We first heard about a new Star Wars game coming from the developers of The Division at Massive Entertainment years and years ago, and now, Star Wars Outlaws is within touching distance. On top of carrying the weight of the Star Wars IP, the upcoming action-adventure title is also going to have high expectations to live up to as the next big release from a major AAA developer and publisher, and as the first ever open world Star Wars game.
As an exclusively single player, narrative driven game, Star Wars Outlaws is shaping up to be a very different kind of experience compared to what Massive Entertainment has traditionally been known for, while the same can be said on the gameplay front as well, where, rather than the loot driven RPG progression of The Division, Outlaws is going for an action adventure experience that seems to be inspired by Uncharted, while also being set in a massive, seamless, interstellar, open world map.
But though Massive likely will not have been able to look to its past works for solutions to new problems during Outlaws’ development on more than a few occasions, there are several other games out there that the game and its development team could and should have taken cues from. For instance, one direct and obvious point of comparison that can actually serve as a useful yardstick to measure Outlaws against is the Star Wars Jedi series by Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment.
At first glance, many might be tempted to dismiss that notion. Sure, both are single player Star Wars games, but in so many ways, they are entirely different experiences. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor are both Metroidvania games with linear an semi linear levels, with combat being almost entirely melee focused (especially in the first game) and revolving around fulfilling players’ childhood Jedi fantasies. Star Wars Outlaws, on the other hand, is going to be an open world game with ranged combat and stealth mechanics stemming from a protagonist that’s better described as a rogue scoundrel than an honourable warrior of justice.
From combat to progression, from level design to the general structure of the experience, in some rather significant ways, Star Wars Outlaws would be best served looking at other experiences, from the likes of Mass Effect and the aforementioned Uncharted to even something recent like Starfield. But while Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor don’t have an awful lot in common with Outlaws in some major areas, there are ways that Respawn Entertainment’s games do have some very obvious lessons to teach games releasing in their wake.
Because, at the end of the day, Star Wars Outlaws is a AAA single player story driven Star Wars game, which means the expectations that it’s trying to live up to are going to be very similar to the ones that the Jedi games do, even if they are so wildly different from each other in so many significant ways. With Fallen Order and Survivor, even though Respawn did not set the world on fire with revelatory stories, they did earn a lot of well earned plaudits for more than serviceable storytelling, writing, characters, and of course, authenticity in capturing and adapting the Star Wars universe and its very distinct flavour.
Star Wars Outlaws is going to have to do all of that, and there should be little doubt in anyone’s mind that more than a few critics and players are going to be comparing it to Respawn and EA’s recent Star Wars outings, even if it is on a subconscious level, if only thanks to the fact that the Jedi games are the most recent and prominent examples of this kind of a Star Wars experience. That, of course, means that Massive Entertainment’s game is going to have to ensure that it is at least matching (or coming close to) the strengths of the Jedi games in the storytelling department, because anything less is likely going to be viewed as a disappointment, for the plain and simple fact that we have seen recent examples of single player story driven Star Wars games done right.
Of course, being billed as the ultimate Star Wars scoundrel fantasy, Outlaws’ vibe and tone are going to be very different from the Jedi games, but it’s going to have to create its world as convincingly and with as much authenticity, while also ensuring that it can get players legitimately invested in protagonist Kay Vess and the cast of characters surrounding her. After all, characters are more often than not the heart and soul of the best Star Wars stories, so if Outlaws is hoping to strike a chord with players with the story that it’s telling, it’s going to have to ensure that it has well written and well acted characters populating that story.
Beyond the story-related stuff, I suppose it would be fair to point out that another obvious lesson Star Wars Outlaws can take from Jedi: Survivor in particular is to avoid a technically rough launch- though really, that’s a lesson that all games should take, regardless of whether or not they carry the Star Wars license. Many who’ve played Survivor will tell you that it is a legitimately fantastic game, more so than the larger perception surrounding it would have you believe. That, however, has been drowned out by what were ultimately entirely valid criticisms of the extremely rough technical state that the game launched in on all platforms (and, hell, it continued to be in that state for far longer than it should have been). Perhaps if it had released with the level of polish and optimization that players expect, its core strengths would have been able to shine through much better.
That, obviously, is a pitfall that Star Wars Outlaws needs to avoid, though whether or not it will succeed is anyone’s guess. Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment have earned their reputations for having delivered more than a few technically rough games over the years, and more often than not, gameplay footage released for Star Wars Outlaws has drawn criticism from some corners over perceived technical deficiencies and polish issues. Of course, the game is still not out yet, so the hope is that between now and release, Massive Entertainment will have polished the heck out of it, especially since the game has already gone gold, which means polish and bug fixing is what the developer is going to be focused on for the time being anyway.
To say that expectations surrounding Star Wars Outlaws are going to be high would be an understatement, even if there are some who are heading into the game with a healthy amount of skepticism- but if the game is to meet those high expectations, or even prove those aforementioned skeptics wrong, it’s going to have to knock the ball out of the park in more than a few areas. And when it comes to some in particular – especially the storytelling department – it’ll be crucial that the game doesn’t fall short of the standards that the Jedi titles have set in terms of the minimum level of quality a modern AAA single player Star Wars game should hit.
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