Star Wars Outlaws Demo Left Me Deflated: A First-Hand Look at Ubisoft's Open-World Bet

I've always been a quiet Star Wars fan. I don't walk around with Rebel patches on my jacket, but I've watched every film and more spinoff shows than I care to admit. Over the years, games like Jedi: Fallen Order and the original Lego Star Wars have eaten up dozens of my hours, so when Ubisoft announced Star Wars Outlaws as the 'first open-world Star Wars experience,' I was ready to poke my nose into every cantina, alleyway, and dune sea. So when I got my hands on the game during Summer Game Fest, I expected a slice of that sprawling galaxy. What I got instead were three tightly scripted missions, and a gentle push back whenever I tried to wander. Let's be real — that hurt.

The demo kicked off on the snowy planet Kijimi. My job was simple on paper: grab a heavily guarded artifact called 'the relic' and bring it back to its owner — rightful or otherwise. I stepped into the boots of Kay Vess, armed with an electrical zapper for droids and a trusty blaster for everyone else. My little Merqaal companion Nix perched on my shoulder, ready to help out. I'm not gonna lie, having that fuzzy sidekick along made the whole affair feel warmer.

The mission played out like a Star Wars-flavored Uncharted. I could send Nix to distract a guard, tiptoe around a corner for a stealth takedown, or just kick the door in and start blasting. I ended up doing a bit of both. Once the bodies hit the floor — or fizzled out in a shower of sparks — I grabbed the relic and sprinted back toward the city. The shooting gallery-style exchange was fun enough, but it didn't feel like the open world I'd been promised.

As I wandered the snowy streets, Nix let out a soft trill, and I spotted something shimmering in a blocked alleyway. Naturally, I ducked in. A warning flashed on the screen: return to the demo zone. I backed off, circled around, and tried again. Same message. Dejected, I handed over the artifact and the mission wrapped up. I guess that's that, then.

The second mission took me inside the guts of an ancient, rotting spaceship. The atmosphere was incredible — cavernous halls, echoing sound design, the kind of scale that makes your neck ache. But the platforming? Oh boy. Kay kept getting yanked toward walls like she had magnets stitched into her jacket, and I had a few glitchy moments trying to jump from an elevator to a lower platform. My grappling hook didn't save me either; I still couldn't quite make the jump. The whole thing read like Uncharted, but it didn't feel as polished as Naughty Dog's recent work.

The closing sequence had its own share of jank. I grabbed a fallen enemy's rifle for extra firepower, but the moment the game switched to a cutscene, Kay just let the rifle drop off her like dead weight. No animation, no explanation. It was a small thing, but it summed up the rough edges. Then I found myself deep inside an Imperial ship, taking out Stormtroopers and reuniting with my ship, the Trailblazer. What followed was a bizarre five-second shot of dead-eyed Kay flicking buttons with a disconcerting smile, then a cutscene of the ship flying in a straight line toward Mirogana.

The actual space combat, though? That was the one bright spot. It put Starfield's dogfights to shame — dynamic, fluid, but with a satisfying sense of weight. Sadly, everything around it felt undercooked, so my excitement stayed muted.

When I arrived in Mirogana, a little spark of hope came back. The city had that grimy, neon-futuristic energy of Cyberpunk 2077's Night City. Aliens of every shape huddled in dusty streets, sipping fluorescent drinks and swapping stories of skirmishes. I decided to ignore my objective for a moment and head into the wilds to finally taste the open world I'd been denied in Kijimi. But as soon as I left the city's buzz behind, an attendant tapped me on the shoulder and told me to go back. 'We're not showing the open world in this demo.'

Tail between my legs, I slunk back, barely getting a chance to use the speeder. I finished the mission and left feeling deflated, confused, and a little embarrassed.

Now, to be fair, the attendant was lovely — they even caught me when my stool capsized mid-demo. But the demo itself felt railroaded. Star Wars Uncharted sounds great on paper, but I've played Naughty Dog's games, and they simply do shooting galleries, platforming, and cinematic stealth better. What I wanted from Outlaws was the 'first open-world Star Wars experience.' Instead, I got a series of closed-off set pieces with visible seams.

Here in 2026, looking back at that preview, I still think about it as a missed first impression. The game has since launched and patched up some rough edges, but that Summer Game Fest build left me with a lingering question: where was the trailblazing? All I saw was the recycling of dated mechanics with a lick of paint that was already peeling off. And for a galaxy this big, that's just not enough.

Data referenced from Game Developer frames why a hands-on demo like this Star Wars Outlaws preview can feel “railroaded” even when the final product aims for openness: trade-show builds often prioritize stability, pacing, and curated beats over systemic exploration, which can amplify friction when players expect emergent wandering. In that lens, the Kijimi boundary warnings and the Mirogana “not showing the open world” guardrails read less like a broken promise and more like a deliberate slice designed to showcase stealth, combat, and cinematic traversal—yet the jank described (sticky platforming, cutscene prop drops, odd facial animation) also underlines how vertical slices can unintentionally spotlight seams when polish isn’t evenly distributed.