Ubisoft has detailed Star Wars Outlaws’ “biggest update yet” ahead of its arrival later this month, sharing the news in its first developer blog since former creative director Julian Gerighty’s departure to focus on The Division brand, including The Division 3.
Gerighty confirmed he’d soon be handing over the Star Wars Outlaws reigns in an interview with GamesRadar last month, explaining, “It’s been announced that I’m executive producer on The Division, so these are my last weeks [on Outlaws]”. And now, new creative director Drew Rechner has provided a look ahead at Star Wars Outlaws’ future.
Rechner highlighted “three key areas in which we’re looking to improve the game” in a new developer post, starting with combat, where he sees a “real opportunity to add more depth and excitement… further rewarding your tactics and precision.” Stealth, meanwhile, will see improvements to “readability and consistency of enemy detection” while also “providing choice in how you want to approach each encounter.”
Developer Massive Entertainment’s final focus is character controls, with the studio looking to improve “the reliability of cover… the responsiveness of climbing and crouching [and] the consistency of the controls overall.” All this is set to be addressed in Star Wars Outlaws’ Title Update 1.4 release on 21st November, and Rechner says specific details on the planned changes will be shared in the “upcoming weeks” .
21st November is also the day Star Wars Outlaws comes to Steam (Ubisoft will, of course, be bringing all its new titles to Valve’s platform on launch day starting February next year), and the same day the game’s first story expansion, Wild Card, releases.
Star Wars Outlaws’ 1.4 update marks the latest in a series of patches designed to “polish and improve the player experience” following Ubisoft admission earlier this year that sales had been “softer than expected”. At the time, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the development team was “fully mobilised” to update the game “in order to engage a large audience during the holiday season [and] position [the game] as a strong long-term performer”.