Compare Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim vs Star Wars Outlaws

Anniversary Edition on PS5 is criticized for making little meaningful use of DualSense features.

Haptics earn specific praise for making the speeder and adaptive triggers feel more tactile and physical.

The fixed, narrow field of view on some console versions can make camera movement uncomfortable, particularly on larger displays. Lack of an FoV control is a notable port limitation.

Camera behavior is uneven, with complaints around traversal, depth-of-field, and vehicle visibility, though later updates improve some rough interactions.

Treasure, unique gear, crafted equipment, and exploration rewards give players frequent reasons to search dungeons and wander off-route. Some individual chests disappoint, but the broader reward loop is satisfying.

Collectible cosmetics can feel overused and low-value, weakening the sense that every pickup is worth chasing.

The streamlined classless progression is approachable, but the sheer number of possibilities can overwhelm newcomers. Starting slowly and engaging with a small area at a time can make the game much easier to absorb.

The game can take too long to click for some players, while others find its controls and overall structure approachable once the opening settles.

Accessibility is inconsistent across versions. Streamlined RPG systems help newcomers, but console ports are repeatedly criticized for missing basics such as an FoV slider, brightness controls, and broader visual options.

Accessibility is a standout, with broad menus, presets, and customization that make the game easier to tailor to different needs.

Exploring, fighting, looting, leveling, getting distracted, and discovering another objective remains highly compelling. Multiple reviews describe the loop as addictive even many years after release.

The loop can be absorbing when exploration flows into jobs, faction decisions, upgrades, and combat, but some critics find the repetition increasingly obvious.

The game is not especially family-friendly for younger children because of gore, violence, sexual themes, and alcohol references.

Violence is largely stylized lasers and punches, but simulated gambling keeps it from being completely family-friendly.

Skyrim gives players extraordinary freedom to ignore the main story, change builds, join factions, wander, craft, steal, explore, or simply live in the world. That agency is central to nearly every positive assessment.

Outlaws feels more flexible after updates, but launch restrictions around stealth, quest boundaries, and vehicle use often undercut the sandbox fantasy.

Followers are useful in fights and can add personality, but their pathfinding and positioning are frequent frustrations. They get stuck, block routes, or behave awkwardly often enough to be a recurring complaint.

Nix is repeatedly useful for distractions, switches, fetching gear, and combat support, making the companion mechanic one of the better integrated systems.

The best faction quests, books, lore, and optional stories earn strong praise for writing, even when the main plot or routine dialogue is less consistent.

Writing quality is uneven: intimate character beats and underworld flavor work well, while some dialogue, arcs, and systemic reactions feel underdeveloped.

Combat styles are not equally effective: stealth archery is repeatedly overpowered, magic can be uneven, and melee lacks the responsiveness of stronger modern action RPGs.

Kay’s multipurpose blaster is useful, but launch restrictions around carrying dropped weapons frustrate; later updates make the arsenal noticeably more flexible.

Perk trees strongly reward experimentation and specialization, with meaningful bonuses across combat, magic, stealth, crafting, and social skills. Build planning remains one of the most satisfying long-term systems.

Replacing a standard skill tree with Experts and challenge-based unlocks makes progression feel more organic, though not every ability is equally useful.

Crashes, freezes, and forced save reloads appear across several versions and eras. They are less universal than minor bugs, but when they occur they can erase progress and materially hurt reliability.

Several launch-period players encountered crashes, while later patched versions report far fewer problems or none at all.

The classless skill system, Shouts, dual-wielding, crafting, exploration, and flexible interaction combine into a broad, rewarding RPG toolkit.

The gameplay is a mixed toolkit rather than a single standout system: competent pieces add up to a fun adventure for some and a formulaic one for others.

Use-based skill growth, perks, and classless development are among the game’s most praised systems. They make character growth intuitive, flexible, and tightly connected to how the player actually behaves.

The Experts-based progression is widely liked for tying new abilities to exploration and challenges instead of conventional XP grinding.

Animation is one of the clearest signs of age: stiff NPC movement, robotic scenes, dated combat motions, and awkward character behavior come up repeatedly. Later editions improve presentation around it more than the animations themselves.

Environmental animation can impress, but character movement, takedowns, and cutscenes are repeatedly described as stiff, canned, or rough.

Emergent role-playing can create surprisingly personal attachment; one player describes genuinely feeling the loss of a companion within a self-made story.

The game can land strong emotional beats through nostalgia, Kay and Nix, and ND-5, even when the broader narrative is uneven.

Many sources enjoy the mix of dragons, undead, creatures, bandits, and fantasy enemies, with some praising the designs strongly. A later perspective argues the underlying enemy mechanics become limited and repetitive with time.

Enemy variety is limited, leaning heavily on troopers and syndicate fighters; several critics wanted more creatures and distinctive threats.

NPCs make the world busy and believable, but deeper interpersonal writing and companion development are limited. Repeated voices, shallow relationships, and generic interactions keep characters behind the environmental storytelling.

Nix and ND-5 are frequent standouts, while other crew members and faction figures can feel underused or slow to develop.

Faces are improved over Oblivion and can look more expressive, but they still sit within an aging character presentation.

Faces and lip-sync are a recurring presentation blemish, with desync and uneven character models hurting otherwise strong cutscenes.

Pacing is a recurring weakness around the long intro and main-quest structure. Repeat players especially dislike the unskippable opening, and starting the dragon storyline too quickly can overwhelm the quieter exploration rhythm.

Pacing is mixed: some praise a natural flow, while others find the start slow and the tension between urgent story beats and abundant side content awkward.

Exploration is Skyrim’s clearest consensus strength. Roads, caves, ruins, random encounters, hidden quests, scenery, and unexpected detours constantly reward curiosity and make simple travel feel like play.

Freeform wandering is a major draw, with organic rumors, side activities, secrets, and scenic detours making the planets more compelling than a checklist map.

Skyrim usually avoids feeling like a conventional grind because exploration and skill use produce progress naturally. Some later players still find repetitive leveling or optimization chores annoying.

The trimmed Ubisoft structure reduces checklist fatigue for many, though fetch work, busywork, and repeated contracts still surface.

Across original, remastered, portable, and modern retrospective coverage, Skyrim is consistently described as highly enjoyable and hard to put down. Even critical reviews tend to return to how much fun the overall experience remains.

Most takes find genuine fun in the Star Wars fantasy despite the rough edges, while a smaller group strongly rejects the repetitive systems and clunky execution.

The game is packed with guilds, dungeons, side quests, crafting, exploration, homes, books, random encounters, expansions, and role-playing diversions. Its breadth is one of the strongest points of agreement across the sources.

Stealth, gunfights, Sabacc, side jobs, exploration, puzzles, and space travel keep the package varied even when individual systems are uneven.

Stealth is more readable and strategic than in Oblivion, with detection feedback that supports careful play. It can also become overpowered, especially when combined with archery.

Stealth is the most divisive mechanic: launch detection and instant-fail rules frustrate many, while stealth fans enjoy the Nix-assisted tools and later updates substantially improve flexibility.

The Nordic landscapes, weather, lighting, architecture, and strong visual mood have aged extremely well. Even reviewers who call the raw graphics dated still praise the art direction for making Skyrim distinctive and beautiful.

The overall visual vision and Star Wars aesthetic earn strong praise even when technical execution, character models, or image quality fall short.

Skyrim is not viewed as a wholesale revolution, yet its streamlined progression, classless character development, open-world density, and combination of systems were important refinements that helped define modern open-world RPG expectations.

Outlaws rarely reinvents familiar open-world mechanics, but its scoundrel focus and reputation structure give the formula a few distinctive twists.

The less rigid level scaling and ability to encounter enemies above or below the player’s strength are generally improvements. Some fights still swing on luck, cheese tactics, or overpowered builds, and Survival Mode changes the balance substantially.

Difficulty is highly adjustable, but many find combat or stealth too easy once the systems are understood; others appreciate the challenge when options are constrained.

