After more than four years in the making, French video game designer Ubisoft released on Friday its much-anticipated “Star Wars Outlaws,” an immersive spinoff from the famed saga.
The group’s first foray into the universe created by George Lucas, “Outlaws,” is an open-world adventure featuring Kay Vess, a young outlaw who travels the galaxy far away to pull off the heist of the century.
The game crafted by Sweden-based Massive Entertainment allows players to explore cities and space stations in a fictional planet truthful to the sci-fi epic.
While “Outlaws” is not the first Star Wars-themed game, the studio’s creative director Julian Gerighty says his teams managed to design dense cities and ultra-realistic vessels thanks to the advent of state-of-the-art, powerful consoles.
“Outlaws” is the product of a partnership struck with the company LucasFilms, the video game branch of the Disney-owned franchise.
Its creators were granted access to the entertainment giant’s “exclusive library with all the details and design documents” of Star Wars – the key to rendering an authentic atmosphere.
An Odyssey Without Jedis
However, fans should not expect Jedis – members of the saga’s mystical knightly order. Rather, “Outlaws” brings the galaxy’s underworld into the spotlight.
The world features iconic characters and legendary locations, with planet Tatooine, where original hero Luke Skywalker was born, as its setting.
Some of the adventure’s protagonists could appear in other productions, he added, as Disney has scaled up spinoffs from the franchise in recent years.
“Outlaws” will be the first Star Wars game to be developed by a publisher other than Electronic Arts (EA), since an exclusivity contract between the brand and Disney ended in 2021.
Some gamers who were granted early access reported a few bugs, which the creators have pledged to fix.
‘A Plethora of Adaptations’
SINCE 2013, EA has rolled out a number of titles, from shooting multiplayer “Star Wars Battlefront” to laser saber combat “Jedi: Fallen Order” and “Jedi Survivor.”
“These games have been key successes,” said Mat Piscatella, an analyst for the industry-tracking firm Circana, who says Disney terminated its deal with EA to “maximise” revenue from the franchise.
The latest Star Wars video games have all ranked among the top 10 best-sellers in the US, according to Piscatella’s figures – the likely trajectory for “Outlaws.”
“As an entrepreneur and an artist, George Lucas has always been interested in gaming,” which explains the “insane range” of games in the early 2000s, when the second trilogy came out, said Claudel.
“It’s a lot of pressure on the creators,” he added, pointing out that fans with high standards dissect every fresh release.
Once the “Outlaws” frenzy dies down, connoisseurs will shift their attention to “Star Wars Eclipse,” a space epic by French studios Quantic Dream, who have yet to announce a release date.
With AFP
