![]() ![]() Outlaw’s version of deep space is good and grimy, like 1970s science fiction it’s full of CRT monitors, neon signs, blocky text on black screens, and dark bars full of Jim Henson rubber aliens. You can get out of your ship as Juno and check out the interiors of various stations and habitats, each of which have their own persistent sights, maps, markets, and NPCs, and all of which feel more worn down and lived-in right from the start. There are still random encounters, but they’re scaled now by the system you’re in, so it’s easy to stick to the less dangerous parts of the Dodge Sector until you’ve got a ship that can handle a real fight. In Outlaw, the game’s universe is now hand-built, with a lot more thought put into its design and aesthetics. Every person who played Rebel Galaxy got a different set of planets and systems, with a high chance of running into random pirate encounters that they had no realistic way of surviving. The first Rebel Galaxy was a rushed project - “the last game was just seat-of-the-pants, contracting people to get stuff done as fast as humanly possible,” Baldree said - and relied heavily on procedurally-generated content. There aren’t many games out there, in fact, which are as much of an improvement on their predecessor. ![]() Once you can afford a better ride and a few upgrades, so you can actually hope to survive all the cool space battles, Outlaw (I refuse to say “takes off”) improves dramatically. The combat is built around evasion, response, and quick reactions, none of which are readily possible until you’re actually in a decent spacecraft. You’re better off avoiding every fight you can for the first few hours, as the starting ship isn’t much more than a shoebox with wings. In the early game, Outlaw is as hard as it’ll ever be. The combat is now straight-up dogfighting, full of missile locks, aerial maneuvers, blaring heavy metal, and all the clashing cinematic sound effects that you shouldn’t actually have because you’re in space. In Outlaw, you fly smaller, faster spacecraft, and are no longer limited to a single flat horizontal plane. The original Rebel Galaxy was a naval combat game that happened to be set in space, where you flew a procession of frigates, lining up broadsides and pecking away with automated turrets. You gather intelligence and resources by working odd jobs and doing favors on both sides of the law, as a bodyguard, mercenary, smuggler, cargo pilot, pirate, bounty hunter, and/or slave trader. Your primary goal in Outlaw is to track down Ruthless for a rematch. You’re a faceless nobody in the last game, which was made in too little time, running down the clock on the bank account. It was easier to write in a lot of ways because there’s a protagonist. “It lets us do a lot of stuff we didn’t have the time and resources to do in the previous game. “It was a big change to have the player actually be a character this time out,” Baldree said. She calls an old contact, borrows a battered cargo ship, and starts over from square one. After their first encounter, shown at the start of the game in an animated sequence made by Titmouse, Juno ends up marooned and penniless in the backwater Dodge Sector of the galaxy. When her husband ends up dead, Juno comes out of retirement to track down his killer, a pirate nicknamed Ruthless. ![]()
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