With its 1.6 update, Star Wars Outlaws has finally fixed its janky as hell speeder combat

You’ve got to hand it to Ubisoft: despite Star Wars Outlaws’ rocky launch, it’s stuck with it doggedly, releasing a whole series of updates that have hugely improved the game’s performance, stability, and the core play experience. Here we are, nine months on from the original release, and it’s still going, with a new major update now available alongside the release of the A Pirate’s Fortune DLC.

This time, the headliner is speeder combat. Previously, mounted battles felt pretty awkward. For some reason, Kay couldn’t just fire her pistol at pursuers—instead, you had to wait for her Adrenaline Rush ability to charge and use it to tag enemies in slow-mo before automatically shooting them.

No longer! Now you can just free aim your pistol while reading a speeder and fire at will—a much more intuitive approach.

Another long-time bugbear for players has been Kay’s disinterest in holding on to any weapon other than her default pistol. While you could grab blasters and other two-handed weapons off defeated enemies and armoury racks, they were effectively temporary power-ups, as you’d drop them if you started doing almost anything other than shooting.

Patch 1.4 already improved things somewhat there, allowing Kay to at least do things like climb ladders without losing her new gun, but 1.6 improves that to a more complete solution. You can now actually holster a second weapon on your back, and switch between it and your pistol without dropping it.

It looks like you can even take the gun with you between areas and planets, which should make Kay feel rather better equipped than ever before—and make it a lot more viable to go in all-guns-blazing when you’re feeling bored of sneaking.

The update also includes some new passive equipment slots for your ship, the Trailblazer, for more interesting customisation. New space contract types should also give you some opportunities to try them out.

And all those mechanical tweaks are accompanied by some new cosmetics, free to all players, inspired by the TV show Skeleton Crew.

As a bit of an Outlaws apologist—it has its flaws, but I don’t think its rich and immersive Star Wars world quite got the credit it deserved—I’m excited to jump back in and give it one last go with the new DLC. Yet another round of quality-of-life improvements is the icing on the cake, and hopefully another step towards the game earning a little more appreciation over time.

You can read the full patch notes below.

Highlights

• Added the ability to free fire Kay’s blaster while riding the speeder
• Added the ability to holster and swap between two handed weapons and Kay’s blaster
• Added the ability to equip new passive systems to the Trailblazer for additional gameplay effects
• Added new space contracts for all players that include multiple challenge types
• Fixed an issue where the Hidden Riches intel could not be completed

General Gameplay

• Improved shooting when behind cover to prevent hitting the environment
• Fixed an issue where certain intel quests could not be completed if intel was found before picking up the quest
• Improved enemy AI when moving to cover/being suppressed
• Fixed an issue where Kay could get trapped when respawning in a restricted room on Toshara
• Improved Kay’s movement animations on stairs and slopes
• Adjusted effects of getting ionized in space
• Fixed space NPCs going “out of bounds” when in combat
• Miyuki Traders have been upgraded to full vendors and now sell passive system upgrades in addition to previous resource items
• Fixed issue where the Ion upgrade of the smoke bomb was inconsistent in ionizing enemies
• Fixed issue where melee finishers sometimes wouldn’t trigger if the blaster is overheated
• Fixed issue where configurations with improved heat capacity from upgrades and gear would risk overheating the blaster if quick switching modules when near the overheat threshold
• Crimson Reign gear set has a reduced cooldown on Stun Shot for each enemy caught within all variants of the Smoke Bomb
• Outlaw Belt has a reduced cooldown and increased duration of the supercooled state when swapping between Kay’s blaster modules.  Additional HUD feedback has been added for the duration and cooldown
• Fixed an issue where shields would not protect Kay from direct impact explosive projectiles
• Performance improvements during climbing
• Improved attaching and releasing input when using the grappling hook
• Fixed an issue where Kay would move slowly when aiming during strafing in certain areas
• Kay no longer gains adrenaline during standing jumps on the speeder
• Kay is now thrown off the speeder when hit by a melee attack
• Improved cases where dropping weapons could result in clipping
• Kay now exits scoping when staggered
• Fixed an issue where the Glowlamp would disable when entering vents

Performance

• Fixed an issue where the game could crash when activating FSR3 Frame Gen and Freesync Premium Pro HDR

Graphics

• RTXDI improvements
• Ray Reconstruction improvements

UI, HUD and Settings

• Fixed an issue where a vendor’s purchase screen was unable to be closed when the items list was empty
• Fixed an issue where the incorrect journal entries would be highlighted when hovering over a different entry

Audio

• Fixed an issue where crew members lines would be played at incorrect times

Cinematics

• Improved instances where props were missing/floating in certain cinematics

Camera

• Fixed an issue with camera jittering and clipping while on the speeder

Worlds, Fauna and Flora

• Fixed an issue where the surrounding environment would not reflect correct time of day
• Fixed an issue where color banding was present in the sky on Consoles

Accessibility

• Added accessibility shortcut allowing high contrast, auto run, and menu narration to be toggled without accessing menus
• Gadget wheel can now be set to a toggle rather than a button hold
• HUD background transparency and colors can now be adjusted
• High contrast UI setting now also affects headings in settings menus
• Gameplay high contrast transparency now affects darker colors more evenly
• Map menu narration now reads whether a location is on another planet
• Fixed an issue where remapping breaks sabacc controls
• Fixed an issue where high contrast mode settings menu preview did not match how the transparency slider works in the game
• Fixed an issue where some HUD icons were hard to see when high contrast HUD was enabled
• Fixed an issue where large HUD text would be larger than its background
• Fixed an issue where autowalk was not available when using a controller on PC, or on consoles
• Fixed an issue where the Trailblazer was not displayed correctly in high contrast mode when damaged
• Auto-vault no longer triggers if the fall will kill Kay

Miscellaneous

• Reduced instances of environmental clothes clipping

MAIN & SIDE QUESTS (beware of spoilers)

Akiva

• The Veteran
  • Fixed an issue where the speeder was unable to be interacted with after a cutscene

Kijimi

• Breakout
  • Fixed an issue where Kay could get stuck dismounting the speeder when exiting the factory tunnel

Other

• Revelator
  • Fixed an issue where Kay could get stuck if walking behind the turbolift while joining Sliro’s detail
  • Fixed an issue where a ladder could not be interacted with if Kay respawns

Known issues

• Contraband contracts
  • Picking up a contraband contract and not completing it (e.g. going to another region/space/planet or completing another activity) will cause the contract to fail.  The contract can be picked up again from the vendor.