Star Wars Outlaws Planets As Big As Early Assassin’s Creed Maps

I think everybody expected Ubisoft’s upcoming open-world Star Wars game, Star Wars: Outlaws, to be huge. That’s been the case with most of the publisher’s recent open-world games. But the developers behind Outlaws recently confirmed just how big it might be, explaining that planets in the game will be as big as multiple regions in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

In June, after rumors and teases, Ubisoft and in-house developers Massive Entertainment finally revealed its Star Wars: Outlaws, an open-world game set in that famous galaxy far, far away. In Outlaws, which takes place between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, you’ll play as scoundrel and thief, Kay Vess. And because this is Star Wars, a franchise built on found family and ragtag groups coming together, you won’t be alone: you’ll have a cute alien sidekick and an (according to the internet) oddly sexy droid partner. While we still don’t know what the game’s actual narrative is, nor what you’ll be doing precisely, we do know that the galaxy in Outlaws is going to be very, very big. Although not stupidly big.

In an interview with Edge Magazine, Outlaws’ creative director Julian Gerighty compared the size of the game’s hand-crafted planets with areas in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, another Ubisoft open-world blockbuster.

“It’s a crude analogy, but the size of one planet might be [equivalent to] two of the zones in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey,” said Gerighty. “It could be two to three zones. But it’s not this sort of epic ‘the whole of England recreated’ approach.”

Now, depending on which zones you are referring to, this could mean the planets in Star Wars: Outlaws are pretty big, or even incredibly enormous, as some regions in Odyssey were small islands while others were giant chunks of ancient Greece. Based on what Gerighty told Edge, even a modest estimation would likely mean some planets in Star Wars: Outlaws are multiple times bigger than entire Assassin’s Creed games, like Syndicate or Unity.

How big are the planets in Star Wars: Outlaws?

When you compare the maps of those titles to the recent, open-world RPG entries in the AC series, you can see just how much bigger the locations have gotten over the years. For example, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate’s London map—a large and highly detailed playground—can fit easily inside a small corner of Assassin’s Creed Origins’ open world. In fact, you can fit a dozen copies of that world in Origins. And Origins’ map fits in Odyssey’s huge Greek open world with plenty of room to spare. So when talking about two or three regions from Odyssey, even just the medium-sized areas, we are dealing with some vast areas of digital land.

DG VFX / Ubisoft

Impressively, Gerighty also told Edge Magazine that all of the planets in Outlaws are handcrafted and not built using procedural generation, which is the opposite approach of how Bethesda is tackling the hundreds of worlds in its epic RPG, Starfield. That game uses procedural generation to help fill out its galaxy. In contrast, Gerighty says Massive and Ubisoft are taking a “handcrafted” and “manageable” approach to the open-world (or galaxy) in Outlaws. Of course, we don’t yet know how many worlds will be featured in Outlaws, though based on Gerighty’s comments, likely significantly less than the hundreds of planets in Starfield.

Of course, while giant, handcrafted Star Wars planets filled with exciting missions and places to explore sounds nice, I also already feel tired when trying to visualize these massive, Assassin’s-Creed-sized worlds. I really, really hope they aren’t covered in thousands of icons and symbols. I’d prefer some empty space, areas where you just travel through them and don’t stop and spend four hours checking off items from a never-ending list. One can hope, right? We have at least learned that you can’t just fly your ship and land anywhere, but rather at designated points on each planet, which suggests some hope of containment.

Star Wars: Outlaws doesn’t have a specific release date, but Ubisoft says it will be out in 2024 and will launch on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. So it will be 2025.

Next Assassin’s Creed Game Launching A Week Early

In recent years, Ubisoft has struggled to release games on schedule, with some titles like Skull & Bones being delayed over and over. But now, the company has announced something different. Instead of being delayed, it turns out Assassin’s Creed: Mirage will launch a week earlier than previously planned.

Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is the next entry in the long-running open-world stealth franchise. This time around players will take on the role of Basim Ibn Ishaq, an assassin first seen in Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. In Mirage, players will get a chance to see how a younger Basim evolves from a street thief to a fully-fledged assassin. Ubisoft is promising that, unlike recent AC games, Mirage will be a smaller, more stealth-focused action game and less of a super large open-world RPG. That sounds great to me, someone who misses those sleeker, sneakier entries. And what also sounds good to me is that we won’t have to wait as long to get our hands on this Assassin’s Creed prequel.

Pre-order Assassin’s Creed: Mirage: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

On August 14, Ubisoft announced that Assassin’s Creed: Mirage will launch across PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC on October 5. The game was initially planned—after a delay in 2022—to be released on October 12. Ubisoft says that the game has now gone gold and will be ready for players a full week earlier than expected.

In an era where big, complicated video games are taking longer and longer to make and delays are becoming more and more common, this is a nice bit of news. Not just for Assassin’s Creed fans, who now get to play the upcoming game a week earlier than planned, but for anyone looking for a sign that perhaps not every big game that is completed and successfully ships has to do so on fire.

Of course that’s assuming Mirage launches in a respectable state and not filled with bizarre glitches, like the originally released version of Assassin’s Creed: Unity back in 2014. Either way, Assassin’s Creed: Mirage is now set to launch on October 5 across Xbox, PlayStation and PC. Perhaps one day Skull & Bones will release, too.

Pre-order Assassin’s Creed: Mirage: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

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Todd Howard Seems To Think Elder Scrolls 6 Announced Too Early

Todd Howard, longtime director of huge open-world RPGs like Fallout 4 and the upcoming space adventure Starfield, appears to regret how Bethesda announced The Elder Scrolls VI, suggesting it should have revealed the game more “casually.”

Back during E3 2018—remember when we used to get actual E3 events?—Bethesda announced Starfield, its next enormous open-world RPG. But it also set aside a moment to reveal The Elder Scrolls VI, the long-awaited follow-up to its massively popular The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Five years later, Starfield is almost here, but the next Elder Scrolls game is nowhere to be found. In a new interview, Howard reveals that he’s been thinking a lot about how and when Bethesda announced the highly anticipated RPG. And looking back, he would have done things differently.

Talking to GQ ahead of Starfield’s September release, Howard was asked about Bethesda’s future after spending eight years working on Starfield. Specifically, the famous video game director was asked if he regrets announcing the next Elder Scrolls games so early, as it could take another four years before the game is actually released.

“I have asked myself that a lot. I don’t know,” admitted Howard. “I probably would’ve announced it more casually.”

Bethesda

When pushed to reveal anything about the future game, Howard was tightlipped, a sign of just how far away The Elder Scrolls VI still remains from launch in 2023. (Howard wouldn’t even reveal the game’s codename.)

“It’s like… I don’t want to answer, but I want to be polite,” Howard said after being asked for any details about the upcoming RPG. “I will say that we want it to fill that role of the ultimate fantasy-world simulator. And there are different ways to accomplish that given the time that has passed.”

Interestingly, Howard kind-of sort-of already did casually announce The Elder Scrolls VI back in 2016, two years before the game’s official teaser and E3 announcement. In an interview with Geoff Keighley back then, Howard confirmed that Bethesda was indeed going to make an Elder Scrolls VI, but warned it was “a very long way off.” He wasn’t joking!

As for Fallout 5, that’s coming too. Howard confirmed as much in a 2022 interview with IGN. But it won’t be out until after The Elder Scrolls VI. And considering how many years away that game likely is at this point, I’d not expect the new Fallout until sometime after 2032. At least you can play Starfield soon, when it launches on September 6 on Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Hades 2 Is Sliding Into Early Access Sooner Than You Think

Out of the blue, acclaimed indie developer Supergiant Games announced that its Greek mythology-themed roguelike sequel Hades II will make its early access debut in “Q2 2024,” meaning it’ll arrive sometime between April and June next year.

