I came into Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2 with a raised eyebrow and a bad memory. Back in 2024 I played Outlaws on PS5 at launch, bounced off the stutters and those stiff faces, and got stuck in a couple of stealth-only sequences that felt like slamming into a locked door again and again. I returned after the patch that loosened stealth, appreciated the vibe and writing more, but I still had “this needed more time in the oven” lingering in my head.
So when Ubisoft said they were prepping a Switch 2 version, my brain did the usual math: lower-resolution textures, downgraded lighting, streaming issues, maybe some muddy image reconstruction. I assumed a compromised victory lap for a game that eventually found its footing. Instead, after about 18 hours on Switch 2 (roughly 60% handheld, 40% docked), I’m sitting here eating my words. Is it perfect? No. Does it feel like the full Outlaws experience, just handheld-ready and surprisingly slick on a TV? Yeah. That was the shock: this isn’t a sympathy port-it’s a legit way to play.
My first session was docked, late at night, with the tutorial sequence. I normally don’t judge a port by a heavily curated opening, and I tried not to here either. Still, first impressions count. The lighting in that intro area immediately had me recalibrating my expectations; the neon signage and panel glow felt punchy without that overblown HDR sheen you see in some ports. I jotted down “maybe they’re faking more than I think? looks too good to be true.” Then I hit the first wide-open hub.
That was the moment. I stepped into a market square, a low sun scattering through dust and banners, and the whole scene kept moving at what felt like a near-locked frame rate. I did a full slow spin-habit from testing ports—scanning for hitching. Nothing. Later, during a raucous firefight with explosions, smoke plumes, and half a dozen enemies pinning me from balconies, I finally noticed a small dip. The kind of hiccup you’d clock if you’re testing, not playing. From then on, “fluid” wasn’t a note in my notebook. It was the baseline.
Let’s be honest: you’re not matching a high-end PC or a Series X on a portable. But the Snowdrop engine feels well-judged here. The port leans on reconstruction to keep motion clean, and while that means some of the hair tech takes a hit—Kay’s ponytail can turn into a little pixel soup when she’s sprinting across a bright vista—the payoff is a rock-steady feel in open spaces where lesser ports tend to wheeze. Fences and distant grates can shimmer, and reflective surfaces aren’t as precise as the big-box versions, but the overall picture? Better than I expected, especially in motion.
The thing that kept catching my eye was the lighting. There’s ray-traced goodness here where it counts—subtle contact shadows and convincing bounce in interiors—and volumetric effects that make smoke and fog feel “present” instead of pasted-on. One cantina early on sold me: overhead lamps threw soft light that actually seemed to wrap around bottles, and the haze caught it in a way I usually associate with bigger hardware. There were some early reports of light and smoke flicker; on my current build, those rough edges seem smoothed out. I only noticed one minor shimmer in a smoky corridor, gone after a reload.
One of my biggest gripes at launch was being funneled into stealth. Outlaws works best when it lets you improvise—that fantasy of being a scrappy scoundrel who talks, sneaks, or shoots their way through problems. The Switch 2 version includes the patch that relaxes infiltration, and it changes the feel of entire sequences.
After about four hours, I got a job to lift a crate from a Hutt-aligned depot. Old me would’ve reloaded twenty times after blowing a stealth cue. This time, I messed up—twice—then leaned into the chaos. I shimmied behind cover, whistled Nix to distract a guard, tossed a shock charge at a turret, and sprinted for the cargo door while alarms blared. The game didn’t slap my wrist; it let me own the screw-up and turn it into a messy success. That’s the Outlaws I wanted back in 2024, and it’s what you get right out of the box here.
Exploration still leans into organic discovery rather than map vomit, which I appreciate more now. It’s not revolutionary, but it respects your time. On Switch 2, I found the loop oddly perfect for handheld bursts: knock out a side contract on the train commute, scan a few nooks for contraband, then dock at home for a longer story mission. Quick suspends made it easy to pause mid-heist without losing the thread. Star Wars games have a habit of overexplaining; Outlaws underlines enough, then stays out of your way.
Handheld mode honestly surprised me more than docked. On a smaller panel, reconstruction artifacts fade into the background, and the cinematic lighting really pops. Hair and foliage are where the image gets fuzziest if you’re staring, but in motion I barely noticed. Docked, you can see the seams more clearly—some imprecise reflections here, a bit of distant shimmer there—but the frame pacing stayed so composed that I quickly tuned it out. If you’re the kind of player who hunts for aliasing in fences, you’ll find it. If you play games, you’ll be busy playing.
The only time I felt the portable form factor working against me was during a nighttime shootout with multiple stormtroopers and a couple of shielded heavies. The scene had a lot of thin geometry in the distance—catwalks, railings—and the glinting edges buzzed a little. Swapping to docked cleaned it up enough to be a non-issue. Either way, it didn’t cost me the fight; it was more a “note for the review” than a “this ruined my evening.”
