Star Wars Outlaws Turned Me Into a Galactic Tourist, and I Loved Every Dusty Dune

I never thought I’d say this, but somewhere between outrunning Jabba’s thugs and scratching Nix behind his weird little ears, I became a full-blown space tourist. Star Wars Outlaws dropped back in 2024, and two years later, I’m still poking around Tatooine’s moisture farms wondering how many water taxis Luke owed the Hutts. Hey, don't judge — it’s the kind of immersive, pointless wandering that only a truly great open world can inspire.

When creative director Julian Gerighty called the game’s planets “virtual tourism”, he wasn’t just blowing Tibanna gas. The moment I stepped into Mos Eisley I knew what he meant. Every grimy cantina corner, every sun-baked vaporator, everything I’d squinted at in the background of A New Hope finally stood right in front of me. I spent three real-world hours just walking from Anchorhead to the Dune Sea, no quest marker, just vibes and sand. And you know what? I’d do it again.

Tatooine in Outlaws isn’t a copy-paste job — it’s a “greatest hits” album of desert clichés cranked up to eleven. The canyons look ripped straight from The Phantom Menace podracing sequence, but someone also crammed in the skeleton of a krayt dragon you can actually interact with (well, run away from). I found a moisture farm that looked suspiciously like the Lars homestead, and my heart did a little flip before I remembered I’m playing a scoundrel who would probably steal their droids, not rescue them.

But old sand dunes only get you so far. The real star — pun intended — is Toshara, an original planet that feels like Tanzania and an alien fever dream had a baby. Remember those National Geographic savannahs Gerighty mentioned? They’re here, wind whipping through golden grass, recorded on location apparently. Then you look up and see a city jammed under a rock the size of a Star Destroyer, and crystal formations jutting out of the ground like a toddler god left his toys out.

What I love about Toshara is that it finally answers a question nobody asked: what if the Serengeti got invaded by neon fungus and gangsters? The biodiversity is bonkers. I'd be sneaking past a herd of six-legged grazers, then suddenly duck behind a glowing crystal to avoid an Imperial patrol speeder. It’s Star Wars logic at its finest — totally ridiculous, totally believable.

And let’s talk about that “very Ubisoft” virtual tourism for a moment. Yes, I climbed a view point. No, it wasn’t a tower, just a really tall rock formation, but my lizard brain still celebrated when the camera panned out over Mirogana city. It’s like Ubisoft took their Assassin’s Creed history engine, swapped muskets for blasters, and said, “Go nuts, but also cuddle this alien dog.”

Speaking of Nix: he’s the real MVP. This new species created just for the game deserves a Disney+ series. I’ve used him to distract stormtroopers, fetch datapads, and chew cables, but mostly I’ve used him to make me feel better after a speeder bike crash. The bond between Kay and her furry co-pilot is the emotional glue of the whole adventure, and I’m not ashamed to say I reloaded a checkpoint once just because Nix whimpered.

The criminal underworld stuff is solid, too. Kay’s misadventures pit you against multiple crime syndicates — the Pykes, Crimson Dawn, Jabba himself — and you juggle reputations like a Twi'lek dancer juggling thermal detonators. One minute I’m doing a hit for the Hutts, the next I’m leaking their secrets to the Ashiga Clan for a sweet khaki poncho. Morality? Never heard of her.

What’s really stuck with me since 2024, though, is how Massive Entertainment (the folks behind The Division) handled scale. This isn’t a galaxy of loading screens; it’s a seamless playground where I can hop on a speeder on Toshara, ride straight into a settlement, get into a blaster fight, and then blast off into orbit without a single interruption. Compared to Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, which dropped just before Outlaws, the Star Wars take feels more lived-in, less like a nature documentary with guns.

If you haven’t dived in yet, here’s the breakdown of the two headliner planets for your virtual road trip:

Planet	Vibe	Signature Attraction	Nix-approved?
Tatooine	Nostalgic sandbox	Krayt dragon skeleton, cantina brawls	🐕🐕
Toshara	Alien savannah	City under a giant rock, crystals	🐕🐕🐕

After two years, Outlaws still holds up as the best Han Solo simulator we’ll probably ever get. It’s messy, unpredictable, and at times overly ambitious — much like its protagonist. But when I’m barreling across the Toshara plains at sunset with an Imperial warrant on my head and Nix perched happily on the handlebars, all that ambition pays off. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go find out exactly how far those moisture farms really are from Mos Eisley. I packed extra water this time.