STFU I'm Excited About Star Wars Outlaws

I always forget that the internet be internet-ing

Yesterday we were graced, as a collective group of nerds, with the latest trailer for Star Wars Outlaws. A video game developed by Massive Entertainment and published by industry tomato throwing target practice, Ubisoft.

Listen, I’ll be the first to whine about the practices of Ubisoft of late with game design as well as their business ethics. I will also say that Massive Entertainment does not have a history with Star Wars games and their latest success was Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. A game that collectively was admired for its presentation but kinda got an “eh, it’s alright’ for its gameplay.

These are the 2 figures behind this game.

BUT.

I’m an optimist when it comes to Star Wars games. I always have been.

Yes, games like Battlefront (the new ones) and Jedi Survivor launched with unfortunate performance issues. They were fixed and the games themselves are fun, enjoyable and specifically with Respawn’s Jedi games, SOLID Star Wars storytelling. Jedi Survivor was hands down my favorite game of 2023.

Star Wars games due to their funding and overall attention from its parent company, are of exceptional quality. Great visuals, music and performances from voice actors/mo-cap actors. At their core, they are going to be a product of high quality - but yes, that does not reflect the overall “gamer” experience.

The new trailer dropped yesterday along with the surprise launch date of August 30th. The internet greeted a new Star Wars product featuring a woman the way you would unfortunately expect the internet to greet a woman who was the center of a new Star Wars product. This was not a new complaint because close to a year ago now, the first footage dropped for Outlaws and men of varying ages took issue with being FORCED to play a WOMAN. Anyway, conversations like this remind me to stay away from comment sections and forums.

The other odd point of contention is that in the new trailer, the box art for the game say “internet connection required to install the game.” Yea, no shit! Welcome to 2024, y’all! I know there are folks who don’t have internet and there are folks with incredibly slow internet but you would’ve thought Ubisoft was coming into people’s homes and ripping wires out.

BUT

It’s crime themed Star Wars set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. It is about pulling a heist off in the Outer Rim with anti-hero characters and, again I don’t know why, a robot people have classified as “sexy.” JFC PEOPLE.

From what I understand of the game through what has been communicated, it will be open-world or hub-world where you can take on various missions and quests. There will be branching dialog trees and a focus on stealth gameplay rather than something akin to Jedi Survivor.

I love Star Wars fiction set in the universe that doesn’t focus on the bigger story and follows characters while the bigger narrative plays in the background. I love the criminals and find that storytelling is relaxed in this space rather than forced to have to tie it all together.

I’m excited and I just wanted to tell you all that. OK?