Movement and third-person play are improved over Oblivion and can feel responsive, but traversal is still basic and horses or first-person combat can feel awkward compared with newer games.

On-foot movement is generally workable, but climbing and traversal can feel stiff or awkward; later patches smooth several interactions.

Skyrim’s cold, rugged setting, weather, audio, and sense of place create an unusually strong atmosphere. The world often feels compelling enough that players simply stop to look around or wander without a quest goal.

Cantinas, markets, Tatooine sunsets, and lived-in streets create one of the game’s most consistently praised strengths.

Objects, crafting stations, homes, books, theft, routines, and small physical details make Skyrim unusually interactive. The ability to affect and inhabit ordinary spaces is a major contributor to immersion.

Eavesdropping, ambient chats, food stalls, Sabacc, and small contextual actions make hubs feel interactive, though some environmental objects still lack meaningful reactions.

Weather, lighting, spell effects, auroras, god rays, and remaster improvements can be striking. Some ports introduce distracting reflection, color, or pop-in artifacts, but the overall effects work is well regarded.

Lighting, ray tracing, blaster impacts, and atmospheric effects can look excellent, particularly on stronger ports, even when base image quality dips.

Enemy AI is a recurring weak spot: pathfinding can be exploited, companions and enemies get confused by geometry, and dragon behavior can become predictable. Some versions improve aggression, but the overall pattern remains rough.

Enemy AI is a recurring weak point: guards can be oblivious, predictable, or inconsistent, though a few later impressions find them just smart enough to keep stealth engaging.

Books, factions, history, Daedric stories, regional politics, and environmental storytelling provide enormous background depth. Engaging with the lore can make quests and locations substantially more meaningful.

Star Wars lore is woven through locations, comic references, familiar characters, factions, and historical details without always overwhelming newcomers.

Archery and ranged combat are often praised as accurate and satisfying, especially with gyro or VR. Mouse/input-lag issues on some ports and occasional collision problems can undermine that precision.

Aiming ranges from responsive and manageable to noticeably inaccurate in some accounts, so precision is not consistently praised.

Skyrim remains exceptionally easy to get lost in because its world, weather, sound, routines, role-playing freedom, and environmental detail work together. Bugs and repeated NPC behavior can break the spell, but the broader immersion survives.

Immersion is a signature strength, built by detailed locations, seamless travel, ambient activity, sound, and small interactions; bugs can puncture the illusion.

Fast travel is convenient, but Survival Mode’s removal of it can actually deepen discovery; carriages provide a limited compromise when long-distance travel is needed.

Fast travel can be very convenient, but wanted-state restrictions frustrate when long-distance movement is needed most.

The opening is divisive: it can establish tone effectively, but its unskippable length and early information overload hurt repeat play and have caused some newcomers to bounce off the game.

The opening can feel restrictive and slow to reveal the game’s strengths, with some players needing many hours before the adventure fully clicks.

Story opinions are mixed. Some sources call the main campaign excellent or epic, while others see it as predictable, thin, or weaker than the faction and side-quest stories that make up much of Skyrim’s appeal.

The heist premise and personal underworld angle are entertaining, but character arcs, pacing, and payoffs divide opinion sharply.

Combat is the biggest design tradeoff. Magic, archery, dual-wielding, Shouts, and hybrid builds provide variety, but melee is repeatedly described as floaty, clunky, shallow, or dated.

Blaster combat is usually fun and serviceable rather than deep; later updates improve flexibility, while repetition, cover limitations, and simple encounters remain common complaints.

Loading varies dramatically by platform and edition: older console versions are often criticized for long, frequent waits, while PC and newer Anniversary versions can load extremely quickly.

Console loading is described as decent, with the planet-to-space transitions doing a good job of hiding much of the waiting.

Skyrim’s enormous ambition is balanced by visible rough edges. Some releases feel polished overall, yet persistent bugs, dated systems, and missing quality-of-life refinements keep it from feeling consistently finished.

Technical polish is the biggest presentation caveat: launch builds show bugs, lip-sync issues, pop-in, and rough systems, though patches improve the experience.

