UPDATE
Are you happy to see the game invoking the visual quirks of the original trilogy? Let us know in the comments below!
ORIGINAL STORY
Given our gaming age, you might think that most developers want to partake in the “hi-res graphics” they can use to make a “pretty looking game” and be done with it. To be fair, there are definitely some people out there who have that mindset. However, just as many want to use the graphics to make a good-looking game and have a certain “feel” or “style” to it. They want it to stand out from the crowd and invoke something in players. Star Wars Outlaws is a title that is being made with that mindset.
Creative Director Julian Gerighty sat down with Edge Magazine and noted that the visual aesthetics for the game were critical in the team’s mind. They didn’t simply want to make the game pop. They wanted to make it feel like this was a part of the overall universe and, more specifically, a part of the original trilogy:
“Our game is set between Empire and Jedi, so we wanted to emulate that feel.”
What does that mean? Well, it means that they wanted to use techniques that “emulates some of the lenses of the ’70s. So you have the vignetting, film grain, lens breathing, the curvature of a thicker lens, the slight lens flares – all of these things that are very subtle, but come together to give you a more cinematic experience.”
The keywords there are “cinematic experience,” as it was evident during the massive gameplay trailer in June that the game was trying to feel like a unique mix of film and video games. Furthermore, Star Wars Outlaws is a narrative-driven title, so making it “feel like it fits” within the original movies visually might help players connect with it more.
It’s hard to say exactly how well this will work, but it’s undeniable that when a game is given the right amount of care to look a “different way,” we notice and praise it. It’s not enough to make a “game capable of 4K resolution”. You must make it mean something, and Ubisoft is going for that.
We also know they’re going for something special via the story and gameplay. You’re not playing a Jedi. You’re playing a smuggler, one trying to gain a new life by doing jobs and eventually undertaking a heist. Add that to the new worlds you’ll be visiting, and gamers might want to stay in this part of a galaxy far, far away for some time when it releases next year.
