Take a look at the 'Building an Open World' featurette for Star Wars Outlaws, an upcoming third-person open-world Star Wars game developed by Massive Entertainment. The world of Star Wars Outlaws is points of interest, hidden treasures, and a variety of activities for Kay Vess and Nix to discover. Star Wars Outlaws launches on August 30 for PlayStation 5 (PS5), Xbox Series X|S, and PC
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00:00When you start diving into this Star Wars galaxy, you have so many different options.
00:24We crafted the open world in the sense that you have different landmarks, things that
00:29can pull you and catch your attention, but also things that you can stumble onto.
00:38In our case, for example, the approach to progression with experts.
00:42Where are they?
00:43What can they offer me?
00:44How do I reach them?
00:45And once you reach them, there's an adventure there for you.
00:47On your way there, you want things to make you go, oh, what's that?
00:51Throughout the world, there are some hidden or buried treasures that is interesting for
00:56Nyx.
00:57Nyx will alert Kay to these treasures with his cute little squeaking.
01:01Reward curiosity has been a very central tenet for us thinking about the open world.
01:06And it ranges from civilians being attacked by pirates to playing sabacc.
01:12Sabacc is our version of castle sabacc.
01:14You have to get the lowest match possible with your two sabacc cards, and then you can
01:20bet each round and try and win some money.
01:23With failure racing, you can make bets on tables of the holograms of the races.
01:28We have a few different versions of arcade games, a ship shooting one and a speeder one.
01:35And they can be played mostly for fun, trying to get a high score.
01:38We have contract brokers.
01:40They will present you with various different types of contracts.
01:45There are contracts where you have to infiltrate certain areas to go in and steal specific
01:51items for a syndicate.
01:54And then you usually have to make a drop.
01:57That's the point.
01:58You usually get a choice to betray your employer.
02:02You can finish the job as normal and get paid, or you can actually give the item to another
02:09syndicate or reputation.
02:11But that's going to hurt your current reputation with whoever employed you in the first place.
02:17The better your reputation, the better access you have to higher stakes jobs that are going
02:23to pay a bit more money.
02:25And those are the ones that are reserved for when you have a very high reputation.
02:29If you're looking for blaster parts, Lalini can hook you up with something under the table.
02:36So there are lots of different conversations that Kay will overhear.
02:41These can be things like passwords into areas, the location of hidden treasures in the world,
02:47and also opportunities to further position herself with some of the syndicates.
02:53We landed on a roster of five distinct worlds, which are Akiva, Toshara, a brand new creation,
03:01Tatooine, of course, the fan favorite, Kijimi, and CantoBite.
03:06We really wanted to develop something that was fully grounded and had a lot of rich culture
03:11and history.
03:12And having an open world game really makes sure that you can actually really explore
03:16all of those aspects.
03:17Star Wars locations are very, as biomes, very strong statements.
03:22Like all of Tatooine is a desert.
03:25Kijimi is perpetual night and winter.
03:29On Akiva, it's more the winding jungle roads, it's a little bit more narrow.
03:33Toshara is the windswept moon, which is fairly fun because it allows us, with the Emberine,
03:38to create ramps and wall rides.
03:40We wanted all of the locations to provide players something, whether it's about the
03:46world, telling something about the lore of Star Wars, or just the world building we crafted
03:51at Massive.
03:52So designing the space areas was super fun.
03:55So we distinguished there a little bit between regulated space, which is the Empire-controlled,
04:00which is the black space with stars, and then we have the unregulated, more hidden, more
04:04dangerous space.
04:05It's also a place, of course, where different quests and contracts take place.
04:10You should fly in close and have a look.
04:11You will definitely find precious things that you need to, at the end of the day, make your
04:16ship even more capable to explore further.
04:18It's a different type of Star Wars story.
04:21Kay is an improviser.
04:22She doesn't really go by the books, she wasn't really trained in the ways of one particular
04:28fighting style or anything like that, but she's just using whatever it is that she can
04:32in order to survive.
04:34And I kind of tried my best to bring that into the music itself.
04:38Sometimes I'll use found objects.
04:40I'll play real instruments, but intentionally play them the wrong way, like playing a guitar
04:45on the wrong side, using the tuning pegs as those strings instead of the actual guitar.
04:50These are improvised instruments rather than well-defined, perfected ones.
04:56We did a lot of ambience recording trips, which not only gives us freedom in terms of
05:00implementation, but also gives us a lot of this unique source that makes us stand out.
05:04You'll be able to hear the score, and also diegetic music, sort of react to the story
05:10that Kay is undertaking and bring life to those environments.
05:14It's the first open world Star Wars game, and figuring out what that experience is like,
05:19I think we landed on something that feels unique from any of the Star Wars games that
05:23we've made so far.
05:24The game is loaded with references to Star Wars comics, Star Wars books, but of course
05:31all of the films and characters that players love.
05:34We really think that players are going to discover many, many, many nods, and they're
05:39all intentional.