Star Wars Outlaws - In a Galaxy far far too boring.

[Dirty Hipsters]

I think that that is kinda impossible - Star Wars has destroyed the space fantasy by being the only kid in town. Any attempt now to make a new franchise set in space with fantastical elements and beings is either going to be too much like Star Wars or not Star Wars enough. The only way to escape it is by either being part of the MCU (Guardians of the Galaxy) or maybe an anime (Tenchi Muyo). Or Ratchet and Clank, I guess.

I don't think that's true at all.

There are plenty of sci-fi shows that weren't Star Wars between the 90s and the present, and some of them were quite successful.

Farscape, Lexx, Andromeda, The Expanse, Stargate, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, Firefly, etc.

They all have different amounts of the fantasy element to them, but it's there in all of them.

Hell, something like Riddick can have 4 movies and 2 video games.

Star Wars doesn't have to be the only Space Fantasy kid in town.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I don't think that's true at all.

There are plenty of sci-fi shows that and weren't Star Wars between the 90s and the present, and some of them were quite successful.

Farscape, Lexx, Andromeda, The Expanse, Stargate, Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, Firefly, etc.

They all have different amounts of the fantasy element to them, but it's there in all of them.

Hell, something like Riddick can have 4 movies and 2 video games.

Star Wars doesn't have to be the only Space Fantasy kid in town.

Yeah, but that's sci-fi - that's more on the Star Trek or Dune side of things, which seems a lot more inviting to new IPs. Just straight-up Fantasy, magic, swords, and princesses in space aren't very prevalent. There's just a hold Star Wars has on this, both as a cultural phenomenon and as a corporate product.

I mean, let's say we get a new Fantasy in space and the main character uses a sword. It can either be a traditional sword made of (space) metal and not be as cool as a lightsaber, or it can be made of energy and just be a lightsaber copy. I'm not saying it's completely impossible to find a new angle, but Star Wars has kinda cornered the market by being as succesful as it is (or has been).

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yeah, but that's sci-fi - that's more on the Star Trek or Dune side of things, which seems a lot more inviting to new IPs. Just straight-up Fantasy, magic, swords, and princesses in space aren't very prevalent. There's just a hold Star Wars has on this, both as a cultural phenomenon and as a corporate product.

Warhammer exists, it's right there. Fantasy, magic, chainswords, space.

It isn't even like Star Wars is that original in the first place. It borrows a lot from Kurosawa movies, and Frank Herbert wanted to sue Lucas after seeing A New Hope because of its similarity to Dune.

 

[Satinavian]

Yeah, but that's sci-fi - that's more on the Star Trek or Dune side of things, which seems a lot more inviting to new IPs. Just straight-up Fantasy, magic, swords, and princesses in space aren't very prevalent. There's just a hold Star Wars has on this, both as a cultural phenomenon and as a corporate product.

What about She-Ra ?

Also second 40K (certainly has lots of space magic, space swords, flying medieval space castle, but admittedly not enough space princesses)

 

[Casual Shinji]

What about She-Ra ?

I'm only familiar with recent She-Ra and it doesn't feel that space-y. It's kind of in the realm of Brave Star or Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors. 'Somewhere on another planet!'

I guess I could give a shout-out to Ulysses 31 though.

 

[Satinavian]

She-Ra had a couple of off world and space episodes, but the others were indeed on one planet.


Ok, that is becoming quite a specific taste.
Magic, swords and princesses in Science fiction, but it must be space opera, not planetary romance. Not even classics like Flash Gordon would fit that.

Indeed i can only think of some anime that kinda match.

 

[BrawlMan]

Like @Dirty Hipsters said, Star Wars ain't the only sci-fi space fantasy in town, and many are doing great or carved their own mainstream and niche audiences.

 

[Ezekiel]

On top of Star Wars being the only (space fantasy) game in town for so long (that enough people actually gave a damn about), it's hard these days to start a new IP, especially one so big in scope, even if we limit it to the two planets, two ships and one space station of the original movie. Publishers largely have themselves to blame, for letting budgets balloon and keeping game design so safe for many years that nothing really stands out from the competition. But they would make a Star Wars game in another era before they made an original IP like Star Wars.

 

[CriticalGaming]

On top of Star Wars being the only (space fantasy) game in town for so long (that enough people actually gave a damn about), it's hard these days to start a new IP, especially one so big in scope, even if we limit it to the two planets, two ships and one space station of the original movie. Publishers largely have themselves to blame, for letting budgets balloon and keeping game design so safe for many years that nothing really stands out from the competition. But they would make a Star Wars game in another era before they made an original IP like Star Wars.

I dunno about that. Mass Effect did it. You just need to have good writers.

 

[BrawlMan]

I dunno about that. Mass Effect did it. You just need to have good writers.

