Star Wars Outlaws might be the franchise's first go at a bonafide open-world game, but it's certainly not Massive Entertainment's first rodeo. With games like Tom Clancy's The Division and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora under its belt, creating massive lived-in worlds that are fun to explore seems to come naturally. Applying these skills to a Star Wars game does present a few new challenges, however, especially when it comes to the game's tone, narrative, and Star Wars authenticity.
In an interview with The Best War Games, Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty spoke about the team's approach to an open-world Star Wars game that's not about the Jedi or the Empire, but about a petty thief trying to survive in the galaxy's underworld. He also spoke about how the team established the game's scope, why Massive went with a more family-friendly tone, and how it worked with Lucasfilm to ensure that everything was true to the Star Wars universe. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Nvidia Releases Star Wars Outlaws DLSS 3.5 Gameplay
Star Wars Outlaws already looks like a visually stunning game. But Nvidia just amped things up even more!
Creating an Open-World Game That Feels Like Star Wars
Q: There are Star Wars fans, but there are also those who are fans of the rest of your work. How did you approach designing a game that might appeal to fans of Massive’s other games?
Gerighty: I don't think we were thinking like that, necessarily. When we embarked on this journey, we had finished The Division 2 and then, after some time, we had just delivered the blueprint for Warlords of New York. Then, we got the opportunity to go and pitch to Lucasfilm Games. I’m a big fan of Star Wars and it's a childhood dream, and we were like, “Yes, let's go!”
Then we started thinking about, “But what fits?” What can we do that fits our previous experience and talents, but where we can stretch ourselves in places where we haven't exercised those muscles before?” Very quickly, we decided it would be an open world. That’s something that we wanted to do that we want to push toward, but we're going to add vehicles, we're going to have flying.
We've done a very complex narrative on The Division and The Division 2 because everything is nonlinear and co-op focused. This is an opportunity to tell a really compelling story with authored characters, so let’s invest time, money, and resources into the production pipeline to get that done, too. It was a mixture of what fits what we wanted to do—which very early on was open-world and a scoundrel archetype—and what we were experienced with. We needed a change of pace as well. We didn't want to do just a reskin of The Division’s style. We wanted a bigger challenge than that. I think we stay fresh by challenging ourselves.
Q: Were there any rules you set for yourselves regarding things you did or didn’t want to do with the game, such as not having lightsabers?
Gerighty: 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.
Q: How much of a hand did Lucasfilm have throughout Outlaws’ development?
Gerighty: Everything’s consulted with them. They give an enormous amount of freedom, but they're extremely focused on the authenticity of Star Wars. It's the best of both worlds. We went there with, “We're an open-world team. We love creating worlds, we love creating detailed locations and visuals and atmosphere, but we want to tell a scoundrel story.” They proposed the Original Trilogy timeline, and we were like “Yes!”
Everything is done through them and, to be honest, you think you know Star Wars? You don't know Star Wars. When you start working on it, and you start learning the design principles and the simplicity that goes into it, I think the whole team has leveled up. No matter what we tackle next, we've really gotten better at our craft, at designing worlds, designing objects, blasters, ships, and speeders. All of those things that are instrumental to Star Wars—not just Outlaws, but as a whole—those things we've gotten so, so good at doing.
Q: As a Star Wars fan yourself, was there something in particular that the kid in you would have been amazed that you got access to?
Gerighty: Are you kidding me? We got the chance to create a blaster for a real iconic hero! A speeder, a spaceship, the creature Nix, all of those things are just so cool! Then we spent hours looking at archives of storyboards from the original movies, and those are just magnificent as well.
Q: How do you strike a balance between gameplay mechanics and the “rules” of Star Wars’ universe, for example, things like blasters?
Gerighty: Again, there's a lot of freedom there. Very early on, we agreed with Lucasfilm—and this is more something they suggested and it just made sense to us—that, tonally, this isn't a “dark” Star Wars. We could have gone with dark Star Wars. There's no rule saying you can't do mature Star Wars, but what we wanted to do is 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.
I showed Jurassic Park to my daughter when she was four, and she's still traumatized. That's the type of thing that we wanted to do. We didn't want to make it gritty and bloody. Just by that decision, you can do a lot of gunfights where you're going to leave a pile of bodies, but it's not gratuitous. There are no sprays of blood or anything like that. That wasn't at all what we wanted it to do, but I'm sure somebody will pitch a super mature Star Wars game and it'll get made.
Q: As you were making the game and before anyone knew it existed, did you look at how Star Wars evolved as you were working on it with all the new media? Did certain things inspire you or guide the game’s direction?
Gerighty: That's a great question. I think the biggest inspiration outside of the core trilogy was the technology and the approach in art direction and production design of Rogue One. Rogue One takes the 70s aesthetic with the 80s aesthetic from the second and third movies and updates it with today's technology.
For us, we wondered, “How did they manage to get that retro feel but very fresh at the same time?” It led to the creation of the lens project, a lens within Snowdrop that we can apply to the image that gives it this cinematic feel. You saw it's presented in ultrawide screen, and that's on by default. There’s vignetting, there's lens breathing, there's chromatic aberration, there are lens flares, all of these things are built into this lens which is designed to feel like a lens from the 70s but with today's technology. I think Rogue One is the biggest inspiration.
