Star Wars Outlaws Dev Discusses the Game’s Scope and Staying Within the Star Wars Universe

It was an exciting day for Star Wars fans at the Ubisoft Forward event this week. Not only did we see more action from its main character Kay Vess as she rode and shot her way across various environments, but we also saw how the studio developed an immersive, hidden loading screen as she docked her ship on the planet Tatooine. This, obviously, divided Starfield fans, who have been asking for something similar for quite some time.

Creating such immersion, but also clarity, isn’t an easy feat when dealing with such a huge franchise as Outlaws, but the team over at Massive Entertainment set out to create a Star Wars universe fans would enjoy by getting the game’s tone spot on.

Creating A Family-Friendly Star Wars Game

Speaking to Game Rant this week, Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty discussed how they were able to incorporate an open-world Star Wars game and yet, without a Jedi or lightsaber in sight. Wanting to stay within the realms of the “this is an outlaw story, not a Jedi story,” Gerighty said that instead of focusing on stories and ideas we already knew about the Star Wars universe, being able to be completely creative with Kay’s background gave them freedom.

“It happened organically because we chose that this is going to be an outlaw story. This is not about Jedi, it’s not about the Empire, it’s not about the rebels. It’s an outlaw story, and from that point on, it really allows you to be extremely creative within a framework. Very early on, I would say maybe by day two, we knew that that’s the direction we wanted to go in.”

Talking about the scope of the game in regards to having so much going on at once, like towns, stores and space battles, Gerighty said that he wanted the universe to be as seamless as possible so that the player could jump from one environment to the other without anything getting in their way. “We want to be able to go from a city to the wilderness, to space, to orbit, discovery, combat, all of those things. Genuinely day one. Then you have to do the hard work on how to solve that. How do we make everything compelling? How do we make the seamless nature of everything?”

Discussing the balance between gameplay mechanics while also implementing the importance of Outlaws being a Star Wars title, Gerighty said they “wanted to do a throwback to the Original Trilogy, of matinee action inspired by Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon and the big movies of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Jurassic Park and Pirates of the Caribbean are big family-friendly movies that are not dark in tone, but they can be scary.”.

He also wanted to make sure that blood sprays from battles weren’t included in the game to make it as family-friendly as possible, but was aware that sooner or later, someone would likely “pitch a super mature Star Wars game and it’ll get made.”

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Star Wars Outlaws’ Kay Vess Isn’t A “Fully Developed Scoundrel” Like Han Solo

Star Wars Outlaws’ creative director Julian Gerighty gives a nod to the “great scoundrels of cinema” while discussing Kay Vess.