Yeah, I have no idea what Ezekiel nor Casual Shinji are going on about. There are plenty in mini sci fi space fantasy games, movies, anime, and TV shows That carved out plenty of their own audiences and are successful.

 

[FakeSympathy]

I picked up Star Wars Outlaws because I do happen to like average Ubisoft open world slop from time to time. It's like getting some McDonald's every now and again, the food sucks but somehow it hits the right spot sometimes.

The game starts by setting up a big bad crime boss and identifying that the game is taking place between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi films. You are Kay Vess, a Han Solo genderbent cosplay with about 10% the charisma. And she steals things, that's about all there is to her character. She is staying in the attic of a bar who's owner looks out of her for some reason, and you go off to explore the city stealing things. You meet another "friend", nobody seems to like Kay, and in order to get your little hacky tool fixed you gotta steal some shit. Turns out you steal from the wrong guy and they come hunting you at the bar. The own gives you the job that he didn't want you to take in the beginning and it leads Kay off world to start stealing professionally.

The gameplay itself is a mix between an AC game and a 3rd person Far Cry. However a lot of interesting things that those series do with the gameplay loops is sort of missing here. The stealth is uber basic, sneak up on guy, hit guy, done. The gun play is bland and blasters have zero impact on anything so they are just boring to use. Enemies barely react to getting shot until they die and it's just unsatisfying to play.

Even the open world is empty and boring. Normal the world is covered in vomit markers with little shits to do, but not here. There is very few points of interest and the best play seems to be to move from main mission to main mission to get all your unlocks since a lot of the few random locations on the map require those abilities anyway.

It's like Ubisoft heard people complaining about Valhalla and took way too many steps back to provide a big open world game that feels empty. Then took out the leveling system or any sort of character progression at all besides a few challenge unlocks and called it a day.

I didn't expect a great game, but I expect a decent open world game with a Star Wars skin on it. Instead I got a boring game that is boring and unfun to play. I will not even bother doing any more with this.

Ubisoft truly is gifted. No, really. I have never seen any other publishers in the industry whose products are consistently mediocre. Some companies makes a bunch of amazing games with some okay-ish ones. Others make a bunch of bad games with some mediocre games every now and then.

But Ubisoft? My god no one will ever top them when it comes to mediocrity EVERY SINGLE TIME. Especially when it comes to making the premises sound interesting, but having a crap execution. I swear this has been happening since 2014-2015 era, starting with the likes of Watch Dogs, Far Cry: Primal, etc.

I feel this type of publishers are the worst, because they will have just enough shills and fanatics who will bend over backward for their games.

To the game's credit, it does seem to handle space adventure much better than Starfield in some aspect; You actually get to fly your ship in and out of atmosphere, each planets feel more explorable, and this probably is the first SW game in a while where Jedi/Sith/Force isn't the main focus.

While everyone in the internet seem to bash on this game, I do think it truly is one of those 6-7/10 games, and certainly not the worst game ever made like the gollum game, concord, or Madden same-shit-every-year-but-we'll-call-it-new-anyways-and-add-next-number

 

[Ezekiel]

I dunno about that. Mass Effect did it. You just need to have good writers.

I couldn't play Mass Effect, but have the impression it's science fiction. Was also greenlit when competition wasn't so tight, budgets not so bloated and the market not so fragmented.

Anyway, I don't know why it matters. They will keep making Star Wars games anyway, and can either do so in/around the really tired original trilogy, the prequel trilogy that's rather restricted too or a new era.

 

[Satinavian]

I couldn't play Mass Effect, but have the impression it's science fiction. Was also greenlit when competition wasn't so tight, budgets not so bloated and the market not so fragmented.

Anyway, I don't know why it matters. They will keep making Star Wars games anyway, and can either do so in/around the really tired original trilogy, the prequel trilogy that's rather restricted too or a new era.

Among halfway recent Science Fiction games we several entries for Battletech and Star Trek, dozens for 40k as far as established franchises go , Stellaris/Sins of a Solar Empire/Endless Space/Galactic Civilisazions in the grand strategy/4x category, Zero Dawn, Nier Automata, Fallout, Encased in the "weird postapocalypcic stuff", Starfield, Honkai Star Rail, Surviving Mars, Colony ship and that is just what i remember without even looking. (I am also missing whole genres i am not interested in like Sace Horror)

There are many many SCi Fi cames out there and regularly new ones are coming.

What is a bit rarer is pulpy Science Fantasy. But that is a niche genre. But even that has enough entries that are not Star Wars.


Only when you look for "Exactly like Star Wars but off brand" you don't find all that much.