Massive Entertainment's Approach to Star Wars Outlaws' Characters and Scope
Q: Can you talk about your approach to Nix and how he factors into things like combat or stealth?
Gerighty: The core initial idea was “How do we give Kay extra-human reach, but not superpowers? A long third arm that can distract, attack, set off smoke bombs, and grab a weapon?” Very quickly we went, “Okay, what if it was a companion?”
Then the soft values came in: the cuteness, the fierceness, the look and feel, everything that makes him adorable and more than just a gameplay mechanic. But it always starts with, “How do we give players more control over the situation? The battlefield? The location?”
Q: As you’re creating these characters, do you ever think about how they might potentially end up in Disneyland?
Gerighty: I'm not going to lie, it never crosses my mind. I love video games so much, this is what I want to do, so it doesn't matter to me. It's super personal. It would be great if my mom could experience it in media that she experiences, but it's not my focus. I just love video games. This is—I'm not going to say the highest art form—but this is the form of expression that I've absolutely chosen.
I have to remind myself constantly that I'm making a Star Wars game and that's fantastic! Sometimes you forget. Some weeks are tougher than others, but when we first found out and when we got to speak about it, I felt like this was the best job in the world.
Q: We saw three gameplay segments, and they were so diverse in terms of what they offered. Can you talk about how you approached the game’s scope as an open-world game such as having towns and shops but also spaceflight?
Gerighty: That was the core concept from the start. We wanted to make a scoundrel adventure, we wanted it to be open-world, and we wanted it to be seamless. 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 of how to solve that. How do we make everything compelling? How do we make the seamless nature of everything?
In terms of scope, we settled on what we wanted to do very quickly. That's the dark arts of production and video game production: we have a very large team of 600 people. It's not the biggest team in Ubisoft, but it's still a very large team spread across the world with our traditional partners and new partners like Bucharest, Paris, and Montpellier on cinematics and Toronto with the narrative director.
All together, we decided scope-wise it's going to be this number of planets, it's going to be this number of open worlds, and every planet is going to have an orbit around it to explore. There'll be a golden path with more linear missions and the core game is going to last 25–30 hours, but completion is 50–60. It's not like that huge Assassin's Creed 150-hour experience, so we knew that the scope had to be a little bit more controlled as well.
Q: Would you say that you hit everything you set out to do for this game?
Gerighty: This is a team that's worked together for 10 years, so we're very close to the initial pitch with where we are landing. I would be lying if I said I wouldn't want to push certain things more, but they weren't part of the original plan. The original plan, and more, is in the experience that we're going to ship. It's just you always want to add more, right? In live service games, you can do that. In games that are day one plus DLC, it’s a little bit tougher. Still possible, but a little bit tougher.
Q: Can you talk about how you approached telling a heist story in the Star Wars universe?
Gerighty: The thing that really stands out and that I love is that this is a character who falls into this adventure. It's not planned out from the start and it's just one bad decision after another that leads them into reckless moments. It's much more relatable than having a grand plan and being a master thief. This is a scrappy street thief who falls into something.
I was talking about it with a couple of people on the team, but a movie that really captures that is After Hours by Martin Scorsese, where the guy just spent a terrible evening in New York. It's one night and it goes from bad decision to bad decision, and I love that it's so relatable in the worst way and the best way at the same time. That's the core, and then there's a heist plan, but it never goes according to plan, so it also fits.
[END]
Star Wars Outlaws
- Released
- August 30, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
Experience the first-ever open world Star Wars game and explore distinct planets across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, an emerging scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life. Fight, steal, & outwit your way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates as you join the galaxy’s most wanted. If you’re willing to take the risk, the galaxy is full of opportunity.
DISCOVER A GALAXY OF OPPORTUNITY
Explore distinct planets with bustling cities and cantinas before racing across sprawling outdoor landscapes on your speeder. Each planet brings new adventures, unique challenges, and enticing rewards if you’re willing to take the risk.
EXPERIENCE AN ORIGINAL SCOUNDREL STORY
Live the high-stakes lifestyle of an outlaw. With Nix by your side, turn any situation to your advantage: fight with your blaster, overcome enemies with stealth and gadgets, or find the right moments to distract enemies and gain the upper hand.
EMBARK ON HIGH-STAKES MISSIONS
Take on high-risk, high-reward missions from the galaxy’s crime syndicates. Steal valuable goods, infiltrate secret locations, and outwit enemies as one of the galaxy’s most wanted. Every choice you make influences your ever-changing reputation.
JUMP INTO THE PILOT SEAT
Pilot your ship, The Trailblazer, as you engage in thrilling dogfights with The Empire and other foes, finding the right opportunities to chase, evade, and attack to get the upper hand.
- Developer(s)
- Massive Entertainment
- Publisher(s)
- Ubisoft, Lucasfilm Games
- Franchise
- Star Wars
- Platform(s)
- PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Action-Adventure