The landscapes, lighting, weather, vistas, and later-edition upgrades often look beautiful, while character models, old textures, pop-in, and some port-specific artifacts expose the game’s age. The visual verdict is strong overall but clearly version-dependent.

Worlds, lighting, and vistas are often gorgeous, but character models, pop-in, blur, and occasional jank keep the visuals from being uniformly polished.

Environmental detail is a defining strength, from weather and mountains to towns, dungeons, waterfalls, clutter, and small interactive objects. The world’s density repeatedly makes wandering feel worthwhile.

Locations are packed with tiny Star Wars details, dense settlements, and carefully recreated spaces that reward slowing down and looking around.

Mission quality ranges from imaginative faction stories and strange side adventures to repetitive fetch tasks and cave-clearing errands. The amount of content is huge, but not every activity is equally inventive.

Contracts and side missions can feel varied and surprisingly layered, although repeated faction jobs still blur together for some players.

Bugs are the most consistent technical complaint, ranging from funny physics oddities to broken quests, stuck NPCs, and progress-loss situations. Many reviewers tolerate them because of the game’s scale, but later re-releases are criticized for still carrying old problems.

Launch-era coverage reports intrusive glitches and rough technical edges, while later patched versions are noticeably cleaner.

Inventory selling and merchant limits can be tedious in the base game, while Survival Mode makes food and ordinary supplies feel meaningfully valuable. Resource balance depends heavily on how the game is played.

Faction discounts, credits, and rewards give choices practical stakes, though some payouts and reputation rewards feel too small to make decisions truly consequential.

Faction choices and individual quests can alter outcomes, but the main narrative often absorbs very different role-playing behavior without much consequence. The freedom to act is stronger than the long-term narrative reactivity.

The reputation system creates fun tactical tradeoffs, but many critics say big choices rarely reshape the central story enough.

Dialogue is uneven: some reviews praise natural conversational flow and a large amount of voiced material, while others find the script generic, repetitive, or uninspired. It rarely matches the strength of the world design.

Dialogue and banter get mixed marks: character chemistry can be charming, but some conversations and systemic reactions feel thin or static.

Smithing, enchanting, alchemy, cooking, and equipment creation make gathered resources useful and support self-directed builds. Survival Mode gives some of these systems, especially cooking, even more purpose.

Crafting is lightweight and easy to feed with found parts, and one take especially likes how looting, crafting, combat, and upgrades flow together.

Most versions are praised for stable performance within their targets, including strong handheld results. The recurring complaint is that some newer ports remain capped at 30fps despite hardware that seems capable of more.

Frame-rate reports improve across versions; Switch 2 largely holds its 30fps target, while some launch and PC accounts describe stutters or drops.

Skyrim can absorb hundreds of hours through quests, exploration, character builds, expansions, and mods. Several reviewers still had major content left after dozens or even more than a hundred hours.

The campaign and side content generally feel substantial without becoming overwhelming, and one current-state take especially likes that the story can fit a weekend without forcing a rush.

Portable Skyrim is repeatedly singled out as a major success. Switch and Switch 2 versions make the huge world easy to dip into anywhere while preserving strong image quality and generally stable play.

Switch 2 handheld mode is singled out as the strongest way to play that port, smoothing over visual cutbacks while preserving the experience on the go.

Interface quality is platform-dependent: controller menus are often streamlined, but PC layout and some base UI choices are criticized as clumsy or messy. Mods such as SkyUI are frequently treated as practical fixes.

The interface is at its best when it stays clean and avoids map clutter, helping the open world feel less like a wall of objectives.

One DLC questline is criticized for bland locations and an unenjoyable structure, showing that added content does not always match the strongest base-game questing.

Mission design ranges from excellent multi-stage side adventures to linear, repetitive infiltrations; post-launch changes make many jobs more flexible.

Skyrim improves sharply on Oblivion’s repetitive dungeons, with more individualized layouts, environmental variety, shortcuts, traps, and discoveries. Repetition still creeps in after very long play sessions.

