Star Wars: Outlaws by Ubisoft Officially Announced!

Those of you that keep up to date with Star Wars videogame news in general may have been waiting for news about this “Game from the developers of Tom Clancy’s The Division” (Massive Entertainment) for some time now, but in an exciting premiere trailer on June 11th, we learned this game may not quite be “The Division in Space” at all!

What we Know so Far

The showcases are still in the process of coming out, so news is a little scarce for the moment, but here’s what we’ve been able to gather. The game is in fact being made by Massive Entertainment, who has made The Division 1 and 2, and is working alongside Lucasfilm Games.

Story

The story seems to be following a Scoundrel character during the Original Trilogy Era of the timeline. We’re introduced to a character named Kay Vess who will be battling the Organized Crime Syndicates of the Outer Rim more-so than confronting the Empire – though judging by the trailer they’ll be present as an antagonistic force as always. Constantly on the run and with a bounty on her head, Kay is offered a chance to presumably score big in a heist that will allow her to finally settle down – if she can pull it off. The trailer shows some space combat against the Empire and if Kay has her own ship it’s likely implied there will be multiple locations in the star wars universe to explore – both new and old, as the below part of the video can attest! (The gameplay trailer calls this planet “Toshara”.)

Gameplay

Revealed at the Xbox Showcase, this Star Wars game appears to be an Action-Adventure Open World experience! Ubisoft Forward’s Showcase June 12th has just given us a sneak peek at the gameplay involved, watchable below!

Watch Video

Stealth

Stealth seems to be a prime focus of at least some of the gameplay beats for this game, as fits a scoundrel-character. While not actively engaging in combat and stealthing around restricted areas, players seem to have a few tools at their disposal to create distractions and continue unseen. Similar to the Division’s User Interface, this comes in the form of some deployable “tools” like having your pet, Nix, run around for you to do multiple things, from initiating combat, or pressing buttons, to simply distracting some guards.

Combat

Combat in Star Wars: Outlaws also seems to come with some Division inspiration – with different enemy types like this Syndicate enemy above using a shield. The blaster Kay carries has multiple different modes that can be switched on the fly (the focused mode here is used to disable the shield and open the enemy up to a melee attack) and you are able to take cover behind objects to stay safe. Similar to the Battlefront games, the blaster does not seem to have ammo requirements but simply has a gauge for heat levels, so you must space out your shots. A compass over the top of the UI will show you where hostiles are located, and destructible objects are present in the environment such as explosive canisters you can shoot when enemies are nearby. Nix also has some combat-usefulness in addition to his stealth commands – like retrieving an enemy’s rifle for you to use temporarily. Health seems to be divided into sections, where you can safely heal a section back by not taking damage for awhile.

In addition to this cover-based shooting, the game also appears to have speeder-combat, where you can be assailed by enemies in high-speed chases and slow down time to aim, lock-on, and automatically shoot back, similar to Red Dead Redemption’s “Dead Eye Targeting”.

Exploration

From what it looks like, there will be some minor platforming like clambering onto crates and rappelling down ropes with a single button press but nothing as exciting (or as stressful) as the Force-Enabled acrobatics of Cal Kestis in the recent Jedi Survivor games.

Also unlike Jedi Survivor, there seems to be a more hands-on implementation of Vehicles here, as Kay gets direct control of speeders and ships to move around planets and the galaxy – both with their own ways to handle combat as well as exploration.

Interesting to see in a combat scenario that the “hyperdrive button” is available at any time! Very curious to see if that can cause any unexpected problems doing it in debris-filled / obstructed areas.

Story Choices and Crafting?

There seems to be some mid-cutscene choices to be made as shown by the gameplay trailer as well! How much this impacts the overall story is currently still a mystery but this could be evidence that this is a pretty Story-Driven Star Wars game with some possible branching paths or even different endings.

I only caught this in a SPLIT SECOND frame as the person controlling Kay in this trailer sped from the landing ramp of the ship to the helm – but briefly there was a prompt to interact with a workbench! This could mean the game has some involved crafting or it may just be a station to apply some cosmetics similar to Jedi Survivor. Either way it looks like Star Wars: Outlaws has a lot of the standard features for an Action-Adventure title already implemented and in the works!

Thanks Zahk for writing up this overview of what we’ve seen of Star Wars: Outlaws so far! The trailer has definitely sparked many Star Wars and SWTOR fans’ imaginations. – Swtorista