In most space operas you get the good guys, the bad guys, and those who sit somewhere in-between. This group of characters, the rogues, the smugglers, the pirates, are usually the more interesting faction but are also usually those that get the least amount of time dedicated to them. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw attempt to remedy that by allowing you to live out your space pirate fantasies, aligning yourself with whichever faction appeals the most to you and allowing you to develop your inner Han Solo or Mal Reynolds. Developed by Double Damage Games, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw has been available on PC for a little over a year but has now found its way to consoles, including Xbox One.
While not really a life sim per se, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw revels in the idea of asking the player to experience the potential mundanity of living a life on the fringes of legality in a galaxy that isn’t particularly civilized. While you will spend your fair share of time blasting enemy craft with laser fire, you’ll also need to partake in slower paced jobs such as shuttling supplies from one outpost to another or taking part in a patrol to check on specific areas of a sector. This isn’t a mile-a-minute space romp, but rather a chance to take on the role of a space trucker, making enough money to get by and improving and repairing your ship until you become someone worthy of respect in the galaxy.
There is a mainline narrative in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw that involves a revenge plot against the man who killed your husband, but you’re largely free to go off and do your own thing should you wish, and the experience is perfectly setup to allow you to do that. I spent hours travelling from station to station, carrying various supplies of varying legality to make enough money to stand a chance against the large number of mercenaries that saw my ship as easy pickings. There’s always an opportunity to get better equipment in Rebel Galaxy Outlaw and outside of the story, that was my main motivation to keep on pushing through.
You start the game with a basic spacecraft, possessing minimal weapons and cargo storage and the most basic of equipment. Initially, you’re restricted to performing jobs within a single system, and these only require you to go short distances and provide you with small amounts of cash. Eventually though, you are able to purchase a jump drive that allows you to hop between systems, and this in turn opens up more involved missions and larger pay packets. Most tasks remain fairly similar though, asking you to procure a certain number of a particular supply, or travel to a certain sector. However, the variation comes from the difficulty of each task, and also the route that you’re required to take. You’re almost constantly in danger of being ambushed or overwhelmed by your enemy, and there’s often a likely chance that your destination will be swarmed with pirates just waiting for you to arrive.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is an excellent example of how bad decision making or simple bad luck can mess up your day, and it’s not afraid to punish you for being stupid or for being impatient. I lost count of the amount of times that I thought I could push my luck just that little bit further and ended up losing everything, having to return to the main menu and load my most recent save. Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is fairly forgiving with a frequently activated autosave, but it’s still not an easy experience. As you purchase better equipment for your ship and get better at the game, you’ll definitely start to notice that areas that you previously struggled in start to present less of a challenge, but you’d be a fool to ever feel safe in this universe.
Though you can play Rebel Galaxy Outlaw from a third-person behind the ship perspective, the game truly comes to life when properly situated in the cockpit. Partly because of the mundanity of some of your tasks, but also because of the level of visual and audio detail, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw does a great job of immersing you into the role of your character. There are almost unnoticeable details such as reflections on your viewscreen and blemishes on your control panels that go a long way to creating a realistic feeling experience, and the cockpit of your ship truly starts to feel like home, to the point that I was often a little sad when I would purchase a new craft, as it felt a little like I was losing a piece of myself.
When outside of your ship, you’ll visit a variety of environments, including planets, space stations and even casinos, and it was here that I felt Rebel Galaxy Outlaw was a little bit lacking. Locations essentially exist as a series of menus with varying backdrops, to the point that there was never any real individuality or distinct aspects to any location. There are small snippets of information such a population counts and government types, but there was never enough personality to cause any particular area to stick in my mind. However, I did always enjoy visiting the bar on each station, as this was an excellent chance to learn some information on the sly, or to play a couple of minigames such as slots or 8-ball, sometimes with the chance to win new equipment for your ship or a little extra pocket money.
Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is the kind of game that you can almost settle into, rather than one that demands your immediate attention and won’t let up. There are bursts of action and excitement when you get involved in dogfights, but there are just as many sections where you’ll simply be delivering cargo and building up your finances. This is the kind of game that best flourishes when played for a lengthy session of a couple of hours or more, and while you can play for shorter segments and knock out a couple of jobs, it’s much better if you can really dive into the role of being a space rogue. There were definitely times with the game where I found that I could do with a little more excitement, and sections where I felt like I wasn’t doing anything but getting blown up over and over, but these parts were often brought about by my own decisions. For the vast majority of my time with the game, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw delivered the exact kind of independent space pilot simulator that I didn’t know I wanted, and it’s well worth a look if you’re even vaguely interested. 