Let’s talk faces. Outlaws’ character models were a sticking point at launch, and you can still feel that stiffness here. The Switch 2 port does an admirable job maintaining detail, but it can’t conjure missing nuance. In some story scenes, Kay’s expressions dip into “polite mask” territory—serviceable, not spellbinding—and secondary NPCs are a bit flatter than on PC or the big boxes. It’s never bad enough to break a scene, and the writing still does the heavy lifting, but if you bounced off the mannequin vibe in 2024, know that it hasn’t magically disappeared.
Across my 18 hours: one noticeable frame dip in a big fight, zero crashes, and one visual hiccup where a smoke volume shimmered until I transitioned areas. That’s it. I’m sure corner cases exist—it’s an open-world game—but compared to my original experience, this feels stable and confident. Streaming is the thing I most expected to betray the port (those fast speeder runs between points), and it just didn’t. If there are loading guardrails, they’re well-hidden.
Okay, the physical release. Outlaws on Switch 2 ships in the “Gold” configuration—content complete—and if you buy it in a box, you’re getting a Game Key Card rather than a full-data cartridge. I can hear the retro guardians grinding their teeth, and I get it. I also get Ubisoft’s explanation: according to Rob Bantin, one of the Snowdrop audio architects, the Switch 2 cartridges, even though faster than the old ones, don’t hit the transfer speeds the game relies on to deliver this level of streaming. He also said he doesn’t recall any internal discussion about cartridge pricing. The translation of that for normal folk is simple: the port counts on faster storage and data pathways, which a physical cart can bottleneck. A code avoids that bottleneck.
Do I love that answer? No. Preservation matters, and I prefer true cartridges for longevity. Do I think it’s an excuse? Not entirely. The way this port streams assets—quietly and without that infamous pop-in—suggests there’s real tech at play that doesn’t love slow media. Ubisoft also undoubtedly saves money here; both things can be true. If you’re a collector, buy with eyes open. If you’re a player, the upside is you’re getting the smoothest version the hardware can support.
If you already finished Outlaws on a high-end machine, the Switch 2 port won’t replace that visual ceiling. But I found myself appreciating its strengths in a different way. On a couch, handheld, headphones on, sneaking through a back room to swipe a blueprint—it has that illicit, low-key Star Wars vibe I love. The compromises are almost all where they should be: hair, some reflections, distant aliasing. The stuff that matters most—the feel, the flow, the lighting character—survives the jump.
If you bounced at launch and never came back, the baked-in stealth patch changes the tone profoundly. You’re not forced into a style the game only half-supported; you’re given a toolkit and trusted to make good or beautiful mistakes. That, plus a port that keeps your momentum rolling, made me like Outlaws more than I did a year ago.
I’ll keep this short. Outlaws’ soundscape remains killer: that dry blaster crack, the hum of old machinery, the subdued pulse of a cantina band bleeding through a wall. On Switch 2, none of that collapses. In handheld with decent earbuds, it’s almost nicer—less room echo, more detail. There’s Star Wars bombast when you need it, but the quiet scratches and radio hiss are what sell the fantasy. It’s a world that sounds lived-in, and the port keeps that intact.
Two scenes stuck with me. The first: sprinting at dusk across a wind-kicked plateau. The sun was low, dust spun in little tornadoes around my boots, and the shadows actually felt connected to the ground—none of that floaty decal look. The frame rate didn’t budge. It’s the sort of moment I remember when I think “this is a good port.”
The second: a botched infiltration in a warehouse where I had to improvise on the fly. I sent Nix scurrying to distract a guard, slipped past a camera, then whiffed a vault and face-planted into a crate. Alarms erupted. Old Outlaws punished that. New Outlaws dared me to turn it into a plan, and I did—scrambling, scrambling, then sliding out with the loot and three blaster shots left. The Switch 2’s consistent feel meant my failure didn’t turn into a technical blame game. That matters more than any pixel count.
If you’re the kind of player who obsesses over facial micro-expressions or hates any shimmer in the distance, you’ll still be pointing at the screen. If you need a true archival cartridge, the Game Key Card will annoy you on principle. Everyone else? You’re looking at one of those ports that quietly hits what it aims at.
Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2 reads like a studio that trusted its tech. They took the right shortcuts—trim the fussiest detail, keep the soul—and the result is a version that feels great to play and looks better than a lot of “portable” compromises I’ve seen. The lighting sells the mood, the performance sells the action, and the design—now finally allowing stealth to be a choice instead of a leash—sells the fantasy. The faces still don’t emote like a prestige TV show. The hair still gets mushy. Some shiny floors lie. But I’ll take those lies over judder and hitching any day.
It’s also the exact kind of game that benefits from living on a hybrid console. Jump in, pull a stunt, bail out. Dock up for a set-piece later. I went from cynical to genuinely impressed, and I don’t write that lightly. If you missed Outlaws or waited for a reason to care again, this port is the nudge.
Score: 8/10
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