Levels often provide multiple routes, verticality, and strong atmosphere, but some layouts can feel overly guided, maze-like, or restrictive.

The open world is one of Skyrim’s most universally praised achievements: dense, scenic, explorable, and filled with reasons to leave the road. It still serves as a benchmark for player-driven fantasy exploration.

The planets favor dense, authored spaces over planet-sized sprawl, earning praise for atmosphere while still carrying familiar Ubisoft repetition and boundaries.

Questing is a major strength, especially in guild and optional storylines where chance encounters can blossom into long, surprising adventures. Mundane fetch quests exist, but the best side content is repeatedly considered stronger than the main plot.

The best side quests organically expand from small leads into memorable adventures, though routine fetch and delivery work remains part of the mix.

Dungeon puzzles can be memorable early on, but several sources find traps and puzzle patterns overused or too simple across a very long campaign.

Lockpicking, hacking, and traversal puzzles range from satisfying to annoying, with the rhythm-based data spike especially polarizing.

Skyrim’s frozen region, cities, factions, politics, histories, architecture, and ambient details form one of its most celebrated strengths. The world often feels like a character in itself and gives exploration lasting meaning.

The criminal underworld, everyday cultures, and lived-in settlements make the galaxy feel broader than the usual Jedi-centered Star Wars stories.

Ambient wind, wildlife, combat effects, environmental sounds, and upgraded audio help sell the physical world. A Switch-specific audio-warping problem is a sharp exception to otherwise strong sound work.

Blasters, ships, ambience, and environmental effects sound unmistakably Star Wars and rank among the game’s most consistently praised elements.

The mature violence, gore, sexual themes, and alcohol references make the game a poor fit for younger children. One review suggests some teens may handle it, but the overall suitability signal is clearly mature.

One parent-focused take considered the stylized violence mild enough for a 10-year-old, despite the game’s teen-oriented rating context.

Voice acting ranges from strong and immersive to forced, repetitive, or too obviously recycled across NPCs. The size of the voiced cast is impressive, but performance consistency is uneven.

Voice acting is a major strength, with the cast repeatedly praised and Humberly González receiving especially strong notices as Kay.

Controls range from fluid and precise on strong versions to frustratingly sluggish on specific ports. Switch 2 input lag and some PC/VR control issues stand out against generally solid controller play.

General controls can feel responsive, but button-prompt failures, traversal quirks, and vehicle precision draw recurring criticism.

The streamlined favorites and equipment menus are widely praised on controllers for making a complex RPG approachable. PC-oriented interface criticism exists, but the general menu design is one of the stronger usability improvements.

Directly selecting planets and systems from the travel menu is called out as a particularly convenient way to move around the galaxy.

Few attributes receive stronger agreement: alternate builds, faction paths, huge content depth, mods, portable versions, and self-directed role-playing keep people returning for years and even hundreds of hours.

Completionist tasks, faction experimentation, and plentiful side content give reasons to return, but repetitive contracts limit the appeal for some.

The base game’s enormous content and replayability make it strong value for many players, and some bundles add DLC, Creation Club content, or free upgrades. Repeat buyers are more skeptical when an Anniversary release adds too little beyond versions they already own.

Value depends heavily on price and edition: bundled Switch 2 content is praised, while several players recommend waiting for a sale instead of paying full price.

The major expansions and Anniversary/Creation Club additions add substantial quests, locations, systems, and replay value. Opinions split on individual packs and on whether re-release bundles add enough to justify another purchase.

The Switch 2 Gold package earns strong value praise for bundling the major story DLC rather than charging separately for the core additions.

Frequent autosaves, quick saves, and multiple files can reduce the pain of bugs and experimentation. Reliability is still undermined when glitches force reloads or long sessions lose progress.

Save reliability is mixed by version: some launch accounts describe cloud-save, checkpoint, or resume problems, while later builds preserve progress much more reliably.

Gyro aiming, motion controls, mouse support, amiibo/Zelda content, and even native GameCube controller support add worthwhile platform flavor. Implementation quality varies, but these extras are usually viewed positively.

