And with that the pact has been sealed. Ubisoft has done all they possibly can to try and shill Star Wars Outlaws before it's release- and I honestly wonder why they bothered so much. Why all the trailers? Why all the coverage? Why stick this on the side of buses? It's not like the marketing is doing anything more for the optics of a Star Wars game made by Ubisoft. Both are brands so ugly and garish that people just flock their way with cash-in-hand regardless of what they get in return. Ubisoft could be selling bottled farts labelled with the Republic's insignia and make a mint in the process. All that marketing effort could have gone into supporting something that could have actually used it- like, I dunno... The Division 2? (But I digress.)
Outlaws is a Star Wars property (urg) being published by Ubisoft (Urg, brother) that is an open world. (Brother, URG! What's that brother?) I cannot imagine a more detestable combination of ingredients plopped into a single cauldron if I tried... actually yes I can. They didn't make it a Live Service that is NFT powered. (I imagine that took great restraint on Ubisoft's end.) The Star Wars brand has been dragged through the mud in recent years, as Disney milk it dry with piddling TV show after TV show, squeezing out the last goodwill they can whilst all potential and promise fans once saw in the series sizzles and drys out under the boot of executives complaining about how 'hard' and 'expensive' it would be to make something ambitious and interesting. (I've heard really worrying things about that Acolyte show- and I'm not talking about from the typical chuds.) Ubisoft, on the otherhand, are the bottom-feeding wastes of the Games' industry- it is any surprise why I find the paring of them physically detestable?
Then again, Star Wars games do have a tendency to be on the whole better. The Jedi Series is one of the better Souls-like games on the market that has a rapport with it's audience enough that we actively like to seek out and consume content with these characters in it- which is quiet the high praise for Star Wars content! And we even get some high budget experimental games like Star Wars Squadrons which brought flight-simulator rules to the Star Wars mythos. Unfortunately the game didn't quite sell as well as everyone might have liked- but those who did play the thing attest to it's quality! Of course, then we also have the mobile game which recently released, Hunters, which was every bit the over-monetised waste of potential we all knew it would be. So just as in the Star Wars universe, the brand holds the potential for great good or great evil.
Ubisoft already set us of to a poor start by trying to suck our wallets out through our eyes through merely watching the trailer and selling their pitifully understuffed deluxe editions for an arm and several more legs than can grow on a single human. For prices like that you'd think the company earns them, and aren't just the laughing stock generic-factory of the AAA gaming sector. These are the kind of prices that Rockstar can, and largely do (if you count their eye-watering shark cards for GTA Online) get away with. But after giving us a significant showing of gameplay, and inviting journalists around to see some behind the doors goodies- (simply to try and ingratiate themselves with such an important community vector) maybe the game is finally that one step up and forward that Ubisoft have been hesitating to take all these years. Afterall, this isn't just a Ubisoft game. It's a "Wicked Wicked" Ubisoft Massive title.
Perhaps the most prevailing sense that this new game gives off- both to me and to those unlucky enough to sit down and see the curated 'behind curtains' preview- is that of dire unoriginality. Say what you will about the open world genre AAA gaming, how they all kind of ape that Uncharted feeling of exploration, dot a little bit of forgettable busywork to keep you interested and linger on just those few hours too long- but at least most of them have something unique to spice them up just that little bit. The incredibly fun saber combat of the Jedi games make it a blast to master, Hogwarts Legacy carried the tourist-friendly appeal that kept people playing, Horizon has it's very unique world concept and spectacular machine hunts- and Outlaws has... well you see in Outlaws you can...
The idea of Outlaws is to try and make the Smuggler style of story work in Star Wars without chucking in any lightsabers- and that's an idea that can really work if you put forethought into it. Disseminate the archetypal smuggler to their base-most form and you get an anti-hero in a cowboy movie- then all you need to do is find a way to bring that feeling to life in a way that doesn't ape at Red Dead 2 because even after all these years that is a fight Ubisoft will never, ever, win. Instead what we've seen is just... generally serviceable. There are the Ubisoft stealth sections, said to be as pointless as always because general mayhem is all-around more reliable. There is the uninspired wall climbing which at this point has become such a headscratching trope I genuinely think it would be a surprise to come across a game character not capable of supporting their entire weight with an iron grip. And apparently there is a sprinkle of Space Combat too, but I've never seen Ubisoft do a space fighting game before and the team are functionally incapable of creating a decent mechanic that hasn't been regurgitated through the guts of five previous attempts- so I'm guessing it's dull as dishwater.
Is there any point of praise I can raise? Well, technically there is- but it's the exact same thing I say about every Ubisoft game such that it doesn't even feel like a compliment anymore. It's like a lingering, festering curtsey we perform in front of the ailing wad of distended tissue we once deemed a sovereign, paying some false shadow of gratitude and respect upon a station long-since alien to it. Performance for the sake of routine alone, serving neither us nor them. Indeed- Outlaws looks pretty. Actually, 'pretty' isn't a full enough picture. It looks like 'Star Wars' and all the baggage that carries. Typical alien landscapes of vaguely terran-looking worlds with maybe a palette swap, that exact same style of interior which seems to be the uniform of every cantina in the galaxy, that unimpressive palette smudge of 'frontier grime'- it fails to excite by brand alone as it once did. I guess that goes for Star Wars as a whole though, doesn't it?
Now to be clear, even if this is the single most made-by-numbers video game in Ubisoft's entire history it wouldn't be their worst and I don't wish to imply that's what I'm saying. That crown is still rested pretty squarely on the head of Legion. I just think that once again Ubisoft are treading waters and getting rewarded for the effort. Just as they did when they created a serviceable, but systematically cannibalistic Avatar game, or a vastly expanded but clumsy and fat-fingered Ghost Recon Wildlands follow up. To quoteth the bard: "They'll never change. They'll never change. Always the same. Ever since 07, couldn't slap a coherent game design doc together to save their lives. But couldn't be Ubisoft, not our precious Ubisoft! Robbing them blind. And they get to sell the game for $130? What a sick joke!"
No comments:
Post a Comment