Read More: Hades II Is A Sequel From A Studio That Doesn’t Make Sequels

Supergiant Games posted a blog on its website delivering the news. The game’s Early Access period is planned for PC via the Epic Games Store and Steam. If you were hoping for an exact release date, pricing details, or system requirements, you’re SOL, as the studio said this information will come “closer to [the game’s launch] time.” Sit back and relax, we’ll be waiting a while here.

“Thank you for your patience as we gear up for this launch,” Supergiant Games wrote in the official blog post on its website. “You may be wondering, why can’t we launch in Early Access, like, right now?! The game looked pretty far along in the first trailer! The reason is, Hades II will have at least as much content from day one in Early Access as the original game did back when it launched in Early Access on Steam. And, even though Early Access inherently means a game is not yet complete, we still want to do everything we can to make sure Hades II is worth your while as soon as you can play it in any capacity.”

Before Hades II’s Early Access launch, though, Supergiant Games plans to run a “technical test with a limited sample of players.” The goal for the studio here is to find any compatibility or technical issues that might have been missed before the game becomes available to a wider audience. While it’s unclear exactly how people will gain access to the game’s technical test whenever it goes live, Supergiant Games confirmed that it will “contain much less content” than what’s currently planned for Hades II’s Early Access launch early next year.

The studio also talked about how “vitally important” Early Access was for Hades, and how the same development cadence will ensure Hades II gets to the finish line. The development timeframe will allow the studio to hit that “sweet spot” in which, thanks to player feedback via Early Access, the game will be far enough long to iron out issues but not finalized to where it’d be impossible to address the criticisms Supergiant Games might receive. In particular, “several major updates” will hit the game throughout its Early Access period that’ll expand the story, introduce new characters, and deepen their relationships. It’ll all end with Hades II’s official launch, though that’s definitely a long way off.

“We don’t yet know exactly how long it will take us to get to v1.0 of Hades II, as our experience developing in Early Access has taught us (among many things) to expect the unexpected,” Supergiant Games wrote. “For now, our focus is to keep building core content—environments, characters, weapons, Boons, story events, music, and more—as we gear up for our Technical Test and Early Access launch in Q2 this coming year. Thank you again for your patience and support as we work to ensure our first sequel meets our standards, and hopefully yours, too!”

Read More: Everyone’s Hot As Hell In Hades II, As They Should Be

So yeah, it might be a long while before non-PC gamers get the chance to play Hades II, but hey, at least we all finally have an idea of when it’s coming, right?

 

Cyberpunk 2077 Sequel In Early Design Stage, Likely Years Away

A screenshot shows Keanu Reeves in Cyberpunk 2077 sitting in a café.

Screenshot: CD Projekt Red

Cyberpunk 2077’s first (and only) DLC expansion, Phantom Liberty, was just recently released for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC. But developer CD Projekt Red is already sharing more details about Cyberpunk 2077’s big-budget sequel, currently known as Project Orion. However, it sounds like it’s still years and years away at this point.

CDPR’s massive open-world RPG, Cyberpunk 2077, launched at the end of 2020 and was quite a mess. The game suffered from numerous problems, glitches, and other issues. Things were so bad that players demanded refunds and Sony yanked the game from the PlayStation store just a week after its launch. Over the last two years, though, thanks to a popular anime and lots of updates, the dystopian RPG became more popular than ever and less buggy overall. Some might argue the game’s core problems can’t be fixed, but CDPR did enough to help right the ship—and the game’s recent 2.0 update and DLC helped make the game even more popular—to turn around a story that started quite poorly. And now, CDPR isn’t looking back, but looking forward to Project Orion, its tentative Cyberpunk sequel.

