‘Star Wars: Outlaws’ Directors Talk Story, Seamless Gameplay Transitions and Exploration
Star Wars: Outlaws Game Director Mathias Karlson and Narrative Director Navid Khavari have spoken about how they formed the game’s story, what it was like working with Lucasfilm on the project and how players will navigate through the game’s world.
Speaking to AusGamers shortly after the gameplay reveal at Ubisoft Forward 2023, Karlson and Navari spoke about how the project got started. While they created the idea, they were happy to be guided by Lucasfilm’s story knowledge when it came to deciding what could and couldn’t be done.
We start with early discussions with [Lucasfilm Games] about what we want to do. I say, “okay, there’s an opportunity here to work together” and we [Massive, the game development studio] come [and say] “this is what we’re thinking. What do you think?” And [from there] I can really genuinely fast forward pretty quickly because what’s been so great with our collaboration, is that we found common ground and excitement in our common ground, basically, instantly.
Like, we [always] wanted to do a scoundrel story in an open world setting where we give the player a lot of freedom but also, we really want to tell a strong story about a strong character. And I think since then, it’s just been a very healthy, very frequent collaborative relationship where they bring to us, I think more than anything, the authenticity of tone and feel and helping us slot into our timeline and sometimes go, like, “what about this? Have you considered maybe that? What about this character, or that place?”
Navari explained that they wanted the story to deal with the Star Wars underworld early on, mentioning that the narrative is complemented by the gameplay, rather than the cognitive dissonance that usually occurs when playing open world videogames.
We want an underworld story. We want it to be between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. What is the story we have? What’s a character in that time period that would have a fresh perspective; a unique perspective? And honestly, probably, most of all, from all the projects I’ve worked on, it starts to unfold itself in a very natural way, and what was great was both on the gameplay side and on the narrative side, we were all talking about each other’s elements, right?
So I never felt like this is where the narrative ends and this is where the gameplay begins. And when you’re dealing with such a rich tapestry of lore and history and realising that you’re going to have the opportunity to tell a story about a scoundrel, you know, she was going to jump on her speeder or jump into a ship and be able to do that kind of at will, it all just unfolds super naturally. So there was the initial freakout and then it just became just a fantastic, fantastic process.
Many gamers were very impressed by the manner in which Kay Vess was able to travel seamlessly from an enemy base across to the local town hub, and then into space without any loading screens whatsoever. Karlson explains that this was the goal from the start of development, a logical evolution of Massive‘s history making open world games like The Division 2.
We wanted to do the game this way to offer… if you think about Star Wars, open world; what is the freedom of an open world in a Star Wars [game]? That means that range, those three contrasting experiences that we’re talking about, right?
Contrasting sure, but ultimately, very connected and flowing together, going from your own ship in space, landing on a planet, free to explore on foot or on speeder, entering the city, sitting down in a cantina, right? And offering all of that, in one game experience is a first, yes, but it’s also such a natural thing to go for, if you have the capacity and the experience to do so.
I think it’s a good fit for us. And with this, pointing to Kay, that harmony that nobody was touching on in between story, character, place and gameplay was very precious to us. And the scoundrel archetype and Kay’s personality, makes all of that range feel natural. It’s not strange that an individual is doing it more. And for you, the player [it ultimately] means a lot of freedom.
Interestingly, Karlson also revealed that it was Lucasfilm’s idea to set the story between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi but despite the game being set between those films, the larger scale conflict between the Rebellion and the Empire is not something protagonist Kay is concerned with.
Whether or not the story remains smaller scale, focusing on the Star Wars underworld, or whether Kay gets pulled into the larger conflict remains to be seen. Either way, they seem thrilled to write stories in that period from different perspectives.
Karlson: And that collaboration with Lucasfilm, they were a big part of, like, “guys, I think we know exactly where this makes the most sense”, given the backdrop of the galactic civil war and the Empire and the Rebels. And that’s not really what [Kay]’s concerned about, but the underworld is thriving, right? That’s the world she’s navigating. And ultimately, you play [in that].
Khavari: And I think the *really* fun part about it, from the writing perspective, is we know the events of the original trilogy from the Rebel and Imperial perspective, but what about the people on the ground? What about people in the cantinas? What about the people within the underworld pulling off jobs? How do they see, sort of, what the character… like Jabba the Hutt, what does Kay think of Jabba? All those opportunities just sort of came out naturally [in the writing process].
AusGamers tried to get the pair of them to confirm if the game would be structured similarly to other Ubisoft open world games — namely, there is a linear narrative that takes you through the world map, but there are lots of enemy outposts to infiltrate along the way with targets to kill or collectibles to recover outside of that central story that can sometimes feel repetitive — and neither would quite be drawn on that detail, though they did hint that finding these side quests would feel natural and that players’ curiosity would be rewarded.
They did talk about how the reputation system works with the game’s various factions, which works pretty much as we see in the gameplay demo.
Khavari: I think I’ll just add to that, talking about emergent opportunities. There is this sort of beat by beat journey for Kay that we want players to enjoy and experience. But even from the walkthrough, if you had snuck through that type of hideout and not fired a shot, your reputation wouldn’t have gone down. If you had bribed the Imperial officer, you wouldn’t have been made WANTED…
So it’s felt very organic working on this where yes, she has her journey, but those moment to moment decisions and consequences through her reputation, through her interactions with the Imperials, it’s just thrilling. It feels very unique and fresh.
Karlson: Freedom to explore with actions that have consequences, was really two leading principles for us.
For the full interview, head to AusGamers.com.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