The Switch 2 package adds motion controls, cross-saves, and touchscreen inventory management, making the port feel thoughtfully adapted to the hardware.

The soundtrack is one of the strongest points of agreement in the entire set. Its exploration themes, battle music, choral pieces, and Dragonborn motif repeatedly heighten atmosphere, emotion, and discovery.

The score is repeatedly praised for balancing familiar Star Wars sweep with its own themes, giving the underworld adventure a strong musical identity.

Performance is highly version-dependent. Several ports are stable and newer editions improve optimization, but older PS3 issues, Switch 2 input/framerate choices, and occasional slowdown keep the record from being spotless.

Performance varies by platform and release period; later patches and the Switch 2 port earn praise, while launch PC and console accounts cite stutters and roughness.

Dragon and major encounters can be spectacular, tense, and memorable, especially early on. Repeated attack patterns, easy exploits, and shallow scaling make some boss fights lose impact over time.

Navigation is cleaner than icon-heavy Ubisoft norms, but confusing markers, hidden entrances, and disorienting layouts occasionally make routes harder to read.

Food QTEs are cute and sometimes reinforce Kay and Nix’s bond, but several critics find the interaction mildly annoying or unnecessarily mandatory.

The cast is directly praised as fantastic and fitting for the Star Wars setting.

Kay’s arc splits opinion: some see convincing growth and earned relationships, while others find her development thin or nearly static.

Skyrim has a huge population with memorable factions and some distinctive personalities, but repeated archetypes and limited companion depth keep the cast from matching the world’s richness.

Checkpointing was a major launch frustration, with erratic saves and lost progress; a later current-state take calls it frequent, fair, and reliable.

The speeder is fun for crossing scenic worlds but frequently criticized as floaty, twitchy, or hard to control; later patches improve it somewhat.

The strongest consensus is authenticity: sights, sounds, locations, props, and underworld tone repeatedly make the galaxy feel unmistakably Star Wars.

Fishing receives mixed reactions. Some find it simple, relaxing, and fun with worthwhile quests, while others call it boring, overly restricted to designated spots, or too shallow to matter.

Space travel looks and sounds exciting, but dogfighting splits opinion: some call it smooth and fun, while others find it dull, stiff, or underbaked.

Full-price and premium-edition pricing draw sharp criticism, especially the $70 base game, $130 packages, and paid early access.

The game borrows heavily from established open-world ideas, yet its grounded scoundrel perspective and Star Wars underworld setting help it carve out some identity.

Platforming is functional but often stiff or imprecise, with grappling, ledge interactions, and prompt reliability drawing repeated complaints.

Re-releases improve resolution, lighting, framerate, loading, portability, and bundled content, but opinions are mixed on how much they modernize the underlying game. Old animation, bugs, and limited new features make some editions feel low-effort or unnecessary.

Survival Mode meaningfully changes Skyrim by making food, sleep, warmth, travel, and planning matter. Most sources enjoy the added immersion and challenge, though it is deliberately more demanding and not for every playstyle.

Blaster, speeder, ship, and ability upgrades are useful and generally well integrated, especially through the Experts system.

The single-speeder limitation disappoints players who expected a broader sandbox of drivable Star Wars vehicles.

VR makes Skyrim’s scale novel to inhabit, but imprecise interaction, compromised visuals, and unresolved interface/combat problems keep it from being the strongest way to play.

Flexible race choices, appearance options, classless builds, and use-based skill growth let players shape very different characters. A few reviewers miss deeper old-school specialization, but build freedom is overwhelmingly praised.

Kay Vess is divisive: many find her warm, engaging, and refreshing, while others see a thin arc or a generic smuggler persona.

Cross-save is a clear positive on Switch 2, letting returning players transfer progress and making the portable version easier to adopt.

Mods are central to Skyrim’s longevity, adding fixes, visuals, quests, systems, and radically different playthroughs. Platform restrictions matter: PC is strongest, consoles vary, and Switch support is notably limited.