Maybe you’re still inundated with the fantasy of the spacefaring smuggler that Ubisoft and Massive Games showed off Monday with Star Wars bandits. You may want the chance to relive it. Well, Narrative Director Navid Khavari, Creative Director Julian Gerighty and Game Director Mathias Karlson are here to give you…director commentary! From what you saw yesterday at the Ubisoft Forward showcase.
But seriously, they explain a lot of the setup and narrative choices for this. They also outline the effort that went into developing the world of Toshara, the galaxy’s newest hive of scum and villains where we find Star Wars’ newest villain, Kay Vess, prowling.
The video is still the same; Vess infiltrates a Pyke Syndicate chop shop, runs off with the macguffin, and escapes back to the dusty frontier town to fence in the wares, where the shit really goes down like it always does in heist movies – bloodless, over cocktails.
Then Vess is on the move, wanted by the Empire, and Gerighty makes that clear Star Wars bandits could be something like Grand Theft Auto in space: “At the highest level [of wanted-ness] the realm will throw a huge amount of resistance and power in your way. It’s best to get off the world and go to a safe house, but for those TIE Fighters. That’s where the space combat comes in – and hands up if you were expecting that part of these types of games.
Star Wars bandits is coming sometime in 2024 and if, like me, you feel like the franchise’s true, redemptive storyline is running through mercenaries, bounty hunters, criminals, spies and smugglers, it can’t come soon enough.