Ghost Of Tsushima Was The Biggest Influence For Star Wars Outlaws

Summary

• You might expect Star Wars Outlaws to be compared to other Ubisoft games, but it's actually quite a different beast.
• Since the previews dropped, comparisons have been made to Red Dead Redemption, The Witcher, Watch Dogs, and more.
• As it turns out, though, the biggest influence in the game's development is Ghost of Tsushima.

Star Wars Outlaws' creative director, Julian Gerighty, has revealed that the biggest influence behind the game's development was Sucker Punch's Ghost of Tsushima.

Although you might think that the most obvious thing to compare Star Wars Outlaws to would be literally any other Ubisoft game over the past decade, that surprisingly isn't the case. Outlaws does a lot of things differently from games like Assassin's Creed and Far Cry and feels like turning over a new leaf for what Ubisoft's open-world games can be.

Star Wars Outlaws Preview - An Open Galaxy, Far, Far Away

I wasn’t sold on Star Wars Outlaws going in, but four hours with its expansive world has made me a believer.

Previews for Star Wars Outlaws dropped yesterday, resulting in a lot of new comparisons being made, such as Red Dead Redemption and The Witcher 3. One weirdo (me) even suggested that it was like Watch Dogs 2 in space. As it turns out, though, there's one big point of reference that shaped the game's development - Ghost of Tsushima.

Star Wars Outlaws Was Massively Inspired By Ghost Of Tsushima

While speaking to GamesRadar+, Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty responded to the comparisons to Red Dead Redemption and revealed that wasn't necessarily a point of inspiration. Instead, Gerighty revealed that his "biggest reference" was Ghost of Tsushima, which he noted is "more on the Kurosawa side of inspiration than the Western".

"I think that Ghost of Tsushima - what I loved about it was this purity of having a player fantasy and really leaning into it. This is the story, the world, the character, everything fits together with the gameplay guiding everything."

Gerighty went on to acknowledge that Red Dead Redemption is "phenomenal" because of how it treats its world as an actual world, but that Ghost of Tsushima's focus on letting the player live their fantasy of being a samurai is what Star Wars Outlaws was more aiming towards. Gerighty specifically pointed out that the story, world, and characters all work together with the gameplay to guide the whole experience.

From what I played of Star Wars Outlaws, that objective is one that's been accomplished surprisingly well. You really do feel like a scoundrel in the Star Wars universe, one who isn't able to just leap around and pull blocks with the Force and who actually has to use every tool available to them to get by. I wouldn't have specifically called out Ghost of Tsushima at first, but I see the vision now.

It's still Watch Dogs 2 in space, though, and that's certainly not a bad thing.

I’m Already Obsessed With Star Wars Outlaws Lockpicking And Hacking Minigames

Fallout’s lockpicking and Deus Ex’s hacking finally have a decent rival.