When I think about the aesthetics ofUbisoftgames, two words often come to mind: sterile and rough. Those descriptors might seem like they’re at odds, but one feeds into the other. I say sterile because the French publisher’s games often have a graphical style that favors cleanliness and hard edges, with worlds that feel efficiently made but not especially lived-in.
That, in turn, leads to the feeling of roughness. Characters, especially NPCs, can feel a little wooden. Moving through the world looks and feels fine, but the experience could have been elevated with some more polish. These are precision-made assembly line games that, though intelligently crafted, end up feeling like they were a little hastily assembled.
Ubisoft Releases Huge Open-World Games More Often Than Any Other Publisher
I’m generalizing of course, and this criticism is coming from someone who’s enjoyed many an Ubisoft game over the years. But compare Ubi’s slightly generic open-worlds to the more bespoke settings put out byRockstarorGuerrillaand it’s clear that Ubisoft cuts corners in order to launch so many huge games in such quick succession.
In the past year, Ubisoft has published four open-world games:Assassin’s Creed Mirage,Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora,Skull and Bones, andStar Wars Outlaws. In two months, it will launch another asAssassin’s Creed Shadowshits store shelves. I prefer Ubi’s haste to the Rockstar model of releasing one game every five or six years (and Ubi’s model is different, as it straddles the line between publisher and mega-developer), but it’s clear that the faster timetable can lead to games that are often good, but rarely genre-defining.
Assassin’s Creed 2andFar Cry 3are notable exceptions that shaped their respective series' (and Ubisoft’s) approach to open-world games for years, but both are over a decade old at this point.
Star Wars Outlaws Takes A Graphical Step Up
Judging by reactions from critics who have played much more of the game than I have, Star Wars Outlaws isn’t innovative in any way that will change the open world RPG genre forever. But in the seven hours I’ve played, it absolutelyisa graphical outlier among Ubisoft’s games. I’ve never played a game from the publisher that looked this good, and it’s bringing the world ofStar Warsto life in a way I didn’t expect.
Some of that is just that the character models look better, and more refined, than Ubisoft’s usually do. NPCs look sharper than I can ever recall in an Ubi-published game, and that helps make the world feel real and worth-engaging with. But the real differentiator is the lighting and particle effects. Whereas I often find that the Assassin’s Creed games look pretty flat, Outlaws is anything but. There are usually multiple light sources in any given room, and it gives the game a more layered, textured look. A nightclub feels like a nightclub. An Empire space station feels like an Empire space station. Despite both being interiors, the vastly different lighting schemes Ubi has cooked up for each location makes them feel completely aesthetically distinct.
There also is often smoke or fog clouding the air in interior spaces, which give them a sense of atmosphere reminiscent ofCyberpunk 2077. That game also did interiors extremely well, and was constantly offering memorable compositions for each new conversation. The skyboxes look incredible, too. The first time I entered space, I was blown away by how vibrant the sky looked. Each Star Wars movie famously starts with a shot of the white stars set against a black sky, but Outlaws offers a richer portrait of the void, which is so full of asteroids, debris, and far off galaxy clusters that it isn’t really a void at all.
Before I started Outlaws, I read comparisons toRed Dead RedemptionandUnchartedand assumed they would feel a little hyperbolic once I got my hands on the game. But with seven hours under my belt, I’ve found that this is the closest Ubisoft has ever come to punching in that higher weight class. I hope it sets a new standard. Not for open-world games, maybe, but at least for Ubisoft.
