Ubisoft are in trouble, there’s no two ways about it. Following the lacklustre reception of Assassin’s Creed Shadows and its perceived cultural insensitivity, then subsequent apologies, the company has once again been forced to take affirmative action to appease their voracious shareholders following the underwhelming response to Star Wars Outlaws. “We’ll shortly be seeing more content of a very high quality…” they say of their upcoming open world romp, going on to state previews will “really show the depths of [Outlaws’] open world” and that by sharing more they’ll reveal a “key element of the process to enjoy the exploration of the galaxy with multiple locations.” Underlining their investor-first approach to PR CFO Frederick Duguet made sure shareholders were aware that Star Wars Outlaws pre-orders have already gone gold, so its release date of August 30th will still go ahead as planned despite official gameplay previews appearing to showcase an unpolished, paint-by-numbers game.
Watch Star Wars Outlaws’ gameplay for yourself and you’ll observe patchy textures, stoic animations. Now, to be fair gameplay previews aren’t always representative of a finished build, but the company’s moderate defence of their gameplay indicates that they’re at least a little bit happy with what they’ve shared. Either that, or they’re resigned to merely hoping for the best given the wishy-washy wording of their public statements. Reflecting their plunging share price however, what they’re saying isn’t working.
Thing is, the stream of negativity is eminently emerging from players, not investors. Given significant numbers of commenters are claiming to be cancelling their pre-orders, the company should be focusing on winning players over. Nobody who’ll actually be playing the game cares if it’s already gone gold, or that more ‘quality’ – in inverted commas – videos are coming if what’s been shared so far doesn’t exude the high standard claim they’re already establishing.
Ubisoft open world games follow their long-established, much-outdated playbook so closely now that we’ve reached the point of parody. If they really are shaking up their formula in Star Wars Outlaws, they’ve failed to exhibit it in the exclusive footage shared by IGN. This mission, involving scoundrel Kay Vess bargaining with the Jawa to retrieve a Sarlacc tooth in exchange for a turret-mounted laser, is ostensibly a fetch quest. Go here, get this, kill some people along the way, go back to the quest giver, rinse repeat ad infinitum. Adding to the disappointment is Tatooine’s barren landscape; a desert, sure, but there’s just nothing exciting about it. The dead Sarlacc’s pit is a less interesting version of the Foundation in Control’s Oldest House. The Sarlacc tooth is stolen, offering a semblance of jeopardy (although the thermal detonator chucked by Kay’s enemy is hilariously ineffective), and getting the tooth back is as simple as raiding one of Jabba’s hangers, shooting a handful of stationary goons, hopping back onto her speeder, and whooshing across a half kilometre stretch of boring sand. And we say stationary enemies, because of course, their AI renders them unfathomably statuesque. Like, the sound of Kay’s blaster must whisper given the total lack of reaction from enemies in earshot.
Once the purportedly valuable tooth is given back to the Jawa it’s tossed onto a pile of already collected Sarlacc teeth, perhaps intending to inject a bit of humour but more likely leaving a feeling of pointlessness to it all. In another mission shared in a separate video, Kay tries her hand at stealthily infiltrating a bandit stronghold. Her admittedly cute companion Nix scans the location to reveal enemies patrolling within (an ability almost carbon copied from Joel’s in The Last of Us), before Kay crouch-walks in. Nix – in another cute manoeuvre – launches himself atop of Kay’s enemies exposing them to a swift right hook (again, kind of like The Last of Us when Joel lobs a brick at a hunter).
There’re two things annoying about this scene: first, the stealth is clearly underbaked. We shouldn’t expect Metal Gear Solid levels of espionage, but scanning, crouching, punching, incapacitating, is too well-trodden to enthuse. There isn’t even a requirement to hide the poor body once you’ve knocked them out. And second, immediately after Kay incapacitates another of Hutt’s goons her stature with the Hutt crime syndicate decreases due to ‘trespassing’ on his turf. The questions here are, how do Jabba and his cronies already know it is Kay who’s infiltrated their stronghold? Wouldn’t a stealthy approach be more rewarding if Kay could sneak in and out completely undetected? What’s the point of even going for stealth if your reputation is going to be dampened either way?
One of Star Wars Outlaws’ most heavily marketed selling points is its honour system, and how Kay must walk a tightrope between the various crime syndicates occupying the galaxy. Her decisions, so we’re told, have ramifications affecting her reputation, with poor relationships ensuring she must keep her head down when visiting the scummiest dives in the outer rim territories. Having a bounty on Kay’s head, evading chasing hunters across the galaxy, and avoiding being frozen in carbonite sound genuinely interesting, but it seems – given the gameplay we’ve seen – that the game is designed to ensure Kay’s reputation is obviously poor whatever she does and wherever she goes.
We could go on about Star Wars Outlaws’ under-developed gameplay mechanics. We can elaborate on the simplicity of its interstellar combat or reference gunplay that appears one-dimensional despite Kay’s ability to pick up dropped weapons from slain foe. But it is possible the company is intentionally going for simplicity; catering to the masses in hope the lure of an open world Star Wars game is enough to tractor beam significant numbers of players in. If this is what their intention is, then analysed on its own it’s not a bad thing. Box-ticking in an evocative Star Wars world can certainly be fulfilling akin to eating in a chain restaurant or listening to pop music. Just because it isn’t niche, it still has merit. It’s just that the results of this approach risk something far worse than overt-complexity or distinction – gameplay is dull.
Now, before we sign off its worth pointing out some good things we’ve noticed in Star Wars Outlaws’ gameplay. The boring desert of Tatooine aside, the developers have crafted a raft of exceptionally detailed locations. Interior spaces, feel raw and authentic. The variety of locations on offer is promising too, from the savannahs of brand-new Toshara to the frozen wilds of Kijimi. Also, each location is set to offer different gameplay styles, working as a thief on the glitzy Canto Blight for instance, or dominating rugged terrain on jungle planet Akiva.
Kay’s basic skillset will be upgraded via abilities passed on from so called ‘Experts’ dotted throughout the galaxy too, so there is strong chance that what we’ve seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of her capability. Lastly, recent gameplay footage definitely looks a step up from a few months ago.
There is a chance Star Wars Outlaws can defy the odds, but the marketing needs to do some heavy player-first lifting if viewers are to reinstate their pre-orders. However, to quote Han Solo, “I have a bad feeling about this.”
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.
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