In a new interview with Game Informer, Star Wars Outlaws senior narrative systems designer Alice Rendell and lead systems designer Matthieu Delisle talk about the types of encounters that players will find in their time with the game. The two talk about, among other things, the reputation system in Star Wars Outlaws, which will have a big impact on your encounters in the game. Check out the interview below.
According to Delisle, your character’s relationship with the various factions in the game, especially in the seedy criminal underbelly of the Star Wars universe, will present you with different opportunities and threats. Delisle talks about how the reputation system came about because the studio wanted to tell a scoundrel-based story.
“Very early on, we knew that we wanted to do a scoundrel story,” says Delisle. “And we knew we wanted the game to be about choice and consequences, so pretty naturally, reputation came as a medium for the player to interact with the game.”
The duo goes on to talk about how protagonist Kay Vess is a free scoundrel, and how rather than out of friendship or loyalty, she takes advantage of the different factions throughout the game just as much as they take advantage of her. According to Rendell, every mechanic in the game has been built on top of its reputation system.
Players will get to take full advantage of the reputation system, even staking their own reputation to try and make more money on the side by betraying certain characters or factions. When it comes to the actual affect your reputation might have on the game, an example provided by Rendell is that Kay might be tasked with getting an item from a faction, and they could choose to steal it, or if their reputation is good enough, just walk in and take it.
All of this ties into the fact that each faction will have its own territories, and players will have to take care of not hanging around the territories where their reputation is poor for too long.
Star Wars Outlaws is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S on August 30.