Gaming
During an investor’s day event video game publisher EA revealed a few interesting numbers about their Star Wars games. And while many feel Star Wars is at an all time low right now, after The Acolyte, the numbers EA revealed prove that the brand can still be popular. As long as Lucasfilm is not involved too much…
Click through for more details!
Pretty popular
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It’s time to review Star Wars Outlaws. The stats tell me I spent 84h30m in this game since launch. And I enjoyed almost every minute of it. Yes, I like this game. No, I LOVE this game. It’s all I ever wanted from a Star Wars video game. It’s an almost perfect recreation of original trilogy era Star Wars, open world, several planets and you get to see and experience many of the most favorite locations you can think of.
And on top of that the main character Kay is a relatable, very likable woman who is flawed, not perfect, makes mistakes, but perseveres, learns, trains and gets better and never gives up hope. I would say she’s – with Merrin from the Jedi games – by far the best female Disney era Star Wars character and quite honestly one of the best female Star Wars characters in general. Do not believe the hate for her.
And while the online narrative surrounding the game is outright bizarre I urge you all to please forget about all what you may have or may not have heard for a moment and to just see the game for what it is. The very first open world single player Star Wars game. Set during the original trilogy, shortly after Empire Strikes Back and before Return of the Jedi, it offers what people are asking for incessantly these days: good old escapism. In Outlaws you can forget about it all and imagine what it’s like to live in the Star Wars galaxy. In one word, it’s “fun”.
Disclaimer for the certain few… no, I am not on Disney’s payroll (it would be hilarious to even suggest it), no, I was not invited to Disneyland (I wish!), no, Ubisoft does not even know I exist, so they never sent me a review copy, in fact, I paid for the game with my own money.
It feels like home
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Today is the global rollout for the early access of Star Wars Outlaws. In the US early access begins at midnight on the East Coast and 9 pm on the West Coast. Other time zones accordingly.
In Europe early access begins at 23:00 local time in the UK and 24:00 (midnight) in Central Europe.
In Australia you can play earlier than in other parts of the world, early access begins also at midnight local time, which means Aussie fans can already play this game (it’s 4:45 am in Sydney as I write this).
So the US / America is one of the last territories to get access to the game, expect spoilers if you use social media.
The review embargo was lifted earlier today and most reviews by YouTube gaming channels that matter (i.e. who I think just focus on the game itself, not some agendas or politics, channels like ACG, Mortismal Gaming etc) are mostly positive, virtually all reviews say Outlaws 100% nails that Star Wars feeling and that the open world feels very alive, some are not as much in love with the stealth focus in this game, but most reviews I watched gave it something in the range of 7 up all the way to 9 out of ten. Only one reviewer (Youtuber MrMattyPlays) absolutely hated his experience. Mainstream gaming websites gave outlaws something in the 7-8 range as well. But I never read reviews by them anymore and just ignore them entirely.
I have pre-ordered the gold edition, I will play the game in a little more than three hours from now. I guess I’ll sleep again next week then. Expect a full review on JTA once I have fully finished the game. So probably over the weekend or maybe early next week. Outlaws is apparently a much leaner game than previous open world efforts by Ubisoft (looking at Assassin’s Creed Valhalla here), if you beeline the main campaign you can finish the game in something like 15-20 hours, a full run where you do everything will of course take considerably longer, probably something in the 50 hour range.
Did you pre-order either the gold or ultimate edition to get early access? Will you buy the game at all once it’s in general release come Friday?
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Ubisoft dropped their brand new story trailer for Star Wars: Outlaws today! Release date for the open world (galaxy…) game is August 30th!
The trailer tells you about the basic setup, Kay crossed some underworld bigwig and yet another scoundrel wants her to steal something from him to buy her freedom. But the trailer also hints at being more to Kay than meets the eye… The trailer is mostly about the very basic setup, we also know now when the game is set: between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Which means Kay could cross paths with a few famous people in her adventures… In fact, one (technically speaking two) are already seen in the trailer, Han in Carbonite and Jabba, whom Kay meets on Tatooine.
