Star Wars Outlaws: Inspired by Ubisoft's Best Formula Twist

• Star Wars Outlaws is Ubisoft's next big open-world RPG.
• Inspired by PlayStation's Ghost of Tsushima.
• Ghost of Tsushima was influenced by Ubisoft's work.
• Outlaws is a space western featuring a smuggler and thief.
• Releases on August 30, 2024.

Star Wars Outlaws is the next big open-world RPG from Ubisoft.

Ubisoft has become synonymous with open-world games thanks to franchises like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry.

People expect Star Wars Outlaws to take a lot of inspiration from these in-house tentpoles.

However, the biggest inspiration for Star Wars Outlaws came from outside Ubisoft.

The creative director, Julian Gerighty, revealed that PlayStation's Ghost of Tsushima was a major reference point.

Ghost of Tsushima itself was heavily influenced by Ubisoft's work in the genre.

It's a fascinating circle of life in game design.

In a recent Gamesradar interview, Gerighty said:

"What I loved about Ghost of Tsushima was this purity of having a player fantasy and really leaning into it."

He emphasized how the story, world, and characters fit together with the gameplay guiding everything.

Star Wars Outlaws is essentially a space western.

You take on the role of a down-on-her-luck smuggler and thief.

The setting is the space equivalent of the wild west, run by crime syndicates constantly at war.

Gerighty also mentioned Red Dead Redemption as an inspiration.

But Tsushima's role as a touchstone for Outlaws is particularly fascinating.

Since its release in 2020, Sucker Punch's samurai epic has received critical and public acclaim.

Many call it one of the best riffs on the Ubisoft-style open-world RPG.

If you've played Ghost of Tsushima, you probably recognized how years of Assassin's Creed inspired it.

Many have called it the best Assassin's Creed game—not made by Ubisoft.

Here we have a Ubisoft RPG taking inspiration from a game that itself is inspired by Ubisoft RPGs of the past.

There's a recursive loop of iterative game design going on here.

Core concepts and gameplay fundamentals go from Ubisoft to Sony and now back to Ubisoft.

In our hands-on preview of the game, we noted:

While it relies heavily on some signature Ubisoft systems that feel quite dated, Outlaws still shines.

Its beautiful world and cast of characters are elements explicitly influenced by Ghost of Tsushima.

Hopefully, looking outside of Ubisoft for inspiration will pay off for Outlaws when it releases on August 30.

Updated 8/01/2024 1:25 PM ET

A previous version of this article mistakenly named Insomniac as the developer of Ghost of Tsushima.

Sucker Punch is the developer of the game, and the article has been updated to reflect this.