Buy Cyberpunk 2077: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

CD Projekt Red

On October 5, during a presentation for investors, CDPR shared more details on Project Orion. During the event, the company’s chief creative officer Adam Badowski explained the sequel is still in the “conceptual design” phase at the moment, meaning it is likely years away from release. Badowski also told investors that the sequel will be designed by a team of “veterans who were responsible for fine-tuning” Cyberpunk 2077 and its recent DLC, Phantom Liberty.

According to the CCO, Project Orion will be developed by teams located in Vancouver, Boston, and Poland. Badowski says that the target is for half of the devs to work out of Poland and the other half to be located in North America.

Project Orion was first announced in October 2022 alongside five other CDPR projects, including a new The Witcher trilogy and the just-released Phantom Liberty expansion.

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Todd Howard Revealed Elder Scrolls 6 Early Due To Grumpy Gamers

A lead Skyrim designer has explained why Bethesda exec Todd Howard peeled back the curtain on The Elder Scrolls 6 in 2018, despite the studio’s years-long focus on shipping Starfield: Angry gamers with their pitchforks and torches.

Read More: Todd Howard Seems To Think Bethesda Announced The Elder Scrolls VI Too Early

In an October 23 interview with the gaming podcast MinnMax, Bruce Nesmith spoke about his history with Bethesda Softworks. Nesmith—who’s been with the company on and off since the ‘90s with credits on Fallout 3, Oblivion, and Skyrim—told host Ben Hanson that Bethesda was getting shit for remaining so tightlipped on The Elder Scrolls 6 for such a long time. It got to a point where, according to Nesmith, Howard had to do something to quell a supposed angry gamer mob. And that something, it turned out, was dropping a teaser of the next entry in The Elder Scrolls series during E3 in June 2018. Nesmith said:

“Well, you have to remember the company took years of hits for not talking about Elder Scrolls 6. I mean, years of hits. Because Todd’s opinion—one which I share, by the way—is that the video game industry has short memories. Those companies that start touting their games years ahead of time actually, you know, they screw themselves. The best time to start talking about it is six months before releases. […] So, only the fact that everybody was—you know, the pitchforks and torches were out. It got Todd to say, ‘Yes, we’re going to do Elder Scrolls 6. I promise you, it’s for real. It’ll happen.’ But I’m betting you won’t hear much in the way of details until about six months before release, which is the way it should be. I think that’s the best approach, and [Todd’s] proven that that works really well—at least for Bethesda.”

MinnMax

The Elder Scrolls 6 was revealed at E3 2018 with a teaser that pans over a mountainous landscape while drums crescendo into a horn section—and that’s it. Since the teaser, tiny bits of news like the game going into early development this year and the potential setting the game will take place in trickled out of Bethesda’s offices, but it’s essentially been radio silence for the past five years.

Kotaku reached out to Bethesda for comment.

Nesmith doesn’t work at Bethesda anymore. According to his LinkedIn page, he left his role as design director in September 2021 and self-published a Norse mythological fantasy epic called Mischief Maker. However, Nesmith told Hanson that some of his ideas might still appear in The Elder Scrolls 6.

“The whole magic system for Skyrim? I persuaded Todd to let me throw out the baby and the bathwater and restart [it] from scratch, and he trusted me enough to do that,” Nesmith said. “There will probably still be traces of that in [The Elder Scrolls 6]. The whole ‘you do it to get better at it’? While that was not my unique idea, I had a large hand in that. That’s absolutely gonna continue. A lot of the concepts dealing with how you level and things like that, you know, there will be a bunch of new ideas thrown in, but I’m betting some of the stuff that I worked on will still survive in the new one.”

Read More: Fallout 5 Is Bethesda’s Next Game After Elder Scrolls 6, Will Probably Be Out By 2050

It’ll probably be a while before we find out, but whenever it drops, Todd Howard said it may be the last one he works on. No matter what The Elder Scrolls 6 entails, though, we know it’s not coming to PlayStation anytime soon.

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