Star Wars Outlaws' hectic speeder wipeouts won't happen as often with its major new update
Star Wars Outlaws is a decent Ubisoft open world adventure with its fair share of problems. In the days after it was released, I noticed a lot of people griping about Kay's speeder: it was far too easy to fall off the thing when crashing into rocks, trees and other environmental objects. I mean, that's realism for you. But realism is annoying, and people just want to go super fast on their sci-fi motorbike without the risk of annoying wipeouts, thank you very much.
Ubisoft has issued a major new patch for Outlaws that, among other things, smoothens the riding experience. In particular, the studio has "improved speeder collision with the environment to reduce being knocked off the speeder". I just booted the game and did a little mosey around Toshara and, well, it's kinda hard to judge when you're actively trying to crash, but brushing against walls at high speed resulted in my bouncing off them, rather than off my bike (I ended up riding into a swamp and dying instead).
Other aspects of the speeder experience have also been tweaked: in theory, it won't act as erratically when you call it. I did notice during my initial playthrough that the silly thing would skid around for a bit and then draw to a stop at an annoying distance. Relatedly, those playing with a larger FOV than the default will notice that the speeder's camera is less wonky now (apparently it wasn't being centred correctly).
The other major change ushered in is to the "overall stealth experience", which seems like it must have been a lot of work: everything from the range of AI detection through to the amount of baddies in any given arena has been adjusted, and best of all, interactable environmental elements are now highlighted. I kinda liked Outlaws' stealth: it was a very meat-and-potatoes approach that put me in mind of, well, other Ubisoft games. But I must have been in the minority, and I guess it's better now that, when Nix sets off an enemy's grenade more than once, the enemy is compelled to fight back rather than go into investigation mode.
Some other highlights: for those using a controller, you can now lob grenades with a single button press—you used to have to access a mini-menu to do it, which I found very annoying. A bunch of annoying quest bugs have been ironed out, including the lack of a 'Takeoff' button when you have to take off during 'The Wreck'. Here are the full patch notes, and fair warning: there's a lot of them.
Star Wars Outlaws launched to pretty mixed reviews; our Morgan was among those who dug it. "Star Wars Outlaws is Ubisoft's most ambitious game in years, but it plays the basics way too safe," he wrote.