Ubisoft will offer three day early access if you buy the ultimate or gold edition of the game which will also come with the season pass. I remember a time when early access aka “beta testing” was free… now it’s a privilege. Anyway… in my opinion the game looks very, very promising, Ubisoft can be accused of many things, but open world design is usually their forte, even if recent missteps like Skull & Bones were pretty disastrous, but if Outlaws is anything like the Assassin’s Creed / Watch Dogs / Far Cry games (only with better (side) quest design and less repetitive) this could be the Star Wars game people have been looking for.
Are you interested in Outlaws? Will you want to play the game? Click through for the trailer!
They REALLY love Tatooine…
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As you may remember EA very recently cancelled a first person shooter Mandalorian game which was in development by Respawn Games. It has since been revealed that a sizable chunk of the game was already pretty far ahead in development, yet EA decided to cancel the game nonetheless.
At the time this seemed like a typical EA thing, with some hints that EA wants to release fewer licensed games and focus on own IPs. YouTube Channel Star Wars Theory now reports that according to one of his sources, who is with EA or works for EA in some capacity, the real reason EA cancelled the Mandalorian game is that Disney suddenly decided to retroactively raise the licensing fees for all upcoming games and even games already in development: from already insane 22% to now ludicrous 33%. Click through for more!
Is Bob Iger behind the cancellation of the EA Mandalorian game?
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Only last week we learned through leaks that Respawn Entertainment, who belong to EA, are developing a first person shooter Mandalorian game (about some Mandalorian, not THE Mandalorian). Well, yesterday it was announced by EA that said game is now cancelled as part of a general “restructuring” and some layoffs – 5% of employees will be let go. Click through for some more background details!
EA manager (symbol photo)
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Insider Gaming has learned from their sources that the studio behind Titanfall, Apex Legends, Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor, Respawn Entertainment, is currently developing a first person Mandalorian bounty hunter game. The game is set during the time of the Empire. It is unknown if the Mandalorian will be a brand new character or someone from the movies or shows. Not much else is known other than that the game will not be an open world experience and instead feature more linear levels on different planets (so probably similar to what you get in both Jedi games from the studio). You’ll also have a jetpack of course, so that means aerial combat will definitely be an option (think Mass Effect Andromeda). Respawn Entertainment is also developing a third (and possibly final) “Jedi” game featuring Cal Kestis, so the Mandalorian game doesn’t mean Respawn will no longer work on that. Release date is unknown, there also has been no official announcement yet, so take it with the usual grain of salt.
Would you be interested in a Mandalorian bounty hunter game? And would you want to play as Boba Fett, possibly even a young Din Djarin, or as a brand new generic bounty hunter you can customize yourself?
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Add yet another entry on the list of cancelled or “forever on hold” Star Wars projects. According to an insider report the KOTOR remake is dead. It’s not currently worked on. Which is basically the same. And at the recent Embracer Group earnings presentation from last Thursday the CEO refused to make any comment when he was asked about how he feels about the KOTOR remake. Rumors about the project being on indefinite hold had swirled around previously, allegedly Lucasfilm was not happy with the quality of the work presented, game development was switched to another studio belonging to the Embracer Group, none of that seems to have helped the project.
I feel a KOTOR remake could have been good, of course it could also been a disaster, especially if had been reimagined for “modern audiences”. They had hired new writers (some of which did not really inspire fans with any confidence) which meant that the story could have changed, or at least the dialogue. Either way, it seems the remake will no longer happen.
Why is it so difficult for Star Wars projects to actually get made? Would you still like to get a proper KOTOR remake? Or at least a remaster? To make the game enjoyable for newer fans who would not be happy about the (for 2023) bad graphics, clunky combat and otherwise archaic gameplay mechanics?
