On the Radar: Star Wars Outlaws

12DOVE picks apart the promise and pitfalls of the scoundrel fantasy Massive Entertainment sought to deliver. We found Star Wars Outlaws to be an exceedingly authentic experience, at its best when it's letting wannabe scoundrel Kay Vess quietly exist in a very particular place and time – Outer Rim territories, caught between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. There's a purity to the way Outlaws brings the background scenes of the original trilogy's underworld to life, although Massive does struggle to match an evocative universe to a compelling critical path. Learn more in our Star Wars Outlaws review.

In this conversation with Star Wars Outlaws' creative director Julian Gerighty and game director Mathias Karlson, 12DOVE reflects on the launch of this open world adventure and where Massive may want to take it next. With Gerighty set to join production of The Division 3 in just a couple of weeks, the team is working quickly to analyze feedback and implement changes – some with wide implications on the way Outlaws plays today. You'll also get a better sense of what inspires these creatives to build expansive video game, and the challenges Massive faced to get this ambitious project over the line.  

It takes a little while to settle into the rhythms of Star Wars Outlaws' combat. At the outset, it comes across as a little basic – particularly when compared to Massive's The Division. But over time I came to enjoy the inelegance of the iconic Star Wars blaster, especially once I understood the value of including a mechanic which is ripped right from the action of Gears of War. Here I'm joined by Massive's lead systems designer Matthieu Delisle and lead concept artist Samuel De Vos to better understand the fantasy which informed Outlaws' combat. 

There's an intentionality to the design of Star Wars Outlaws' speeder. While the vehicle is largely customizable over time, allowing you to improve its torque, turning circle and the like, Kay Vess never gains the ability to freely shoot from the saddle as she zips across some of Star Wars' most famous horizons. Instead you're left to utilize an 'Adrenaline Rush' mechanic that lets you mark and execute enemies in pursuit with cinematic style – it's cool, but limited. Lead gameplay designer Fredrik Thylander walks us through the decisions which led to this restriction. 

Massive was faced with a variety of challenges in building Star Wars Outlaws. Perhaps the most underappreciated is that whatever the studio put out into the world would be a part of the Star Wars universe forever, additions to a vast sandbox that other creatives could play with in the future. Here, six developers from Massive sit down in a roundtable interview to discuss its attempts to bring this galaxy to life, the ways it approached rebuilding the original trilogy setting, and its hopes for how its creations may impact Star Wars in the future. 

There have been hundreds of Star Wars games released over the past 40 years. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back started it all in 1982, a licensed tie-in released for the Atari 2600 – and it's incredible to think how far franchise games have come. We've had smart strategy games and solid shooters, games which broadened the Star Wars timeline, flight action games which helped define console launches, and legendary RPGs. But which of the best Star Wars games are still worth playing today? 

Star Wars Outlaws has been a long time coming, following its reveal back in 2021. But where should you invest all of that anticipation next? Thankfully there's still plenty of developers working away at their own Star Wars projects; word on the street is that Respawn is already turning its attention to the next Jedi game, following the success of last year's Jedi: Survivor, but that certainly isn't all. You'll find details of all the projects in our breakdown of the new Star Wars games.

Is there a more iconic Star Wars planet than Tatooine? The land of hated sand and epic Podraces, the home of Skywalkers and Hutt cartels. When Ubisoft Massive picked Tatooine as one of its five core worlds for Star Wars Outlaws, it faced the challenge of rebuilding a space that many fans can navigate by looking out for landmarks – and there's far more to this planet than Mos Eisley. Here Massive gets into how it made Tatooine as authentic as possible, and how it drew from a legendary MMO to help build its undefined spaces.