Star Wars Outlaws Will Be A “Manageable” Length, Dev Assures

Star Wars Outlaws will feature a large open world, but the developers have set goals to make it a reasonable, finishable length, i.e. “not… 200 or 300 hour[s].”

In an interview with IGN (via Eurogamer), developers discussed their design goals vis-a-vis length and size. Creative director Julian Gerighty said, “Too big is a game that people don’t manage to play, enjoy, and finish. And our objective is to really get people into a very dense, rich adventure, open-world adventure that they can rhythm the way that they want.” In some sense, this sounds like other Ubisoft games, a core adventure with plentiful side activities. However, many of the publisher’s titles, like the last few Assassin’s Creed games, have reached into truly epic lengths, even if you are sticking to the main path.

Gerighty continued, “So it is absolutely not a 200 or 300 hour epic unfinishable RPG. This is a very focused action-adventure RPG that will take people on a ride and is very manageable.” What manageable means, and how that relates to the game’s promised multi-planet scale, was not exactly specified.

Additionally, when asked about side areas, Gerighty said, “there won’t necessarily be one off exotic missions outside of the core areas that we’re creating.” The lack of completely optional areas does also point to a more focused, cinematic adventure, i.e. with the flexibility of approach that an open world provides. The gameplay reveal showed that areas and levels in the game can be approached from different angles. Players can team up with different factions, sneak or shoot their way through missions, and emphasize different tools in their tool box.

It was previously revealed that each of Outlaws’ planets are comparable to one or two zones in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Ubisoft also recently announced that players can visit Tatooine in the game. Outlaws developer Ubisoft Massive is also developing Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.