Phew, Star Wars Outlaws Isn't Valhalla-Sized

One of the surprise announcements of Xbox Showcase was Star Wars Outlaws, which was in development by Ubisoft. After announcing the game, Ubisoft showed a more detailed gameplay trailer at their showcase and gave more information about the game. The most notable detail mentioned was that Star Wars Outlaws will be an open-world experience. This was a bummer since Ubisoft has been making gigantic maps with repetitive quests for many of its open-world titles. But later, Ubisoft announced that Star Wars Outlaws won’t be as long as Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and we’ll explain why this is a good thing.

Star Wars Outlaws Won’t Be as Big as Assassins’ Creed Valhalla, Thankfully

In recent open-world games of Ubisoft, we saw worlds and maps of games get bigger and bigger, especially with the last Assassin’s Creed game. While there are gamers that enjoy games that are as big as AC: Valhalla and love to spend over 100 hours in the game, that is not a doable thing for the majority of people, who have other priorities and also other games to play. Surely the game could be as big as possible, as long as the main story is compact and accessible, which wasn’t what happened with Valhalla, unfortunately.

Many gamers detest this open-world design philosophy of Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Ubisoft has a pattern that it follows in every single open-world game it makes. For instance, towers are used to unlock portions of the map that are grayed out. This mechanic is present in the Watch Dogs, Far Cry, and Assassin’s Creed series. This is not a bad concept, but an issue arises when Ubisoft repeats the specific mechanics excessively in every one of their titles. The most prominent are the worlds’ map sizes and the main campaigns’ completion time.

Regarding Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, you’ll need to spend 60 hours just to complete the main story and likely close to 150 hours for 100% completion. For many, the repetitive gameplay and grinding can keep very few players engaged for so long a time. Conversely, this gameplay style worked in Far Cry 3 and Assassin’s Creed Revelations because those games were much shorter experiences. As a result, players didn’t reach an undesirable level of frustration.

Thankfully, Ubisoft has announced that Star Wars Outlaws will not be as long as Valhalla was, relaying that players will be able to “Explore [Star Wars Outlaws] at their own rhythm.” The director of the game, Julian Gerighty, has said:

“So it is absolutely not a 200 or 300-hour epic unfinishable RPG. This is a very focused action-adventure RPG that will take people on a ride and is very manageable.”

The majority of gamers who played Valhalla mostly complained about two things: the size of the map being overwhelming and no meaningful events going on, with grinding being the main focus for leveling and quest progression. It looks like, thankfully, Ubisoft is listening to fans and Star Wars Outlaws will avoid both of those pitfalls.