The Last Call DLC offers a much more satisfying second half to Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge. Read on for our Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge – Last Call Review.
2020’s Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge was an odd one. By all accounts, it was immaculately produced and impressively designed, with developer ILMxLAB building on the immersive interactions and convincing world-building it started in Vader Immortal. But it was also a concerted effort to appeal to those that found Vader a disappointing gaming experience, swapping out the emphasis on narrative for corridor shooter segments.
And, hey, those weren’t bad! Simple, maybe, but that touch of Star Wars authenticity did wonders for getting you to play along, even if it was painfully short. In fact the game’s main campaign ends mere minutes after it’s introduced an exhaustive upgrade system that requires more resources than you could possibly gather in a single playthrough. Clearly, there was something missing.
Note: This review is for the second part of Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge only. Make sure to read our other reviews for the full picture:
Enter Last Call, a ‘Part 2’ DLC that completes the game’s main story and adds more side ‘Tales’ set in the far reaches of the Star Wars universe. If you’ve played the first part already then you should essentially expect more of the same here but, if you’re going in fresh, Last Call is an essential element in making Galaxy’s Edge feel like a fully rounded VR game.
Think of Last Call as part of the ‘Scoundrels and Smugglers’ side of the Star Wars universe. Returning as the same character from part one, you’re sent off on a mission across the planet of Batuu to locate an ancient artefact that in turn ties into one of the earlier Tales from the game’s first installment. You get another two to three hours of the ‘main’ campaign here, much of which builds on what was on offer in the first part and plays practically identical.
So, if you liked the first part’s shootouts then, good news, there’s plenty more of those. But, even if it didn’t grab you, there’s some twists to Last Call that might grab your attention.
In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see just how much ILMxLAB crammed into this installment. True, it’s still a fairly simple corridor shooter at heart, but there’s also new weapons, enemies and locations, many of which fans are going to be excited to see. When paired with the content from the first part, you get a much more rounded sense of playing through a full shooter campaign this time around, and any work you put in to buy upgrades like better jetpack mobility and tougher armor will also finally pay off.
Impressive, too, is the fact this DLC is just as polished from a production viewpoint as the first installment, if not more so. We usually see DLC installments reign it in on this front, but that’s really not the case here: environments have greater variety, there’s plenty of new characters and some really surprising scale to the set-pieces. If you want an experience that proves the Quest can pull off blockbuster production then the game’s final level shouldn’t disappoint.
As for the Tales themselves, there are two new stories on offer. The first revisits Ady’Sun Zee, the Jedi Padawan from the first part now turned Knight with an Apprentice to call her own. Though it doesn’t it doesn’t have the flashy cameos and lightsaber combat of the first part, it’s an interesting, reflective tale that depicts the relationship between a Master and their Apprentice from a new angle, having you take part in lessons and using force powers and, yes, your lightsaber in different ways.
The IG-88 mission, meanwhile, is a fun power trip, though the automated gameplay (you no longer wave your arms about but instead move two targeting reticules) makes it less interactive and engaging than the rest of the experience. It’s one to sit back and watch — especially gauging how people react to a huge murder bot — but these games’ strengths lie in the detail of what you’re doing.
Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge – Last Call Review: Final Impressions
Even taken on its own, Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge – Last Call is a much more satisfying second half to the wider Galaxy’s Edge experience. The highly polished shooter action may not radicalize the existing mechanics, but it does play to thier strengths, offering more beautiful environments, interesting characters, and concentrated moments of powerful fanboy wish fulfillment.
You also won’t find better production values in any Quest release so far this year and, more importantly, ILMxLAB remains laser-focused on exploring new ways to tell stories and immerse players in VR. That work is to be applauded, as is this much-improved second part.
For more on how we arrived at this rating, read our review guidelines. What did you make of our Star Wars: Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge – Last Call review? Let us know in the comments below!
