When Star Wars Outlaws launched in 2024, it gave players a chance to inhabit a different corner of the galaxy far, far away. Developed by Ubisoft Massive in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games, the open-world action-adventure stars Kay Vess, a scoundrel trying to survive in the criminal underworld between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Alongside her axolotl-like companion Nix, she navigates branching dialogue, space battles, and uneasy dealings with figures such as Jabba the Hutt. Before launch, narrative director Navid Khavari, creative director Julian Gerighty, and Lucasfilm senior creative executive Matt Martin discussed how the project balanced familiar Star Wars texture with fresh underworld storytelling.

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Key elements from those developer conversations included:

  • 🪐 The new moon Toshara, inspired by East African savannas

  • 🤝 A reputation system built around criminal syndicates and the Empire

  • 🚀 The Trailblazer ship and accessible space combat

  • ⚔️ A scoundrel-focused story that does not rely on Jedi or the Force

🪐 Toshara: A New Moon Built for Speed

Although many Star Wars stories visit established planets, the team created a brand-new moon called Toshara. Matt Martin explained that Toshara was crafted with Lucasfilm Games and inspired by East African savannas. The goal was to combine a bustling underworld capital with wide open plains that players could cross in a speeder. Creative director Julian Gerighty clarified that the vehicle is not a swoop, chopper, or hot rod. Instead, the team looked to motocross for inspiration, emphasizing travel that feels thrilling, full of tricks, speed chases, and pure fun. Players can also expect some personalization for the speeder, though stickers were not confirmed.

Martin described Lucasfilm’s “80/20 rule” for Star Wars design: roughly 80 percent familiar and 20 percent alien or fantastical. On Toshara, that means recognizable savanna-like landscapes alongside orange, reflective crystalline outcroppings and a city carved into amberine inside a huge mountain. The result is a location that feels grounded enough for live-action photography, yet unmistakably part of the wider galaxy.

🤝 Reputation, Syndicates, and the Empire

The game’s underworld layer gives Kay Vess a reputation system with multiple criminal syndicates. A positive reputation unlocks better jobs, better store prices, and greater access to faction territories. If a relationship turns sour, the syndicate sends people after Kay. The wanted system works in parallel with the Empire, and every location was chosen with both the Empire and the syndicates in mind. Gerighty said this ensures the scoundrel fantasy and the open-world systems reinforce each other.

The developers also introduced the Ashiga Clan on the planet Kijimi, which appeared briefly in The Rise of Skywalker. Outlaws presents Kijimi about 30 years earlier. The Ashiga Clan is a hive-minded syndicate tied to the Melitto species, with poor vision but excellent hearing, creating distinct stealth encounters. Navid Khavari said the Clan was born from the need to give players varied combat and stealth challenges.

🚀 The Trailblazer: Ship and Space Combat

Like many scoundrels, Kay Vess’s home is her ship. The Trailblazer serves as a place to eat, sleep, talk with crew members, and uncover mysteries about its history. Space combat was designed to be accessible. A chase camera can automatically follow enemies, leaving the player to focus on shooting precision, while battles range from small-scale skirmishes to larger encounters. Personalization for the Trailblazer is expected to be roughly comparable to the speeder, treating both vehicles as characters in their own right.

The ship’s look draws from the late 1970s and early 1980s aesthetic of the original trilogy, including consumer electronics from that era and a kit-bash approach to digital props. Khavari added that the team studied George Lucas’s original inspirations, such as spaghetti westerns, to balance big emotional stakes with humor.

🎯 Scope and Character-First Design

Asked whether Star Wars Outlaws might become overwhelming, Gerighty pushed back on the idea of a massive unfinishable game.

“Too big is a game that people don’t manage to play, enjoy, and finish. Our objective is to really get people into a very dense, rich adventure...”

He described Star Wars Outlaws as a focused action-adventure RPG, not a 200- or 300-hour epic. The open world is hand-crafted, and the team avoided one-off exotic missions outside the core areas. Narrative choices are grounded in Kay’s perspective: how she would react to a planet, character, or artifact. Khavari said the team built each open world from a place of character, layering in demographics, politics, corruption, and daily life so that stepping into the game feels like stepping into Star Wars.

⚔️ Why Kay Vess Doesn’t Need a Lightsaber

Despite the constant temptation to include Jedi, Sith, and lightsabers, the team remained focused on the scoundrel experience. Khavari noted that so much of the Empire and Rebellion story has been told across film, television, books, and comics, while the criminal underworld has rarely been the centerpiece. Kay Vess, a thief simply trying to get by, anchors that perspective. Gerighty said she does not need a lightsaber, and Khavari joked that she could probably get good credits for one. The developers also stated they did not draw direct inspiration from the canceled LucasArts project Star Wars 1313, preferring to build something new.

The game still finds room for legacy connections. The droid-like presence of ND-5, who fought in the Clone Wars and later transitioned into the underworld, gives the story another bridge between familiar history and Kay’s lower-stakes world. At the same time, the Ashiga Clan and the earlier version of Kijimi show how contemporary Star Wars elements can be expanded in meaningful ways.

🌟 Fan Response and a Continuing Scoundrel Story

When asked about negativity surrounding Kay Vess as a woman protagonist, Khavari said the team was excited to tell a crafted narrative around a character who feels authentically like a scoundrel. He also praised Humberly González’s performance for bringing heart and humor to Kay. More than a year after the game’s release, those character-first decisions remain central to how Star Wars Outlaws is discussed, proving that a galaxy full of Jedi can still make room for a thief, her companion Nix, and a very fast speeder.