Summary
Ubisoft has seen itself at the center of a couple of character-focused controversies in its biggest games this year, those beingAssassin’s Creed ShadowsandStar Wars Outlaws. While thearguments over Yasuke have been a lot more vitriolic, not particularly helped byUbisoft’s slightly tame statements on the matter, Star Wars Outlaws protagonist Kay Vess also got some grief closer to the game’s reveal because she’s a woman that doesn’t have a giant chest and isn’t built like a dump truck.
Arguments raged online about Kay’s looks, similar to the arguments we’ve seenwith the likes of Aloyand Joanna Dark from Horizon Forbidden West and the Perfect Dark reboot respectively. Thankfully, Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty is paying no attention to that nonsense, and recently said in an interviewThe Washington Postthat he thinks those particular arguments are from “bad-faith people” and “aren’t worth engaging with.”
“Kay is meant to be approachable, a petty thief who ends up barreling through this story, making bad decisions and centered with a lot of humor, humility and toughness. That’s what’s important to me. And she’s beautiful, come on,” says Gerighty. “It makes no sense to me, and it’s not worth engaging with. If you engage with bad-faith people, there’s no nuance and no possibility of real dialogue.”
Gerighty goes on to explain that the only thing Massive Entertainment is focusing on right now is trying to “make the best game possible,” which is probably the more sensible decision given the criticisms as of late. Star Wars Outlaws has been under the microscope ever since it was revealed - partly down to the whole Kay Vess thing, while also partly down to Ubisoft’s reputation as a whole - but it’s had to bat away rather ridiculous criticism as of late,including a call to delay the game over its completely fine graphics.
You can kind of understand the cautiousness of Star Wars fans this time around, what with Ubisoft’s tired formula draining away any semblance of interest in future projects, but Gerighty has also stated thatStar Wars Outlaws isn’t just another Ubisoft game. Itsapproach to levelingandfocus on quality over qualityappears to back that claim up, though we’ll have to see what the final game is like when it launches on August 30.
Star Wars Outlaws
WHERE TO PLAY
Star Wars Outlaws follows Kay Vess as she bids to out manoeuver the galaxy’s deadliest criminals. An open-world action-adventure game from Ubisoft, it also features grand space battles and a deep story.
