Ubisoft’s upcoming Star Wars: Outlaws stars the scoundrel Kay Vess, and is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.
Star Wars: Outlaws was revealed in last night’s Xbox Showcase, set for release in 2024 on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. It’s being developed by the Ubisoft-owned studio Massive Entertainment, which previously worked on The Division.
We’ve known that Massive has been working on a Star Wars title since 2021, but this trailer marks our first glimpse of footage from the game. Although, as with the Fable trailer, we’re only shown cinematics rather than gameplay footage.
The blurb under the official trailer notes that this is the “first-ever open world Star Wars game“, although whether this is actually the case rather depends on your interpretation of ‘open world’. Star Wars: Jedi Survivor certainly had some open-world elements, and the MMORPGs Star Wars Galaxies and Star Wars: The Old Republic were pretty ‘open world’ if you ask us. But this time around we’re getting the Ubisoft open-world treatment, so presumably we can expect plenty of map markers with jobs waiting underneath them.
The story revolves around the scoundrel Kay Vess, and takes place between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. However, as outlined in the trailer, Kay’s main concern is the Crime Syndicates rather than the Empire, and she’s shown fleeing a cantina after being pursued by two Syndicate agents. In that sense, it seems like we’ll be getting a plot more along the lines of Solo: A Star Wars Story, where a young Han Solo is caught in the machinations of the galaxy’s crimelords.
That said, it looks like there will be some conflict with the Empire, too: Kay’s ship is shown blasting away a TIE Fighter right at the end of the trailer: presumably that means the game will feature space combat of some kind. Ubisoft’s own showcase, Ubisoft Forward, is scheduled to begin at 6pm BST today, so there’s a good chance we might find out more about Star Wars: Outlaws then.
