Summary
Expectations and concerns aboutStar Wars Outlaws' time commitment are addressed by the upcoming game’s creative director.Star Wars Outlawsis the first ever open worldStar Warsgame coming from Ubisoft’s Massive Entertainment, the studio behindThe Divisionseries. First revealed at Ubisoft Forward during this past Summer Game Fest,Outlawswill have players following the story of a scoundrel named Kay Vess as she navigates the crime-riddled underworld of theStar Warsuniverse betweenThe Empire Strikes BackandReturn of the Jedi.
There’s no denying that Ubisoft’s past fewAssassin’s Creedofferings have been getting longer and longer to beat.Assassin’s Creed Odysseytakes roughly 45 hours andValhallaclocks in at a whopping 60 hours, and that’s just for the main story. Going for full completion would require well over 100 hours for each game, not including their massive DLC expansions. This increase in game length and world size came part and parcel with the franchise’s shift toward becoming a bona fide RPG. While some fans enjoy the bang for their buckOdysseyandValhallaoffer, many fans are valid in their criticisms of these past twoAssassin’s Creedgames being just too overwhelmingly large. Ubisoft seems to have taken this criticism to heart, as itsupcomingAssassin’s Creed Mirageis touted as being much smaller and more focused, akin to the earlier titles in the franchise.
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Fans worrying about Massive Entertainment’sStar Wars Outlawsfollowing the precedent set byOdysseyandValhallaneed not fret any longer. Speaking with IGN,Outlaws' creative director Julian Gerighty confirmed thatKay Vess' adventure through the criminal underworld ofStar Wars,while featuring several planets with large open areas, won’t be an overwhelmingly huge time commitment. This makes even more sense when considering Massive Entertainment’s previous games,The Divisionand its sequel, also sport smaller, more dense and focused open worlds.
“Our objective is to really get people into a very dense, rich adventure, open world adventure that they can explore at their own rhythm. So it is absolutely not a 200 or 300-hour epic unfinishable RPG.” - Julian Gerighty, Creative Director of Star Wars Outlaws via IGN
This reassurance comes just a few weeks after Gerighty’s interview with Edge Magazine aboutStar Wars Outlawswhere he compared the size of each planet’s open area to roughlyone or two regions ofAssassin’s Creed Odyssey’s Greece. This tempered expectations for fans thinkingOutlaws' size would compare to Bethesda’s imminent space-faring RPGStarfield, but it still left many wondering about howOutlawssizes up to Ubisoft’s other behemoth open worlds. While the number of planetsOutlawswill offer is still unknown, Gerighty’s metrics make it seem plausible that the total amount of explorable land could still end up being as large or larger thanOdysseyorValhalla.
Star Wars Outlawshas become one of the most hotly anticipated upcoming games of 2024 ever since its impressive reveal last month. It’s great that Gerighty is getting ahead in making sure fans' expectations are set accordingly with regard to the game’s scope and scale, andreassuring eager fans thatStar Wars Outlawswon’t be as much of a major time sink as some of Ubisoft’s recent outings.
Star Wars Outlawsis coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2024.
