ability to turn off certain effects. If you choose to turn off film grain, it also turns on sometimes if you reload a save file, and I noticed mainly how you can see the environment loading in front of you, mainly the vegetation in the open world. This is the big technical compromise with this title on this hardware, as in comparison, I think that both Zelda titles with their Switch 2 upgrade packages look better. They offer a cleaner and sharper image to look at.

However, this does not mean that you should dismiss the Switch 2 version of Outlaws. Even though this edition looks worse than on a budget computer, it's fully playable. If you have a smaller screen and haven't tried this before, it offers an entertaining adventure. At the same time, I still want to emphasise that even if the graphics aren't everything, they contribute to the experience. You get both the least and sometimes most impressive version of the game for Switch 2 at the same time, and if we compare this edition to other third-party ports for Switch 2, it's among the better examples of this at the moment. This is also the complete version, which means that all extra material and all expansions are included.

Even though it can't really compete with some of Nintendo's first-party titles, I still want to give Star Wars Outlaws a shot. It fits in well with Nintendo's other offerings, and Ubisoft explores a part of the universe we don't otherwise encounter so closely. It also contains a large dose of humour, sadness, dreams, and an attempt to become someone in a big world. With its elements of stealth and fairly good game mechanics for the purpose, it works great with the Switch 2 controller and also in the portable format. Although it lacks the crisper, higher resolution, and nicer graphics on PC, this could be an option if you can overlook the visual weaknesses.

Depending on what your threshold is when it comes to grainy images, low-resolution cutscenes, and a lot of "pop ins" and visible rendering of environments, it's nevertheless fully functional. However, I found that it's sometimes difficult to see what is happening on the screen in hectic scenes because of this. This edition is mainly for those of you who have not tried this before or for those of you who want to take it with you on trips. It runs in 720p and at 30 frames per second in handheld mode, and my tests showed that it rarely dipped much lower than this. In its docked mode it runs in 1440p and even there at 30 frames per second and in some menus even up to 60.

It's a technical feat to get such a graphics-heavy game to run so well, on such weak hardware. Even in the cities with lots of people and life, it flows well. Depending on how you look at the Switch 2 version of Star Wars Outlaws, it's either a subpar version and a disappointment compared to other formats, or it's a technically impressive feat that almost shouldn't be possible. Both of these statements can be true at the same time. I think it's the most subpar version of the title, and at the same time an impressive third-party title for the Switch 2, especially when compared to other third-party developed multi-format adventures. While I'd rather play this on PC, Xbox Series X/S, or PlayStation 5, I'm happy with the Switch 2 release. I can recommend it to those of you who want a handheld version, have never tried it before, like Star Wars, and only own a Switch 2.