“Outlaws”, the open world Star Wars game developed by Ubisoft, is still on track fortunately, and definitely not cancelled, however, as things look the game may get delayed, tentative original release date was “early 2024”, latest reports claim a release after April 2024 in Ubisoft’s new fiscal year is more like it. So Star Wars fans will at least get one new game in the not too distant future. But anyone who hoped to be Revan again in a much improved KOTOR is out of luck.
We will not see them again any time soon
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UPDATE: as promised Ubisoft released a 10 minute video with actual gameplay footage today! I added the video! Click through to learn more!
This is where the fun begins?
The Star Wars You Tube channel dropped a story trailer for the upcoming Ubisoft open world Star Wars game ‘Outlaws’, scheduled for release in 2024! And a gameplay trailer is going to be released tomorrow, meaning the game must be pretty far into development!
You will play as Kay Vess, a female scoundrel. But she’s not alone, she has an animal companion named Nix and chances are you will meet other friends in the game. While there are no details yet it seems there won’t be the option to create a custom character, which is usually standard for most open world games, one prominent exception is Red Dead Redemption and of course the Assassin’s Creed games by Ubisoft. Chances are also that you won’t even be able to change Kay’s appearance, similar to how Cal Kestis is a fixed character in the Repawn games. Also, since everything is canon, according to Lucasfilm, they may have wanted Ubisoft to create a canon character they can, in theory, also use for other media like books or shows.
Outlaws will be set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Are you excited for an open world Star Wars game? Say about Ubisoft whatever you will but their open world design is usually pretty great, now they only have to rein in their usual shortcomings like map markers for 1,000,000 chests and 500,000 fetch quests.
You can watch the trailer after the jump!
Kay Vess with her animal companion Nix
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I finally finished Jedi Survivor and it’s time to review the game. I was actually hesitating to pull the trigger because I am one of the people who were thoroughly unimpressed by Fallen Order and the reports about the glaring technical issues of Survivor made me think hard. But it is Star Wars, I want to like a Star Wars game, I would love to have a great single player Star Wars game… so I did buy it eventually.
So how is the game? Should you buy it? Is it worth your time and money? Short answer: no. Long answer, please read my (lengthy) review in which I try to explain why I feel that Jedi Survivor (as well as Fallen Order) is a very, very undercooked game that at best offers a very mediocre and lackluster experience when compared to similar games.
Also: really, DO NOT BUY THIS GAME JUST YET! It does have game breaking bugs. There are reports of serious savegame bugs that completely erase your progress, the savegame gets corrupted and that is it. There is no cloud save feature in this game. No backup saves. No manual save points you can fall back to. Performance both on PC and consoles is atrocious, even more so on PC, the game is a (micro)stuttery mess, not unplayable, I did manage to make it through the game, but it was never ever a truly smooth experience. Wait at least another few weeks, when Respawn has released a couple more patches that resolve all the glaring issues.
But then again, my advice is not to buy this game at all and if you really want to feel like a Jedi just play Mass Effect Legendary Edition as a bionic character, trust me, it is much more satisfying and fun. Or play a very similar but vastly superior game like Ghost of Tsushima or God of War 2018/Ragnarok. Your money will be better spent here.
He will survive
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The sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order, Jedi: Survivor, was listed on Steam with a release date of March 15th, 2023 for a short while. The page has since been deleted / all relevant info was removed again, but users have taken screenshots of the US version of Steam where, at least for a while, a release date was listed with detailed info about pre-order bonuses and the content of the deluxe edition. Click through for the details!
Steam screenshot for Jedi: Survivor (click to enlarge)
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There is once more trouble in Star Wars land… the Knights of the Old Republic remake that has been in development for about three years, and which was officially announced about a year ago, is now on indefinite hold according to Bloomberg. Apparently the studio Aspyr Media was not happy with the current direction of the game. The art and design directors were both fired and after the firings the project was put on indefinite hold.
Aspyr is still committed to eventually releasing the game, but fans may now have to wait a long, long time for that. With how long video game development usually takes it could be 2025 and beyond before the remake is (maybe) released. Development shake-ups are nothing new in the video game world, it happens all the time, still it is unfortunate that yet another Star Wars project is in rough waters.
