In the middle of Sydney’s bustling city centre, above the Microsoft Experience Store, Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have brought a chunk of the Star Wars galaxy to Australia. Quest Daily was invited to listen to the developers speak about the upcoming Star Wars Outlaws, their inspirations and hopes for the release – and to play a demo build of Star Wars Outlaws for ourselves ahead of the 30th August release date.
You Like Me Because I’m a Scoundrel
Star Wars Outlaws follows Kay Vess, an all-new scoundrel character in the Star Wars universe. Unlike Star Wars Jedi Survivor last year, Kay is no burgeoning Jedi on the run from the Empire. Kay is far closer to a Han Solo or Lando Calrissian in her skills and place in the world. This means the game is built around stealth, gunplay, and strategic thinking; you’re far more likely to be laying traps for stormtroopers than charging headlong into a battle with a rancor.
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Throughout the game of Star Wars Outlaws, you’ll make your way across a number of open-world planets, all the while juggling relationships with the different criminal syndicates that call these worlds home. It’s a game about the people in the Star Wars universe, and how an everyday person can make their own way in a hostile galaxy.
Meeting the Massive team behind the game
Speaking at the event, Massive Entertainment’s Associate World Director, Chloé Hammoud, told journalists the studio spent a significant time looking over original Star Wars sketches and drawings from Ralph Mcquarrie. These early concepts of the Star Wars world and the retro-futurist designs inspired by 50s, 60s, and 70s technology laid the groundwork for the planets we’ll see in Outlaws.
Speaking about the above Ralph McQuarrie image, Chloe discussed how their ethos for making Star Wars feel correct is that it should be 80 percent familiar, 20 percent alien. So everyone knows what a desert looks like, rocks, a city, a blue sky. But when you look closer, you see two sun and a flying car. These are the elements that make Star Wars approachable but exciting at the same time.
Getting out into the open world of Star Wars Outlaws was a brilliant moment. I’ve never played a Star Wars game in an open world that lets you walk around a densely packed city overflowing with shopkeepers, cantinas and bounty hunters that look quite so convincing as they do here. Then to walk seamlessly into a wide open expanse, jump on your speeder and zoom into the sunset. It’s a whole new experience when you feel it for the first time, and stepping out onto a wide open plain really made me stop and pause.
Secrets of Toshara
The city I spent most of my time in is Mirogana, on the planet Toshara. This is a sprawling, densely packed city that winds through cantinas and outdoor spaces filled with musicians, shopkeepers and folk going about their day. Seeing stormtroopers and then walking through checking townsfolk’s IDs is pretty great. I did wish that I had the option to start fights in the city with the patrolling troopers, but unfortunately, you can’t draw your weapon in these moments.
As you move throughout the city you’ll likely find moments to eavesdrop and find out information on the various factions in the game. One such moment happened to me when I stopped at a roadside pitstop outside of Mirogana. I pulled my speeder over and wandered into the tavern, feeling like a wild west badass. I stopped at the bar and overheard two people talking about a haul they’d hidden nearby, of course it was behind a waterfall.
Following the map marker to the spot they’d indicated, I found a number of waterfalls cascading into a watering hole. Behind one of these, I found a stash of boxes and barrels, all opened and empty. A nearby note scolded the original smuggler for being so obvious as to hide it behind a waterfall, then giving the location of the actual cache.
The real cache was on a hilltop overlooking the valley below, and guarded by armed smugglers, who I managed to sneakily take out using a combo of stealth Nix attacks and my flying fists. But following this bread crumb trail in the open world gave me a reason to explore both on foot, climbing up rock faces and zooming across the open areas on my speeder.
Unlocking the World
The activities you take part in around the sneaking and thieving have been well-thought-out. The usual sci-fi stealth tropes are here – you’ll hack terminals, pick locks and sneak through heavily guarded areas. However, these activities have their distinct Star Wars theming.
Hacking is a cool mini-game where you need to place a certain number of icons in the correct order. Placing the wrong ones gives you a cross if they’re irrelevant, or a yellow outline if they’re the right symbol, but the wrong spot. And you have a certain amount of tries to get them right.
Similarly, lockpicking feels like the classic Star Wars droid rotating a lock mechanism. You have lights that blink in a rhythm, and you have to tap the trigger in line with the beat. Some of them are easy consistent beats, some of them are more staccato, meaning you need to learn the pattern to complete it.
