It's the battle of the spacefaring adventures, and after Starfield took flight last year, it's over to Star Wars Outlaws to let us live out our smuggling fantasy in 2024. Star Wars games have always been popular, but as Disney expands the slate of movies and TV series, the House of Mouse is also making its own Clone Army of video games. 

Set in the lucrative period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Outlaws is set to include a who's who of familiar faces. We've already seen a frozen Han Solo, Jabba the Hutt, and Lady Qi'ra, although the focus will be on a newcomer, Kay Vess.

The Starfield problem

It's fair to say the sentiment towards Star Wars Outlaws has been mixed, with some accusing Ubisoft of delivering a flimsy Star Wars reskin of Assassin's Creed. There's also been a particularly negative reaction to Vess, because hey, in 2024 it seems some people can't cope with a strong female protagonist. 

June 10's Ubisoft Forwards took us to the galaxy far, far away with a Jabba-sized look at Outlaws' gameplay, shooting for the stars and then shooting up Mos Eisley. We got to see an impressive dogfight in space before heading down to the familiarly arid surface of Tatooine. 

It's here that Outlaws came into its own, allowing players to actually land their spaceships. Although this might sound minor, Starfield's space travel was torn to pieces due to automated landing on planets. Alongside some of its procedurally terrain and boundary limits, it meant that space exploration wasn't all that exciting. 

Star Wars Outlaws beats Starfield with space exploration

 Whether learning from the mistakes of its Bethesda counterpart or whether it was always a planned feature, Star Wars Outlaws has pipped Starfield to the post with the ability to land on planets. While it's true that modders have since added this ability to Starfield's PC version, Bethesda is yet to make it an official option.

It's not quite as free as you'd think, with Creative Director Julian Gerighty telling Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar) you have to pick a predetermined landing spot. He explained, "Flying [freely] above the planet was something that we chose not to do because it was going to take us a huge amount of effort for very little payoff." 

We'll take any form of freedom over Starfield's clunky transitions between space and planets, and it seems Outlaws players are also lapping up this unexpected win. One Outlaws fan cheered, "Bethesda wtf y’all doin cmon 😂😅 this is like one of the main rules of space travel gameplay, EVERYONE wants to be able to go DIRECTLY into the planet," while another added, "Never thought Ubisoft would outdo Bethesda." 

A third concluded, "Yeah this is pretty much exactly what I wish Starfield would've done. they're clearly loading the map/planet in the clouds, but it's done very seamlessly and feels + looks clean. very gg Ubi Massive." With so much negativity being aimed at Outlaws, it's good that a little positivity can be found out there in the stars.