Star Wars Outlaws Was Inspired By Mass Effect 2’s Story And Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s Map

Ubisoft will debut two large-scale and highly-anticipated games in the second half of 2024: Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The former has the unwavering attention of open-world gamers and Star Wars fans alike, due to its scale, world-building, and ability to nail the landing better than Bethesda’s Starfield.

Outlaws presents protagonist, Kay Vess, who is said to be more relatable as a “scrappy street thief” and less of a fully developed scoundrel like Han Solo. Her campaign across the galaxy far, far away promises rich exploration and high-octane battle sequences living up to the franchise’s tradition, and the game’s narrative director recently shared the pop culture influences that inspired Outlaws story, map, and more.

Star Wars Outlaws Team Dived Into Cinema And Games For Inspiration

In an interview with IGN, Massive Entertainment creative director, Julian Gerighty, director of franchise content and strategy at Lucasfilm, Steve Blank, game director Mathias Karlson, and narrative director, Navid Khavari, spoke at length about Outlaws, the story and exploration of this universe, and the projects that provided inspiration.

Khavari explained the team had a “really clear approach on Outlaws” regarding integrating Kay’s journey with the wider Star Wars narrative and planning for players to go “off the beaten path”. Massive used the “three-second rule” to world build, designing a location or character to be understood within a few blinks of the eye. “Before you even put life in them, they need to visually tell a story about what kind of place it is, what’s happened in the past, what type of life and events have taken place in them so that they get that lived-in feeling,” Karlson added.

When discussing Outlaws plot, highlighting Kay looking for a team to perform a huge space heist and her plight to remove the Zerek Besh crime syndicate’s “death mark” over her head, Khavari named a popular science-fiction game as inspiration, saying “I love Mass Effect 2. It’s one of my favorite games. There were so many influences.” Khavai also named another Ubisoft title that particularly influenced Outlaws’ map, saying “Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which was one of the games that we were looking at while creating this, you have different zones on the map, [Toshara is] two or three of those put together.” Toshara is a brand-new moon to be explored and said to be a little smaller than Tatooine.

The narrative director also called out a handful of movies that influenced Outlaws’ story, including iconic Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa, known for his samurai films and for inspiring George Lucas’ original Star Wars trilogy. “I think you look at everything from Ocean’s 11 and Ocean’s 8 to Star Wars itself. The previous films and that heist feeling was always kind of in the fabric,” Khavari explained.

Finally, in relation to writing a story within an open-world setting, Khavari, who previously worked on the Far Cry games and The Division, said “It’s one of the things you always have to keep in mind. How are we going to weave a narrative and an open world together, so that we’re telling the story, but also giving you the freedom to go wherever you’d like?”

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

Star Wars Outlaws’ creative director explains how the team established the game’s scope.