Star Wars Outlaws

Color me intrigued.

Calling this the "first Star Wars open world game" is a bit of a dubious claim, in a world with stuff like Jedi Survivor, KOTOR I and II (as well as The Old Republic), LEGO Skywalker Saga, and Galaxies... but I can understand that this may be a bit of a different definition of just how open the world is.

Of course it's impossible to tell what this game has in store at the time being, I can't shake the feeling that this might've been built on the bones of the Beyond Good and Evil project. A massive, galaxy-spanning open world game? Introduced with a stylized CGI chase (ok, maybe that doesn't really narrow it down for a Ubi game)? Focus on scum and villainy, instead of the Empire v Rebels?

I could be wrong, the vibes of the two games just seem very similar so far. We may have a better idea once we get gameplay. And even if it is, that's not necessarily a bad thing. BGE2 looked really promising, and maybe the Star Wars license was the thing needed to reignite passion and interest into the project.

 

Ubi Forward's gameplay showcase was a lot more revealing than I expected of this, today. Here's my takeaway:

- Overall, I feel generally really positive toward the gameplay we've seen.

- The size of the map feels appropriate, or at least what little we've seen of it.

- The art style is... a bit odd. Locations and aliens tend to look like they've feel at home in Jedi Survivor but humans appear just slightly cartooney. It's not a dealbreaker by any means, and maybe I am just finding it a bit jarring coming off Jedi Survivor. I'm certainly not suggesting all games should be photo-realistic (I think photorealism is actually the bane of modern gaming right now), but it just feels a bit odd how it appears slightly animated, but not really particularly stylized.

- The core cast of characters looks cool, but I really wish this came with a character creator. I just want to create a little Rodian or Mon Calamari to save the galaxy with.

- The speeder chase looked fun!

- The ground to space transition, while not entirely seamless, is pretty impressive. Fallen Order and Survivor do an excellent job with the Mantis, but this seems even a step further.

- That being said, it felt a bit odd how underwhelming the dogfight was. This was Ubi's chance to show off what the game could do! Why showcase such a tepid moment like this? I couldn't even tell that it was a TIE fighter that was shot down.

- In fact, gameplay in general looked... serviceable. I'm so excited for the open world, but gameplay itself doesn't look quite as exciting as I might've wanted. I'm actually very glad that it appears we're not getting some videogamey BS flashy powerups (looking at Assassin's Creed Jade, also showcased at this conference), but hopefully the gunplay and dogfights get a little more exciting than what we see here.


Overall, I'm very excited for this, albeit cautiously. Let alone that Ubisoft, let alone the gaming industry in general, have been a bit dishonest in their marketing as of late, it's entirely possible that this thing never sees the light of day anyway. Just ask Skull & Bones (a game announced when I was at Ubi's conference six years ago, and got only a Sea Shanty for an update this year), the KOTOR remake, or Star Wars 1313. I hope upon hope that when all is said and done, Star Wars Outlaws releases on time and well made (with no crunch on the team's part) next year, and becomes an instant classic.


Now... as to whether or not this built in the ruins of BGE2? I think it's possible. Stuff like the ship and bike look similar, and the combat/third person controls seem like they could be related. From what little we've seen of either game, BGE2 gives me the impression that it was a lot more ambitious than Outlaws, but perhaps this game realized (wisely) that you hit a sense of diminishing returns pretty quickly when working with massive scale (it doesn't matter if No Man's Sky would've had 90 planets or the 18 Quintillion it ended up with, I'm still only gonna visit a handful) and instead opted for something a bit more focused.

 

Yeah, I don't think that's the case. If not only because the assets are in a totally different ballpark, but also because this game doesn't look much like the Uncharted-inspired platformer that would've been 1313.

Yeah, while it's not uncommon for technical issues to be ironed out, or for much of a game's main content to not be ready yet at this point, a total change in art style is far less common. I'd agree, that bun is baking and the yeast is starting to rise. Which, as I said, hardly a dealbreaker, just kinda irksome. At least it's more "modern AC cartoonish" as opposed to something like Immortals Phoenix Rising.

I was wondering about that pet actually (agreed it's cute).
Is this something that existed already in cannon? Is it some sort of variety of loth cat? (did Kit Fisto get freaky on Lothal?)? It's interesting how it's so familiar looking, but not quite what we've come to know.

I agree with that. While I occasionally enjoyed Survivor's platforming, it was way overused, and in ways that often felt more tedious than creative. I'd say that I largely enjoyed Survivor in spite of its platforming, rather than because of it.

Yes, that's a big thing I hadn't mentioned yet, but I absolutely agree. When I first heard Ubi was doing a big open world game in the SW universe, my first thought was that I hoped it wasn't a Jedi thing. This was the right move.

Though I wouldn't mind some non-lightsaber melee weapons.

And hey, Ubi, if you're listening... you could always sell microtransactions for lightsaber skins for the melee weapons, if that's incentive enough to introduce a melee system...

 

This is the open world game that Ubisoft has been developing. We've known about its existence for some time, but no details until this weekend.

There were some other open world games that had been tossed around from time to time. One big standout is the open world game that Uncharted director Amy Hennig was working on, but that got cancelled a few years ago. This is not that game.

 

Ahhhh, that's why they look so familiar.

Thank you, idk how I didn't see it before!