I still remember the exact moment Boba Fett stepped out of the half-light in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. It was the end of a lengthy bounty hunting side quest, the kind of side content I usually rush through, but for once I had let myself get lost in the rhythm of the hunt. After collecting puck after puck and crossing half of Koboh, the game paid me back with something better than a reward crate. The iconic T-visor, the scuffed green armor, the few lines of measured dialogue. It was not a boss fight, and it did not need to be. That brief appearance felt like an earned secret, and it became one of my most vivid memories from the entire game.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor had some fairly major technical issues at launch, yet beneath those rough edges it was a genuinely great game. The combat carried that careful, deliberate Soulslike weight, the levels were dense and rewarding to explore, and the story had enough complicated characters to keep me invested. It now sits comfortably among the best Star Wars games ever made, which means any open-world Star Wars project that follows it has a steep climb. That is exactly the position Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws found itself in.

Outlaws, by contrast, leaned all the way into the open-world formula. From the gameplay breakdown Ubisoft first showed back in 2023, it was clear that the team wanted a large-scale adventure spread across the galaxy rather than a tightly wound journey like Jedi: Fallen Order or Jedi: Survivor. As someone who has now played both, I can appreciate how much Outlaws tries to deliver a different kind of freedom. It wants me to wander, to smuggle, to navigate syndicate politics, and to feel like a scoundrel rather than a Jedi. But at the time, one big question hovered over all that ambition: had Jedi: Survivor already stolen one of Outlaws’ best cameo opportunities?

Star Wars Outlaws is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. That placement is important. The Empire still dominates much of the galaxy, but in some Outer Rim systems its grip has stretched too thin, allowing criminal syndicates to rise and seize control. Playing as Kay Vess, a smuggler looking for her big break, I was immediately drawn into that underworld. It is a natural fit for cameos. Smugglers, thugs, thieves, bandits, and bounty hunters all share the same shadows. It would not be a modern Star Wars project without at least a few legacy appearances, and Outlaws already confirmed one major one: Jabba the Hutt.

Of all the possible cameos, bounty hunters feel like the richest vein. They rarely get much screen time compared to Jedi or Sith, so a video game could finally give them room to breathe. A few names immediately come to mind:

• 🦎 Bossk – the Trandoshan hunter would fit the underworld tone perfectly.

• 🤖 IG-88 – an assassin droid whose cold precision could create a tense encounter.

• 👤 Dengar – a worn-down mercenary who could offer Kay Vess some ugly jobs.

• 👁️ 4-LOM and Zuckuss – an odd pair whose partnership could add texture to any syndicate storyline.

Of course, there is one bounty hunter fans tend to ask about more than the rest: Boba Fett. And that is where Jedi: Survivor got there first.

Jedi: Survivor keeps its cameos surprisingly restrained. For most of its runtime, the spotlight stays on Cal Kestis and the Mantis crew, which I appreciated. But the cameos it does use are spectacular. Boba Fett appears right at the end of a long, optional bounty hunting quest line. He only speaks a few lines, but his presence works because the player has earned it. That moment would have been easy to fumble, yet Respawn made it feel like a quiet reward rather than a cheap nod. It became one of the game’s most memorable beats, and one of the reasons I kept recommending the side missions to friends.

There is more than enough Boba Fett to go around, but a quick cameo in Outlaws would have less impact after Jedi: Survivor already used the same trick. I remember thinking, before Outlaws launched, that if Boba Fett showed up as a brief one-scene nod, it would feel less like a surprise and more like a box being checked. To stand out now, Outlaws would need to give him something more substantial. Not a cameo, but a role.

Maybe Kay Vess could take on a mission that forces her to outrun Boba Fett, or perhaps he could become an unpredictable third party in a syndicate war. That kind of appearance would fit the underworld setting far better than a quick exchange of words. It would also give Outlaws its own distinct version of the moment I loved in Jedi: Survivor.

Star Wars Outlaws released in 2024 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S, and after spending time with it into 2026, I can say the open-world experiment has its flaws, but its ambition is genuine. Even so, when I think back to that quiet Boba Fett moment in Jedi: Survivor, I am reminded that a well-placed cameo can matter more than a dozen big set pieces. Outlaws did not need to repeat that exact scene; it needed to find its own version of the same quiet reward.