Creators who have seen Star Wars Outlaws gameplay early are not particularly excited. A new leak suggests that Ubisoft had plans to release Star Wars Outlaws in 2023. It, however, chose to ship Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora first, which caused the one-year delay. Tom Henderson has since, however, debunked the Avatar rumor.
We’ll see Star Wars Outlaws gameplay tomorrow during Ubisoft Forward. As per the leak from VISCERAL, a well-known source, creators partnered with Ubisoft have already seen the gameplay footage. The embargo to share their views lifts tomorrow, most probably post-show.
Also according to the leaker, the earlier model of Kay Vess had undercut hair and a red jacket.
Good, but not good enough?
Word on the street is that the gameplay’s good, though maybe not totally revolutionary. There’s still, however, some skepticism about whether Ubisoft can deliver on all its ambitious promises. We reached out to VISCERAL to understand further. During our conversation, they said, “It wasn’t something groundbreaking or tries to recreate the wheel which I think is good.”
While everyone’s excited about the gameplay reveal, the overall media vibe is cautiously optimistic. “I haven’t talked to someone that [has] actually played the game yet,” VISCERAL added. “But just from media impressions, they don’t really look forward to it and are skeptical because it’s Ubisoft. I think most people will still be disappointed because of the Star Wars IP and the expectations are like [a] ‘Space GTA’. At least, I interpret it like that, personally.”
There are also mentions of ‘people who have seen the gameplay footage’ not being happy. Ubisoft’s history with open-world games is a bit of a mixed bag, so some fans are wondering if they can really capture the magic of Star Wars.
Another one of our sources at Spiel Times, who’s a popular YouTuber known for covering Ubisoft games extensively, had the opportunity to see the gameplay last year. The YouTuber remarked, “I felt like it’s a boring concept.”
“The world feels too Ubisoft-ish. Ubisoft is actually very bad when it comes to open-world games. They have a very boring concept of everything. Even Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora was looking good, but it felt like a very boring, washed out game when I played it. Visuals are always good due to the engine, but creativity lacks at Ubisoft.”
Ubisoft Forward is basically a make-or-break moment for Star Wars Outlaws. If the gameplay demo is killer, it could shut down the doubters and turn up the hype for the 2024 release. But if it falls flat, well, let’s just say it could fuel the skepticism even more.
“I’m interested to see the impressions after tomorrow if they will change,” VISCERAL said as we ended the conversation.
