HomeNewsStar Wars Outlaws
Star Wars Outlaws gangs will send hit squads after you if you upset themVery sensitive people, criminals
Very sensitive people, criminals
Image credit:Massive Entertainment
Image credit:Massive Entertainment
The open world action gameStar Wars Outlawsis coming out next month and developer Massive Entertainment have already shown off some of the speeder biking and laser-trading invarious trailers. But recently they’ve spoken a little more about the player’s scummy travels across the galaxy, including how big some of the explorable planets will be, and what happens when you piss off the Hutts. In short, you’re going to have a price on your head. Makes sense.
“Your reputation moving in the positive direction unlocks a lot of things for you,” says Mathias Karlson, game director at Masssive,telling IGNall about the various factions in the game. Cosying up to the Hutts, Pykes, Ashiga Clan, and Crimson Dawn will let you enter certain zones without being treated as hostile, for example, or it could unlock landing pads in new places. It might also get you discounts with the more rogueish traders, leading to some “exotic rewards”.
“But if you really get on their bad side, that’s another thing that you’ll feel dynamically in the game because they actually send hit squads out for you in the open world to try and take you out.”
Sounds like some of that emergent gameplay I’ve heard so much about. But it goes the other way too, with good reputation sometimes causing momentary allies during a fight, says Karlson.
That sounds familiar. The Division series (Massive’s previous work) often sees different factions getting into small gunfights with one another, andFar Cry’s warring freedom fighters often get into scrapes with the enemy when you’re around. But neither is fully tied to a reputation system. The hit squads sound interesting too, but again this may remindsome folk of the mercenaries that would hunt you down inAssassin’s Creed Odyssey, for example. Don’t get me wrong, open world Star Wars sounds cool. But this is an Ubisoft game after all, and they arenot ones to stray from a formula.
“[It] doesn’t sound like a lot,” says Julian Gerighty, creative director at Massive, “but once you’re committed it’s a fairly large amount and you are always going to be distracted.”
Some of that distraction might come in the form of geographical easter eggs, scenery and locales that fans are probably keen to go an visit.
“We can lean into the virtual tourism aspect of, ‘Hey, what is the distance between the moisture farms and Mos Eisley and the cantina?” says Gerighty. “There is a linear roller coaster story, a golden path, if you will. And around that, of course, there’s the open world.
“There’s a very structured intro that leads you to crash land on Toshara, which is a moon that we created with LucasFilm Games,” he says. “And once you finish the sort of linear narrative on Toshara, the other planets open up and it becomes completely non-linear and you can choose to tackle those [worlds] in any order you want.”
