Summary
- Star Wars Outlaws offers a rich, detailed open world with new and legacy characters in a grimier side of the universe.
- The game features 4 main planets to explore and another that appears in its campaign, with the creative director comparing its size to two to three zones in Assassin's Creed Odyssey for accessibility.
- Compared to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Outlaws offers a larger open-world experience with the option to traverse it on a speeder and seamless planetary travel.
In many of its promotional showcases, Ubisoft has billed Star Wars Outlaws as the first open-world Star Wars title. However, last year's Star Wars Jedi: Survivor also featured large hub worlds to explore, which is bound to spark some comparison between the two as players try to figure out which game's map is bigger.
Star Wars Outlaws sees the up-and-coming scoundrel Kay Vess failing a heist in her home of Canto Bight, the coastal casino city on the desert planet Cantonica, and being forced to go on the run from the ruthless syndicate Zerek Besh, after its leader, Sliro, put out a Death Mark on her. While Cantonica is only available in the select story sections, as Kay begins the game there and later returns to attempt a major heist with the crew she's spent most of the game assembling, there are four main planets for players to explore once the open-world opens up: Toshara, Kijimi, Akiva, and the iconic Star Wars location, Tatooine.
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Star Wars Outlaws focuses on a grimier, seedier side of the universe with a rich, detailed open world that features both new and legacy characters.
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How Big Is Star Wars Outlaws' Open World?
The Game's Creative Director Compared It To Assassin's Creed Odyssey Before The Game's Launch
In an interview with IGN before Star Wars Outlaws' launch, the game's creative director, Julian Gerighty, revealed that the game’s planets would be roughly the size of two or three zones in one of Ubisoft's previous open-world titles, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Assassin's Creed Odyssey and its sequel, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, both faced criticism for having overly large maps that could feel quite intimidating in scale or for not having enough to do while getting from one point to another. Fortunately, the smaller scale of Star Wars Outlaws, along with the fact that its map is split between different planets with unique biomes to keep exploration interesting, makes it feel far more approachable.
According to Gerighty, Massive Entertainment's unique location for the game, a savannah moon named Toshara, is closer in size to Akiva and Tatooine, with Tatooine seeming slightly bigger than the others. While Gerighty didn't reveal whether Kijimi and Cantonica were the same size as the others at the time, those who have played the game will note that they seem to be significantly smaller in scale, with Cantonica being somewhat more linear due to its place in the story. Kijimi's map consists just of Kijimi City and is more traversable on foot, which makes it seem notably smaller in scale than Akiva, Tatooine, and Toshara, where it's far more preferable to use a speeder to get around, and there's a much larger area to explore outside their main cities.
As noted by Gerighty, Massive's approach to building Star Wars Outlaws was less about how big the team could make its open world, but how long it would take to traverse. It takes players approximately four to five minutes to travel all the way around Toshara - and therefore about the same for Tatooine and Akiva, once certain upgrades are available to get across the deeper water on the latter - when using Kay's speeder bike.
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Every Planet In Star Wars Outlaws, Ranked
Star Wars Outlaws is billed as the first truly open-world Star Wars game, letting players travel between new and iconic planets at will.
How Do Star Wars Outlaws' Planets Compare To Jedi: Survivor's?
Jedi: Survivor Had More Planets, But Many Were Smaller
While Star Wars Outlaws' story takes place across five main locations, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has six main locations to explore: Coruscant, Koboh, Jedha, Tanalorr, an abandoned moon above Koboh, and the asteroid Nova Garon. However, as Cal Kestis didn't have a speeder to get around on, the size of many of these maps were much smaller, making them more accessible on foot or via mounts while using the Force and gadgets such as a grapple - something Kay also has in her inventory - to get around.
While there are larger, more open-world hubs, such as Kestis' base planet Koboh, or the vast deserts of the Pilgrim moon, Jedha, present in Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, many are almost more linear in their design, which is likely why Ubisoft marketed Star Wars Outlaws as being a more open world entry in the franchise. There's also the added component of space combat and exploration in Star Wars Outlaws to consider.
While Cal and the Stinger Mantis crew could hop between planets, the sections in which they were in space showed the characters inside the ship, rather than letting players fly the ship themselves. In Star Wars Outlaws, however, Kay can fly her ship, The Trailblazer, around each of the planets' orbits, helping to protect smugglers from pirates, collect materials from derelict or completely decimated ships, or engage in combat with the Empire before using an Imperial Satellite to lose the inevitable Wanted status.
Whereas Star Wars Jedi: Survivor only allowed players to fast travel between meditation points on the same planet but not between planets, Star Wars Outlaws lets players hop between planets at any time, provided they've already unlocked the fast travel points required. This essentially combines all of the game's planets into one seamless map, which would, therefore, make it a larger open-world experience than Jedi: Survivor's hubs, considering the larger scale of Toshara, Akiva, and Tatooine. However, it should be noted that the maps on each of Star Wars Outlaws' planets have limits, much like Jedi: Survivor, and players can't just go around the entire planet, so there are limitations to the open world.
Both Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and Star Wars Outlaws offer exploration with experiences that are well suited to their titular characters and their skillsets. Therefore, while technically Jedi: Survivor may be smaller, it still feels impressively large because Cal and his allies are exploring more of it on foot, using parkour, animal mounts and other abilities, whereas Kay being able to get around with a vehicle means that she can cover far greater distances in a similar time it would take Cal to get to an objective, but her speeder likely wouldn't work in Jedi: Survivor's maps as she'd get across them far too quickly.
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Star Wars Outlaws
Set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Outlaws is an open-world action-adventure game where players hop into the scoundrel boots of Kay Vess, a woman who travels the galaxy Looking for a better life. Together with her furry partner Nix and new allies she meets along the way, Kay will navigate the various landscapes, towns, and planets across the galaxy while outsmarting both Crime Syndicates and the Empire.
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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor