Star Wars Outlaws Narrative Director Breaks Down Game's Core Environments

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In a conversation with Kotaku, Outlaws Narrative Director Navid Khavari revealed what kind of locations players will discover traveling the galaxy as Kay Vess and how they fit the game's direction. "The first of these is dense cities bustling with activity and lively cantinas where you might find criminal syndicates and corrupt Imperials mingling together," Khavari said, adding, "Second is our vast, mysterious, and stunning open environments…whether on foot or Kay's speeder. And finally, space, which players can explore on Kay's ship."

Khavari also assured fans that this spaceship-traveling component, as well as the ability to hop from world to world, will properly immerse them in the life of a rogue-ish Star Wars anti-hero. "One of the core parts of the scoundrel fantasy is having your own ship and that essentially being your home," he continued. "Outlaws are traveling constantly and need to be on the move all the time—that's no different for Kay. You'll be able to go from on foot, to speeder, to your ship and easily jump between planets." While some worlds, like Tatooine, will be familiar to longtime Star Wars fans -- with Jabba the Hutt serving as one of Kay's clients -- others will be wholly original to the franchise. As Khavari later explained, "We want to allow fans to indulge in some intergalactic tourism. But we're also really excited for them to experience new characters and planets in this iconic era as well."

Compared to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, which was set during the post-Revenge of the Sith, pre-A New Hope timeline, the open-world Outlaws will take place in the middle of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi's events. Initial reveal and gameplay trailers for the Ubisoft game focused on Key's run-ins with crime syndicates, bounty hunters, and Imperial officers, as well as her uneasy alliance with commando droid companion ND-5 as they travel planets together. Beyond Outlaws, future Star Wars games include the multiplayer Switch title Star Wars: Hunters and Quantic Dream's Star Wars Eclipse, with the latter taking place exclusively in Lucasfilm's new High Republic era.

In the past few years, Star Wars has further explored post-Empire Strikes Back stories through its Marvel Comic runs, including anti-villain titles like Doctor Aphra and Bounty Hunters. This includes the event comics War of the Bounty Hunters and Crimson Reign, which reintroduced Solo's Qi'ra and her syndicate Crimson Dawn back into Star Wars' original trilogy timeline. It remains unclear, however, whether characters like Aphra or Qi'ra will appear in Outlaws' story.