“As Kay progresses in her scoundrel experinece, it will become more apparent that a scoundrel lives and dies by their reputation.”
Lead Concept Artist, Samuel De Vos — Massive Entertainment
There’s Always a Bigger Fish
Alongside Kay, you’ll spend the entire game with her sidekick, who is a Merqaal, a breed of intelligent quadrupedal creatures; Nix is undoubtedly going to be one of the most popular sections of the game. Lead Concept Artist for the game, Samuel De Vos, says Nix was inspired by a pangolin, an axolotl and a gecko. We saw a selection of the cosmetics that Nix will be able to collect throughout the game, mostly hats, small pieces of wrapping and a floral crown meant to invoke the Midsommar festival from Sweden, where much of the team is based.
When you’re running around the world, Nix is by your side hopping across rocks and market stalls – then clambering onto Kay’s back when she goes through doors or climbs outcroppings, ropes etc. Nix feels very similar to B-D1 from Star Wars Jedi Survivor in that respect, but his function both in and out of combat is much more robust than BD ever was. Samuel De Voss also highlighted smaller details in the Kay and Nix character models, such as scratches and scuffs on the left shoulder of Kay’s jacket where Nix clambers up when she calls him.
As you’re travelling throughout the world, you’ll see a little hand-drawn Nix symbol (which is based on a hand-drawing Kay has in her bedroom of her little buddy). When these symbols appear you can pull the left trigger to send Nix out to do something context-sensitive. In my time these were most commonly to run off and collect an item lying on a bench, open a door remotely, even flip a power grid, or deactivate an alarm in an imperial base to halt reinforcements.
Sneaky, sneaky
Speaking of stealth, a number of times in my demo I was able to put Star Wars Outlaw’s stealth mechanics to the test. Out in the open world it certainly feels akin to other Ubisoft stealth outings like Assassin’s Creed.
You’ll spend time in tall grasses, popping out and clobbering guards over the head. Nix is also able to distract guards by leaping onto their heads while Kay sneaks up to finish them off.
No Hard Feelings, It’s Just Business
Throughout the game, you’ll come across five different criminal syndicates that Kay can work with, or against. The main ones in our demo were the Hutt Cartels, the Pyke Syndicate, the Crimson Dawn and the Ashiga Clan. All of these groups have been present in Star Wars previously, except for the Ashiga Clan who are a brand new introduction by Massic Entertainment.
At the event, Chloe Hammoud spoke at length about the inspirations for Star Wars as a whole, but then specifically for this game. She made strong connections to Samurai and Western cinema as inspirations for the original trilogy of films, but then also spoke about more pirate bloodlines that flow through scenes like Jabba’s floating barge and walking the plank over the Sarrlac pit. As a smuggler, scoundrel and morally grey protagonist, Kay often has the opportunity to play different parties against one another, or use her reputation with the different groups to her advantage.
Reputations
In our demo, we saw that having a good reputation with one of the groups can be very beneficial, even if you want to double cross them. An early quest needed us to steal an Ion Blaster part from either the Pyke Syndicate or the Crimson Dawn. For either of them, you can sneak and stealth your way into their compound within Mirrogana city, hacking terminals and hiding from patrolling guards. If you’re in negative reputation with these groups, the guards won’t let you past the front door; the more negative reputation you have, the worse it is for Kay Vess.
However, if you’re friendly with the group, their guards will let you waltz right through the front door and into their most protected areas, where you can help yourself to the things you need to steal.
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The newly created Ashiga Clan draws heavily from the Samurai inspirations of Star Wars. Specifically in their clothing and traditional feel. Samuel De Vos also spoke about how their design is built around the fact that the Melitto aliens that make up the bulk of their faction are totally blind. So infiltrating their camp can be quite a challenge, and also highlights how an alien race could function in the galaxy without a sense of sight.
“When we made Toshara, we wanted it to be a place of high risk, high rewards that really evoke the thrill of treasure hunting.”
Associate World Director, Chloé Hammoud — Massive Entertainment
The build I played was just an hour and a half of the full game, with only one planet. But already the opportunities for exploration and stories within a fully-realised Star Wars world is incredible.
Keep an eye out for our review when the game launches in a few short weeks.
Check out some snaps from the event below:
