Microsoft had a big surprise reveal at its Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday: A first look at Ubisoft’s new Star Wars game being developed by Massive Entertainment, the team behind Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 and Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The open-world action-adventure is called Star Wars Outlaws, and it’s set to be released on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X sometime in 2024.
The trailer reveals the game’s protagonist, a young woman named Kay Vess — played by Humberly González (Ginny & Georgia, Far Cry 6) — who foregoes the black-and-white morality of the Sith and the Jedi in favor of the delicate grays of smugglers, rogues, and hustlers that fill the rest of the galaxy. We see her and her adorable pet Nix (Dee Bradley Baker) playing cards before the crime syndicates that rule the area come calling; then, we get a swift chase on a speeder to our heroine’s waiting ship. The trailer also introduces her friend — frenemy? — Jalen, who offers Kay a part in “one of the greatest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen.”
Our first look at Star Wars Outlaws also includes some impressive space flight sequences, but for now, everything we’ve seen is just cinematic and doesn’t tell us much about how the game will actually play. For that, fans will have to wait until Ubisoft Forward on Monday, where this trailer promised we’d get our first look at gameplay.
Previously known simply as “The Star Wars Project,” Massive’s new Star Wars game was announced in early 2021 as a story-driven open-world video game set in a galaxy far, far away. Julian Gerighty, creative director on the studio’s Star Wars game, said at the game’s announcement that the project would be “totally different” from what Massive had done in the past. Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, called the announcement “the beginning of a long-term collaboration with Disney and Lucasfilm Games.”
Star Wars Outlaws is just one of many new Star Wars games in development. Developer Respawn Entertainment, which released Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in April, has at least two more Star Wars games on its slate: A new first-person shooter and a strategy game. Skydance New Media has an untitled Star Wars game in the works, which is being helmed by former Uncharted creative director Amy Hennig. Quantic Dream also has Star Wars: Eclipse, which it describes as “an intricately branching action-adventure game” set during Star Wars’ High Republic era.