Another question is if and how the delay will affect Hasbro’s release schedule for Bastila Shan and Darth Malak Black Series action figures, both of which were revealed as pipeline figures a few months ago.
KOTOR remake teaser screenshot
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A teaser for the sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was released. The new game is titled Jedi: Survivor and is set a few years after Fallen Order, which makes it roughly concurrent with the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series. The teaser trailer does not include any gameplay whatsoever, but it sets the tone for what to expect. Fans of Fallen Order should definitely check out the teaser! The release date is tbd, we only know it’s supposed to come out sometime in 2023, but that means little in the video game industry. You can watch the teaser on YouTube by clicking on the image below! Are you excited for the Fallen Order sequel?
Click to watch the teaser
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Video games are big. Really big. It’s the biggest entertainment industry worldwide with sales of $160 billion in 2021, outselling the movie and music market combined by a factor of almost 2. But for years Star Wars had very little to offer for gamers, other than a few multiplayer games with loot box controversies every couple of years by EA. But after years of neglect when EA had the exclusive license to make Star Wars games, it seems that Lucasfilm is eager to play catch up and to provide fans with all the Star Wars games they could ask for. We’ve already had a couple of announcements, among them “Eclipse” from Quantic Dream (release is still a few years away), then a game by developer Respawn, the KOTOR remake, and Fallen Order II is also in the works. So the next few years will see plenty of Star Wars games already. But earlier on Tuesday it was announced that yet another Star Wars game will be developed. The game has no title, no release date, almost nothing is known, other than that it will be a “cinematic action-adventure” and that Amy Hennig will oversee development of the game. Amy Hennig was, among other things, responsible for Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2 and 3. Hennig left the company after those two games and then famously oversaw development of a single player Star Wars game codenamed “Ragtag” for EA (an open world single player Star Wars game), which was unceremoniously cancelled in 2017 because EA actually believed people hate single player games and instead wanted to focus on “games as a service”. Which is of course ludicrous and even EA have changed their minds in the meantime. Amy Hennig no longer works for EA and is with Skydance New Media now, so the new untitled Star Wars game will be released by them. It’s everyone’s guess whether or not the new untitled Star Wars game can reuse concepts from “Ragtag”. But one thing is certain, Star Wars video games will make a return to the market in the not too distant future after years of neglect. Are you looking forward to all the new games coming in the next few years?
Screenshot of Amy Hennig’s “Project Ragtag” Star Wars game
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The all-new cinematic trailer from The Old Republic: Legacy of the Sith is now live. Click through to watch Disorder.
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Kicking off tomorrow at 11 AM Eastern is the next cinematic trailer in The Old Republic series. Tune in tomorrow for Legacy of the Sith’s Disorder trailer. We need more cinematic trailers from The Old Republic in our lives!
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Many of you will know of Star Wars 1313, the Star Wars game focusing on the Coruscant underworld and Boba Fett. The game got canceled early in development when Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012 and only early prototype builds ever existed. You can actually check out some prototype Boba Fett gameplay on YouTube which was leaked earlier today. The short three minute clip shows Boba walking around Coruscant’s lower levels, fully rendered and textured, before we get to see a pretty standard and highly scripted chase sequence in a barebones low poly environment without textures when Boba tries to catch a bounty. Click through to watch the video!
Screenshot from the leaked gameplay footage
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EA may have lost the exclusive Star Wars video game license, with other studios developing games as well now, but that does not stop EA from developing more Star Wars games. And today EA announced three new Star Wars titles. Click through for more!
New Star Wars games are coming! Source: EA
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Click through to check out the cinematic trailer for the latest Star Wars game in development: Star Wars Eclipse. Star Wars Eclipse is the newest adventure in the High Republic era, now early in development by Quantic Dream. More details at www.StarWarsEclipse.com.
