First-ever open world ‘Star Wars’ video game teased at Comic-Con

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Star Wars fans will soon get to play out their own adventure with the highly-anticipated Ubisoft video game, “ Star Wars: Outlaws ” — the first-ever open world game set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

“Outlaws,” which was teased during the first day of San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday, follows the young scoundrel Kay Vess as she ventures throughout the galaxy in between the events of “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi.”

Players will get to ditch the lightsabers for blasters as they explore the outlaw’s world, the crime syndicate-run underbelly of the imperial era.

“We’ve never explored a scoundrel story like this,” Humberley Gonzalez, who portrays Vess in the game, said in an interview with FOX5SanDiego.com.

“This hero’s journey is very different from the scoundrel stories we’ve seen in Star Wars,” she continued, although adding that Vess and her journey was heavily influenced by other rogues within the world of Star Wars like Han Solo and Lando Calrissian.

“I see her as a young version of that,” Gonzalez said. “What makes Vess different is her vulnerability, her heart, her lack of knowledge of the underworld, the fact that her world view is so limited being from Canto Bight, but she has dreams of exploring the galaxy and being free.”

In her journey, she is joined by her lovable best friend Nix, a new cat-like creature called a merqaal that is voiced by Star Wars animation legend, Dee Bradley Baker.

As with other Star Wars protagonists, Vess also has a droid companion for her journey: ND-5, a Clone Wars-era BX series commando droid portrayed by Jay Rincon, serves as a personal enforcer of sorts throughout the game.

“He is a relic from a different era, battle-hardened, brooding, overworked, under appreciated, and tasked with following along with Kay Vess and Nix’s missions,” Rincon said of his character, adding that ND-5 “follows the protocol” of other droids Star Wars fans know and love.

“They have a cadence, they’re sardonic, they are always the facilitators,” he explained. “From there, I wanted to be certainly everybody was on board with bringing in the aspect of carrying the weight of having lived through the Clone Wars and the memories and the actions that take place. He’s a pretty formidable droid.”

With Nix and ND-5 in tow, Vess ventures out into worlds both familiar to Star Wars fans and brand-new as she takes on high-stakes missions for the crime syndicates, including ones players meet for the first time in the game and others that are already fixtures of the galaxy.

One such character set to make a reprise appearance in “Outlaws” is Jabba the Hutt, the fierce gangster who leads the Hutt Clan on the Outer Rim planet of Tattooine who first made an appearance in “Return of the Jedi.” For the game, Jabba is voiced by Baker.

“Jabba was a really interesting challenge,” Baker said of portraying the crime lord. “Now there’s a whole language of Huttese, it’s established. And so I have to read Huttese while I’m performing — it’s not just making up utterances or sounds like I do with Nix. Plus I’m trying to nail the cadence and sounds of the original performance.”

However, he said it was still an exciting endeavor, going back into Jabba’s storyline before his dramatic death in the 1983 film and “dust it up” with new adventures.

“It’s really fun to try to make something live again,” Baker continued. “It’s a little scary too, but I think it works beautifully.”

Bringing to life these iconic characters and worlds within Star Wars was a unique challenge when the trio were brought into the mix.

Gonzalez and Rincon were tasked with doing much of the motion capture for their roles and, while set pieces were used to help facilitate the action of the game, creating each of the characters required a little ingenuity.

“The most challenging part, which is also the most fun part, is the fact that it’s Star Wars,” Gonzalez said. “We know this galaxy to be very full of life and color, and the ambiance, the tone. However, when you take all of that and we’re just in a Volume [Stage] with cameras wearing the mo-cap suits, you really do have to exercise your imagination and create all these scenes on these planets.”

With that work, players will now get to experience the world of Star Wars in a way they have never seen before, following a storyline that is mostly separate from the franchise’s original trilogy despite it taking place during that time.

“This is a unique experience from this perspective, knowing that on the peripheral you have these massive galaxy-changing events taking place that are cataclysmic,” Rincon said. “We kind of get to have our own little personal, humble slice in between all of it.”

As an open world game, the player is also getting to call all the shots as they work their way to its ending. If you want to hop on a speeder and just drive around for half an hour, just like Rincon said he did the first time playing, you can.

“You can have as much fun as you can in a nonlinear way as you can in a linear way, you can do the missions and move the story forward if you wish, but you can also hang out, say hello to aliens and ride around on a speeder,” Baker said.

While Baker is a veteran of the Star Wars universe, “Outlaws” marks Rincon and Gonzalez’s first big foray into the universe — something that both described as a dream come true.

“I’m just really proud to bring a female protagonist in the Star Wars universe to life, being Latina, being an immigrant, learning English halfway through my life,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t think I ever thought that I would be a part of such an incredible franchise.”

“I’m very excited and I hope that people see themselves represented and they see a hero’s journey where they can kind of feel just seen, heard, represented, fearless, confident, strong,” she continued.

“Star Wars: Outlaws” will be available on Aug. 30, but fans can pre-order their copy online. The game can be played with a PC, PS5 or XBox.

“We did all this work for people to enjoy it … we gave a piece of ourselves to create these characters,” Rincon said. “I really hope that they’re on board with it and I hope they get to enjoy it as much as we fell in love with these characters.”

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