New Star Wars Outlaws look teases just how open the open world game is, and Nix remains the star

Ubisoft's latest gameplay overview of Star Wars Outlaws showcased the open-world exploration, reputation system, and adorable merqaal companion Nix.

Our latest look at Massive Entertainment's upcoming open-world adventure, Star Wars Outlaws, has given us a better view of the vast, explorable world we'll soon be diving into, as well as its reputation system, and, of course, our adorable merqaal companion Nix, who still looks like the best part of the entire game.

During today's Ubisoft Forward stream, we were given an extended look at Star Wars Outlaws' gameplay, including a shoot-out in space, a brief tour around the iconic hub of villainy, Mos Eisley, and the axolotl-like buddy Nix proving he's more than a cute face. From chomping on people for Kay to scouting out areas for foes, he's clearly doing everything he can to make sure he's a very good boy, and we're here for it.

In the new gameplay overview, game director Mathias Karlson explains that one of our main motivations to get out and venture the galaxy in Outlaws is to hunt down experts, in order to teach Kay new skills to bolster her abilities as a scoundrel, and ultimately aid her survival. 

As far as exploration goes, Karlson states that "each planet has its own system for you to explore, and many opportunities for you to make a few credits, which you can choose to engage with or not." Some of these activities clearly involve shooting down baddies in space, as during the featured segment, Kay stumbles across someone under attack by pirates. After a lot of satisfying pew-pew-pews, she saves the day, and boosts her reputation with the Pyke syndicate from 'poor' to 'good.' It sounds like this is well worth doing, as earlier in the showcase, it's revealed that merchants are often affiliated with syndicates, and so they might offer you some special deals if you happen to be on their good side. 

Some further exploration was shown on the ground when Kay lands in Tatooine, tearing through the desert land on her speeder bike. This leads into a stealth segment, where Kay and Nix sneak into a guarded storehouse, quietly taking out enemies along the way. Nix also shows off his scanning ability here, wiggling his ears and highlighting a foe ahead of them. Eventually, they're spotted and have to make a break for it, but not before taking down a few baddies along the way with Kay's blaster.

There's no doubt that Star Wars fans are going to pick up loads of little details from the gameplay over the coming hours and days, as there was *plenty *for us to look at. For now though, I'm sure I can't be the only one who's really keen to see more of Nix in action.

For more on Kay and Nix, head on over to our Star Wars Outlaws preview, or see a recap  of all the news from the Ubisoft Forward.