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Quantic “Who”, you may ask. Quantic Dream is a French video game studio known for story driven games like Detroit: Become Human, Indigo Prophecy (aka Fahrenheit), Heavy Rain and Beyond Two Souls. According to gaming website DualShockers Quantic Dream has been working on a yet unannounced Star Wars game for the past 18 months. With how long the production cycle for these kind of games is the game may not see the light of day for another two or three years.
Would you like a Star Wars game in the mold of Detroit: Become Human, i.e. in the style of an interactive movie with various elaborate set pieces? Quantic Dream games are usually not very action driven and what action there is is usually handled via quicktime events, so I wouldn’t expect lots of lightsaber duels, but a game which has a heavy focus on the narrative with various branching storylines that can result in very different outcomes. Since EA made very little with their exclusive Star Wars license it will certainly be welcome when the franchise will soon get a wide variety of games, from a KOTOR remake to a sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order and now possibly even a Star Wars game with a heavy focus on the story by Quantic Dream.
Update: According to Kotaku’s sources the Quantic Dream Star Wars game may not follow at all the mold of previous Quantic Dream games and could instead be open world and more action focused!
A pivotal scene early in Detroit: Become Human
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Fans of VR can now download the latest expansion from the Tales From The Galaxy’s Edge VR series: Last Call. Click through for the full press release.
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Rumors circulated for quite a while, but now it’s official, the legendary Knights Of The Old Republic video game will get a remake. Sony announced at their Playstation showcase that Aspyr Entertainment, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games are developing an extensive remake of the video game which was first released in 2003. Not many details were provided, but it was announced the game will be remade from the ground up and that it won’t just be the same old game with updated graphics, the game will also get new features, but Sony promises that the integrity of the story and characters will be mantained. This is certainly the way to go, while KOTOR was a fantastic game for its time its game mechanics are very dated and a mere graphics upgrade would certainly not be enough for a new generation of players who never played KOTOR before.
No release date was given, the game is still in early development. In my opinion a late 2023 release date would make sense, in time for the 20th anniversary of the original release. The game will be a Playstation 5 exclusive at launch, a PC version will be launched at a later date, probably a few months later, if KOTOR will have a similar release schedule like games as Days Gone or Death Stranding which were console exclusives at launch as well and launched on PC a couple of months later.
Are you excited about the KOTOR remake? Also, dear Hasbro, you now have plenty of time to release all new KOTOR figures (i.e. not lazy repaints) just in time for the video game launch!
Darth Revan will return
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The conclusion for the VR series Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge arrives this fall, and ILMxLAB has released the latest trailer and key art. Click through for the full press release, art, and trailer…
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Fans will be able to interact with one of their favorite characters from Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in the second installment of the connected virtual reality story. Click through for the official announcement…
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Now that will shake things up for Star Wars gamers quite a bit! After years of exclusivity EA will lose its exclusive license! EA will continue developing Star Wars games, but Ubisoft will now develop an open world Star Wars game. So I suppose we can expect something in the vein of Assassin’s Creed or Watch Dogs to come to Star Wars. The new game will be developed with the help of Lucasfilm Games! Nothing else is really known about the game, but more details will certainly follow!
So, what do you think about this big news for Star Wars games? EA has a mixed track record when it comes to Star Wars games, Fallen Order received praise, but its game mechanics felt somewhat outdated and it was not an open world game, EA scrapped various open world games in the past and was unwilling to develop a huge open world game for Star Wars. Now it seems Lucasfilm finally wants a piece of the open world (single player) gaming market, a genre that is still immensenly popular despite EA’s statements from a few years ago that people no longer like these kind of games. Red Dead Redemption 2m Ghost of Tsushima or even the somewhat maligned Cyberpunk 2077, plus all the Assassin’s Creed titles etc prove that there is much demand for open world games. Of course it’s also possible, that the open world game will be an online game, i.e. without a real offline single player campaign, the exact wording Ubisoft uses is “story driven open world game”. We will have to wait for more details to emerge!
Read the official news on the Star Wars website!
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