Star Wars Outlaws has, like a lot of Ubisoft games nowadays, sprung a big leak—around 13 minutes of gameplay all told, with a few more clips out there showing off space combat. Ubisoft has naturally nuked the very bold YouTube upload into low orbit, but it remains pretty easy to find yourself if you're interested.
While leaks are never exactly ideal—and sometimes come with personal information attached, risking the safety of devs—this one isn't exactly the end of the world for Ubisoft. If anything, it may well help.
Having sat down and watched the 13 minutes of gameplay, it at the very least doesn't do anything to harm the hype, even if there's not much to write home about. There's a bunch of cutscenes, a little driving, some slow-walking around a city—the leaker in question will occasionally even emulate an "official showcase style" sometimes: the unnatural slow-walking and camera-panning no one ever does.
And yet, it's duly met with my tempered expectations in a way official showcases don't—especially since they are, naturally, trying to sell you something. There's a competent open-world action adventure game where you shoot stuff, drive places, and shoot more stuff shown off here. At the very least, the population centres seem lively, colourful, and fun to jog between mission markers in.
Maybe it's just the fact that it's a leak which adds a bit of salt-of-the-earth mystique. The scripted vignettes of, say, an NPC hucking someone out of a building are actually more charming when I know it's not just some brewed-in-a-lab, choreographed moment designed to 'make the world feel more alive' for prospective buyers. The official Outlaws presentations have been so chemically-engineered to not ruffle any feathers it's been a hard game to get excited about.
That's not a sentiment entirely unshared by players watching this game, either, as one notes on the game's subreddit: "Having just watched the leaked footage I’ve gone from a sceptic to actually being pretty excited about this again … I’ve read a lot about them wanting this to feel cinematic and like an extension of the films, this is the first time outside of early trailers I’ve got that vibe."
Similarly, r/gamingleaksandrumours has a smattering of former sceptics responding to the footage with the overall equivalent of 'hey, not too shabby'. Don't place all your bets on red just yet, though, we're talking "Looks fun, but it's the type of game I would get in 5 years for like $10" levels of excitement.
For my part, I'm cautiously optimistic. I think at the very least Star Wars Outlaws is going to be just fine, a bog standard Ubisoft game with a glossy open world and way too many little whatsits to collect and outposts to "press X to knockout" at. I fully expect to hack into a datapad at some point and be brought to a map screen to watch a dopamine-hit of icons pop up. Bare minimum, it's nice to be getting more Star Wars games where you're not swinging a lightsaber around. Now if only Ubisoft could stop fumbling the bag on pre-order nonsense.
