Star Wars Outlaws Update 1.4 Changes Overview

Massive has released update 1.4 for Star Wars Outlaws, the biggest patch so far. Highlights include changes to combat and stealth, picking up weapons in a wider variety of situations, and more visual options to allow for sharper images.

Today’s patch 1.4 is available on all platforms where the game can be played. It varies in size depending on the platform with Xbox being the largest file.

• PlayStation®5: 7.44 GB (version 01.004.000)
• Xbox Series X|S: 10.18 GB (version 1.0.4.0)
• PC: 8.83 GB (version 1.0.4.0)

Kay can use her blaster everywhere

Previously, some places restricted Kay’s use of her blaster. This reduced the gameplay options in those areas, particularly, in syndicate territories inside the cities. As someone who sucks at being stealthy, that was a bummer.

The removal of this restriction aims to give players more options when infiltrating them to locate important objectives like the syndicate vaults.

Enemy weak points

I am one of the players who love to place a precise shot in order to do as much damage as possible and also earn some style points. If you are also like me, you’ll be happy to know that the game is adding weak points to enemies, as well as new death animations for enemies to go out in fun and dramatic ways.

Weak points should prove very useful during the early stages of the game when Kay is weaker than most standard enemies. Especially if you are playing on higher difficulties.

So far, I have only seen a somewhat different animation when landing headshots. It certainly doesn’t help that the game fails to show where the weak points are and it’s entirely on the player to find out.

Improved enemy positioning

There are many instances in which you will end up fighting multiple enemies at the same time. The outcome is always influenced by both Kay’s position and the enemy’s.

I lost count of how many times things were made a lot easier because the enemy wasn’t positioned strategically. Instead, they just grouped making it very effortless for me to take them down.

If enemies are now coordinated, combat should become a lot harder in different areas. I tested this out by going to two different locations that I am very familiar with. The Imperial Station on the far Northeast side of Toshara and a Death Trooper camp located south of that location, inside the Pyke territory.

What I found is that some enemies attack from a distance while the closest ones tend to use the terrain to get very close. I wasn’t sure if my position was what triggered that reaction so I circled the entire area a couple of times to see how they would behave depending on if I was close or far to them.

With the exception of the Stormtroopers carrying the heavy repeater weapons, every other enemy changed its attack pattern depending on the distance between me and them.

Enemy AI and detection improvements

Stealth is an extremely important aspect of Star Wars Outlaws. However, most enemies were too easily tricked. This severely reduced the importance of being very careful.

You could get away with being clumsy just because the AI would not react properly. After 1.4, enemies have improved detection. To balance things out, you will receive a notification when you’re being detected.

Using the example mentioned in the previous point, I noticed that this new detection improvement is not consistent. Sometimes enemies would be suspicious from a considerable distance while others wouldn’t react until I was too close. But at least the visual indicators work, and they are easy to spot even from a considerable distance.

When causing chaos in the Imperial base, the AT-ST that’s standing guard in the main gate never attacked me, despite the fact that I was in front of it shooting at the Stormtroopers from the upper level. I even finished them off, turned back, and realized the AT-ST just kept patrolling. This had never happened to me before.

Changes to weapon and combat

While no new weapons have been added, it is important to notice that all current weapons have been changed. Their damage values have changed, as well as things like spread and recoil. This is particularly noticeable with the A300 Blaster Rifle.

Sadly, Ubisoft isn’t putting out the actual numbers for us to clearly know how much the changes will impact the gameplay.

I encountered a bug that makes my charged shots on the Pulse Configuration of the Power Module deal zero damage. At first, I thought it was because of the weapon values but after realizing that the trooper’s armor got charred it became clear that this is not an intended interaction. It was like facing Rick, The Door Technician!

Aside from the improved enemy positioning, enemies are going to have a better use of coverage. Combining these two things should, in theory, increase the overall difficulty of the combat.

One of the most annoying things about picking up enemy weapons is that you were not able to carry them through ladders or climbing. Sometimes they even became unpickable after falling from an upper level. Kay now puts them on her waist, meaning that they do not become unusable when leaving a specific area.

You can even mount the speeder and the weapon will remain attached! However, I am still finding moments where the weapon drops and I can’t pick it up anymore, even if Nix brings it to me.

Main Quest Fixes

Right after you are able to escape Jabba’s Palace during the Partners quest the Rancor is unleashed to kill Kay. Completing that boss fight would trigger a cinematic but that would not happen if the player used Adrenaline Rush right before the Rancor hit the hangar doors.

A number of fixes and improvements have been made to some of the main quests. The Veteran expert quest had an issue where it would not start if you traveled to Akiva before the dialogue finished.

ND-5 becomes your enemy during The Revelator. He is tasked with hunting down Kay, which results in a terrifying hide-and-seek game. There was a bug that allowed ND-5 to detect Kay when she went from crouched to standing inside a steam vent.

Below you can expand the segment to read the full and official patch notes as published by Ubisoft on November 21st.