If you were worried that Star Wars Outlaws was going to end up being an infinite Ubisoft timesink ala Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, the developers at Massive Entertainment want to put you at ease, noting that the experience will be «very manageable».
25.07.2023 - 22:31 / ign.com / Julian Gerighty / Kay Vess / Navid Khavari / Ubisoft
Editor's Note: This interview has been edited to include all of the answers from both of our live show and our subsequent Q&A with the developers, with some answers edited for clarity.
Star Wars Outlaws is nearly here, and fans still have plenty of quetsions about Ubisoft Massive's upcoming open world game. To answer those questions, we chatted with some of the team behind Star Wars: Outlaws, including narrative director Navid Khavari, creative director Julian Gerighty, and Lucasfilm senior creative executive Matt Martin.
During our interviews, we covered a ton of ground Star Wars Outlaws, which stars a scoundrel named Kay Vess in the time between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. From making a game that feels both like classic Star Wars and brand new, to how Kay Vess will influence and traverse the world around her, to why everything doesn't need Jedi and the Force, this is one conversation from that galaxy far, far away you won't want to miss.
Star Wars: Outlaws is set to be released in 2024 and will also feature branching dialogue, epic space battles, an adorable Axolotl-like companion named Nix, and even the opportunity to work and/or betray the one and only Jabba the Hutt.
Don't worry though, it won't be a "300 hour epic unfinishable RPG."
You can learn much more about Star Wars: Outlaws below, and be sure to check out why we think it looks to be a mix of Watch Dogs and Grand Theft Auto and why we believe this just may be the open-world Star Wars game we've always wanted.
IGN: Okay, we're obsessed with this game. Our audience is obsessed with this game. We can't get enough of this game. I'm delighted that we're getting more of this game because usually we find out about something and then it goes into hibernation for like six months or a year. You're actually talking about some new stuff this weekend, specifically a new planet.
Matt Martin, Lucasfilm Senior Creative Executive: Yeah. It's actually a new moon, Toshara, that we've crafted together with Lucasfilm games and it's really exciting. It's inspired by East African savannas. We took this approach where you would have a thriving bustling underworld and capital city, but also these wide open plains that you could just hop in your speeder and take off down.
Can you tell us a little bit about the speeder because I feel like it looks like a swoop. Is it a swoop?
Julian Gerighty, Creative Director: It isn't a swoop. It's a speeder and we created it because of moons like Toshara. There isn't just this bustling city in Toshara's gate...there's all this wilderness outside. This is where the player and Kay, driven by their objectives, can be distracted by their curiosity and explore. Those distances are fairly vast, so to make them fun and
If you were worried that Star Wars Outlaws was going to end up being an infinite Ubisoft timesink ala Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, the developers at Massive Entertainment want to put you at ease, noting that the experience will be «very manageable».
Ubisoft knows its way around compelling open worlds, but Star Wars Outlaws is shaping up to be one of its biggest and most densely detailed yet. As previously announced, each planet in the release will be fully explorable, with enough open space to give you a meaningful sense of adventure. And the French publisher is handcrafting every one: there’s no procedural generation.
Ever wondered what kind of nightmarish, extraterrestrial smoothy you could whip up with the disgusting liquids that barbarian Luke Skywalker was always chugging down? It might not actually taste that bad; as dedicated fans well know, George Lucas had a bad habit of making things sound worse than they actually are (see "Jizz" as an example of this, the specific kind of space-jazz employed by the Max Rebo band).
In some circles of videogameland it's common wisdom that more is better—I remember a quaint time when 30 hours was a «long» game, but today's big budget releases have been pushing that boundary well into the triple digits. In a recent interview with IGN, though, two Star Wars Outlaws devs promise to buck that trend with a «dense» and «rich» game that doesn't wear out its welcome.
In a recent interview, developers at Massive outlined the size and scope of Star Wars Outlaws stating that the title is «not a 200 or 300-hour epic unfinishable RPG.»
While Ubisoft’s last few releases have been more miss than hit, the future is slightly better, thanks to titles like Star Wars Outlaws. Developed by Ubisoft Massive of The Division fame, it’s an open-world third-person shooter starring Kay Vess, who pursues the scoundrel lifestyle across numerous planets.
Despite its open world, Star Wars Outlaws won't be a «300 hour epic unfinishable RPG». Phew.
If you’re a fan of the Star Wars franchise, then you might understand that there is a dark underbelly in the galaxy. Most might instantly think of the Jedi and Sith as being the focal point. But those that are not Force-sensitive have other areas to worry about. We know that there are a few criminal syndicates that thrive in this galaxy, with the Hutt Clan being one of the more notoriously known. However, if you dig deeper into the franchise, you might come across other notable crime syndicates citizens are fighting back against or aligning with. You’ll find that these criminal syndicates will play a big role in Star Wars Outlaws.
Coming up with a Star Wars game is harder than you might imagine. There’s a lot to be mindful of regarding keeping things canon. You certainly don’t want to write against what a movie, film, novel, or comic book has already established. So we imagine the efforts to deliver the Star Wars Outlaws game were challenging and rewarding for the team. Fortunately, we can go into this game knowing that the developers took quite a bit of time ensuring that it remains authentic to the franchise.
One of the reasons that Star Wars Outlaws intrigued gamers from the moment it was revealed was that, on the surface, it looked like no other game set in the galaxy far, far away that we had seen before. Primarily, games from this galaxy focus on the Jedi/Sith or are based on the movies that have come out. Oh, or are LEGO versions of those films. Just saying. This game from Ubisoft is in a much different position because it focuses on the smuggler Kay Vess, who is trying to obtain her freedom and start a new life for herself.
Since the last three Assassin's Creed games are gigantic RPGs with equally as expansive maps, there's understandable anxiety when Ubisoft announces a new RPG--will it be an unfathomable time sink of hundreds of hours? With Star Wars Outlaws, Ubisoft says no.
Ubisoft has addressed some worries about Star Wars Outlaws’ playtime.