It is not that before Star Wars existed, the market was overflowing with settings just like Star Wars. Most Science Fantasy always played on a single planet where people could hack each other more easily with swords.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Ubisoft truly is gifted. No, really. I have never seen any other publishers in the industry whose products are consistently mediocre. Some companies makes a bunch of amazing games with some okay-ish ones. Others make a bunch of bad games with some mediocre games every now and then.

But Ubisoft? My god no one will ever top them when it comes to mediocrity EVERY SINGLE TIME. Especially when it comes to making the premises sound interesting, but having a crap execution. I swear this has been happening since 2014-2015 era, starting with the likes of Watch Dogs, Far Cry: Primal, etc.

I feel this type of publishers are the worst, because they will have just enough shills and fanatics who will bend over backward for their games.

To the game's credit, it does seem to handle space adventure much better than Starfield in some aspect; You actually get to fly your ship in and out of atmosphere, each planets feel more explorable, and this probably is the first SW game in a while where Jedi/Sith/Force isn't the main focus.

While everyone in the internet seem to bash on this game, I do think it truly is one of those 6-7/10 games, and certainly not the worst game ever made like the gollum game, concord, or Madden same-shit-every-year-but-we'll-call-it-new-anyways-and-add-next-number

I would argue Bethesda and Ubisoft are the fucking same. Bethesda got praise because a couple of games they made were kind of ahead of their time. But They've been making the same fucking game since Morrowind and only with Starfield do people realize that the games they make are Mid at best. They've all bee that way.

I couldn't play Mass Effect, but have the impression it's science fiction. Was also greenlit when competition wasn't so tight, budgets not so bloated and the market not so fragmented.

Technology often gets so advanced in sci-fi that it becomes magic. But Mass Effect also has alien women who breed by having sex with your mind, Biotics are literally using the force with a blue reskin over it. So it's the same shit really. The games are actually pretty good though so they have that going for them.

 

[Bedinsis]

Ubisoft truly is gifted. No, really. I have never seen any other publishers in the industry whose products are consistently mediocre. Some companies makes a bunch of amazing games with some okay-ish ones. Others make a bunch of bad games with some mediocre games every now and then.

But Ubisoft? My god no one will ever top them when it comes to mediocrity EVERY SINGLE TIME. Especially when it comes to making the premises sound interesting, but having a crap execution. I swear this has been happening since 2014-2015 era, starting with the likes of Watch Dogs, Far Cry: Primal, etc.

I feel this type of publishers are the worst, because they will have just enough shills and fanatics who will bend over backward for their games.

To the game's credit, it does seem to handle space adventure much better than Starfield in some aspect; You actually get to fly your ship in and out of atmosphere, each planets feel more explorable, and this probably is the first SW game in a while where Jedi/Sith/Force isn't the main focus.

While everyone in the internet seem to bash on this game, I do think it truly is one of those 6-7/10 games, and certainly not the worst game ever made like the gollum game, concord, or Madden same-shit-every-year-but-we'll-call-it-new-anyways-and-add-next-number

Once upon a time I was interested in seeing where video games in general are developed, i.e. what countries. To have something to go off of I went through what was at the time all the titles reviewed in a Zero Punctuation episode to see if I could see any trends.

One problem I encountered was with Ubisoft titles. I wanted the column saying "country" to have just one entry, but the studios listed for Ubisoft were often seven or above.

I suspect that helps explain why their titles get so mediocre (based on your and Yahtzee's views): if you have to coordinate the output for 7+ studios then making any bold choices would put the whole project at risk, meaning they are stuck in a "safe" design paradigm.

To illustrate my point: Star Wars Outlaws has according to Wikipedia been worked primarily by Massive Entertainment and additional work by the Ubisoft studios Annecy, Bucharest, Chengdu, Milan, Montpellier, Paris, RedLynx, Shanghai, Stockholm, and Toronto. That is 11 studios.

As a point of comparison: Star Wars Battlefront II has according to Wikipedia been worked on by Dice, while "Motive Studios was responsible for the single player campaign and Criterion Games was responsible for the starfighter gameplay and mechanics.". That is 3 studios, with a clear delineation of what studio did what.

 

[Dreiko]

I agree that Mass Effect is more heavily in the star trek style of scifi as opposed to fantasy, though not nearly as much as star trek itself.

But if you want actual space fantasy, you have Dune, you have Star Ocean, you have Phantasy Star, there's options.

 

[BrawlMan]

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[CriticalGaming]

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

View attachment 11840

I honestly still don't get this controversy. She looks fine for someone who is supposed to be a poor dirty space pirate.

 

[Satinavian]

I don't get the controversy either. It is a lackluster game with disappointing sales. But of the many issues it has, the look of the protagonist is not one.

I mean i can get when people dissed the Concord characters. But Kay ? Looks pretty average for a protagonist and certainly not like an attempt to get someone ugly.