Ubisoft Massive talks us through Star Wars: Outlaws' "unique" open-world
"That is definitely Han Solo."
Ubisoft gave us a proper look at Star Wars: Outlaws at its big Ubisoft Forward conference today, showing its latest wise-cracking scoundrel Kay Vess in action. But we've also had a bit of extra time with it behind closed doors out in Los Angeles this week, where we saw the new extended walkthrough of a mission ahead of time and spoke with Navid Khavari, Outlaws' narrative director, and game director Mathias Karlson, who talked us through it in a bit more detail.
As you've likely already seen, Outlaws is an "open-world, single-player action adventure game" set in the year between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi - specifically in the aftermath of the battle for Hoth. The basic setup, we're told, is Kay comes out on the bad side of a job gone wrong, and has to worm her way out of trouble through grinding credits for the gangs of the underworld and attempting to pull off "one of the greatest heists the galaxy has ever seen."
That setup is a little familiar. Between Rogue One, Solo, and now Andor there have been a few stories about heists and scoundrels and criminal underworlds in Disney's world of Star Wars, but most of all it's a remarkably similar setup to that of Project Ragtag, the game Amy Hennig was working on for EA's Visceral, before it was infamously cancelled in 2017.
According to Khavari, that's pure coincidence. When asked if that was something Lucasfilm Games or Disney were specifically after, he said quite simply, "No - definitely not."
"It was really, when we landed on that scoundrel fantasy, and then when we talked to them about that era, it was really just about seeing that - especially Massive, as 'experts of open world', this is the bread and butter. This is building world stories, having a hero's journey, and a protagonist navigating through that open world. Lucasfilm was so excited to jump in and talk about it from that angle."
It's that open world fantasy - and in particular the type of fluid transitions we saw with them demo - that Khavari says is what got Lucasfilm hooked on the idea. As he put it, "being able to tell the story of an emerging scoundrel through the spectrum of an open world, being able to go to a cantina to hang out with Imperials and criminal syndicates, being able to venture out into the open world and get onto your speeder and get into chases, do jumps all that stuff, and then hop into your spaceship with ND-5 and blast into the galaxy, hit hyperspace whenever you want. That's the kind of thing where they were so excited to work with us."
Fluid transitions were the running theme from the walkthrough, which opened with a classic Naughty Dog-style seamless switch from cutscene - featuring Nix, Kay's pet-slash-friend, stealing a kind of space avocado from a table - into Kay clonking a guard over the head to knock him out. From here we stealth around the sides of a hanger to find a few more guards, and send Nix to quietly push a button activating a nearby crane. That sets a big crate moving over the hangar, which we can quietly climb onto to progress out of sight. Then we get discovered and it's into some gunplay.
Kay has a blaster with a few settings, which we briefly see in action here - one is used to stun a guard with a shield - while Nix can be sent scampering off again to pick up a heavier weapon any enemy's dropped during battle, for Kay to briefly use before dropping. Then it's straight outside to the exterior of Joshana, a new planet (and the "first ever" savannah-inspired one in Star Wars, we're told) for a speeder chase featuring some mounted combat with some grunts (speeders here are "heavily inspired by motocross" we're told, with you able to perform slides and jumps). And finally we arrive at a small settlement, Jaunta's Hope, to deliver the payload to a nice and sleazy crime boss in the basement of a cantina, after a quick cutscene to chat with Outlaws' all-new droid, the aggressively cool-looking ND-5, complete with duster jacket and frowny eyes.
Next to them, however, is a mysterious Imperial officer who demands a cut, and we're given a choice: "Bribe; do not bribe", opting for the latter. The Imperial's annoyed, we leave with our cash, and bam: a big, dramatic WANTED sign is flashed on screen. There's a quick sprint to our nearby ship, where ND-5 is waiting for us, and then probably the most impressive part of the demo: a seamless, No Man's Sky-style transition as we take off and fly up through the atmosphere and directly into space.
"I think we always wanted to make that range of experience, and gameplay, but also: scale." Karlson said, when I asked if No Man's Sky was a specific inspiration there. The goal was to make that experience "as seamless as possible - as you saw in the gameplay walkthrough, being able to show that now and fulfil that promise is super exciting."
Curiously, Ubisoft has pitched Outlaws as the "first open-world Star Wars" game - despite EA's open-world Star Wars Jedi: Survivor arriving just the other month. Putting that to Khavari and Karlson, the latter said it was really about a specific type of open world, which gives you the "full freedom, to engage with the full range of what that means. Putting in one single game, literally sitting in a chair at the bar in cantina, maybe you pick up a contract; leaving the city on foot; jumping on your speeder bike; driving through open landscapes, maybe getting distracted on the way to your ship; taking off into space and exploring that; maybe to hyper space or different locations to fulfil that contract. That's what makes it so unique. Not just as a Star Wars game, but as an open world experience."
Our presentation drove home the idea that Star Wars: Outlaws is aiming to hit three main goals: cities, which will be "dense" and "living" with "lots of activities". Then "vast, mysterious, stunning open environments" like Joshana's savannah, and a few other planets we very briefly saw with icy habitats (and one that was almost certainly Tatooine). And finally space, which represents "a very lucrative but risky opportunity."
As we arrive in space - Toshara Orbit, in the Toshaal System, a new Star Wars location - it's straight into a dogfight with Tie Fighters among floating orbital debris, and the from there into hyperspace, brought up with the D-pad, and a montage of new locations again: Akiva Orbit in the Akiva system, surely the home of a new antagonist faction called the Ashiga Clan.
We saw some flashes of other locations - some densely detailed cities complete with neon signs and shady alleyways, for instance - but beyond that, developer Massive was circumspect on the details. Will Outlaws be completely free of loading screens, for instance, as our demo suggested? "Our ambition is very clearly: make it as seamless an experience as possible," said Karlson.
Will there be any typical Ubisoft-isms in it? Any gear score or RPG elements, given Massive's background with looter-shooter The Division?
"A journey of growth, is I think a narrative theme as well as a gameplay thing," Karlson told us. "So, you'll be experience this world together with Kay and Nix - it's a first-time experience both of you, in harmony right? And improving your ship and your speeder, and getting better at doing things - and like, growth in that sense of experience."
"I think open-world has many approaches with different pros and cons, and it's all down to one type of experience we're making - I think we really want to tell a strong story, about a strong character experiencing this world for you as a player at the same time. And those first-time steps that you take, on foot, with speeder and ship."
Will it be a fully, one hundred percent single-player game? "We're super focused on delivering a single-player experience."
And what about those flashes of character on screen in the trailer - is that Han Solo on carbonite? Was that Jabba the Hutt on Tatooine? "That is definitely Han Solo on carbonite," Khavari said, and "that is Jabba the Hutt… we have a lot of amazing characters."