Space trucking games are great. But you know what’s better? Hauling diamonds and ore only to blow all of it on dice poker.
Out this week on the Epic Games Store, with a console release in the offing, Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is the sequel to the space trucking game from 2015. The main upgrade with Outlaw is that it’s primarily a first-person game now with a proper flight model, as opposed to the Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag-esque naval combat in space.
In other words: Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is basically 2019’s Privateer or Freelancer, or at least the closest you’ll get this year. But instead of talking about the controls, the plot, or just how fucking hard the soundtrack absolutely slaps, we need to talk about dice.
Being an indie game, Rebel Galaxy was always going to cut a few corners. And perhaps the most obvious exclusion was the lack of activity or life on each of the planets, outposts and remote stations. You landed, clicked through some menus to buy commodities, repairs, upgrade equipment, maybe have a short chat face-to-face with a bartender, and then you moved on.
In Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, the on-planet interactions have been beefed out a bit. There’s more voice-overs, animated characters and things you can buy and do when docked — and most importantly, the bar has plenty of options for burning cash.
Like playing a knock-off version of Asteroids:
Or a slightly janky but still pretty entertaining version of 8-ball:
You can even knock the ball off the table, which sounds totally normal for a game of pool, but it’s a hell of a lot more than I was expecting from an indie Privateer.
You’ll usually wager a small amount of credits — although one chick charged me over 500 credits a pop in the very first bar, which is like 1/8th of your total bank at the start of the game. But occasionally you’ll run into bars where someone wagers part of their ship over a game of pool, which is an insanely good deal.
Pool can be expensive starting out, mind you, and it takes a while to get through a table or two. Dice poker, on the other hand, is fast as hell and very, very satisfying (when you win). It’s not available in every bar, but it’s an easy way to rack up money quickly.
Hell, I’m not ashamed to say I spent more time in the first hour playing pool and dice poker than I did actually flying around from station to station. It’s dumb, but it’s the kind of side stuff that really brings games like this to life.
Yes creepy cowboy man, I will play again. As an aside, the rest of Rebel Galaxy Outlaw is a ton of fun. I’ll have more on that — along with gameplay — later this week, but for now, just know that the Privateer vibes are strong.
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