For a game that bills itself as having an original story,Star Wars Outlawssure has a lot of Glup Shittos. If you have no idea what you just read, I envy you for being less chronically online than I am, though that’s admittedly a low bar.Glup Shittois a fake name used to refer to characters that return from theStar Warsextended universe in mainstream media, known to hardcore fans but unknown to wider audiences.
Right now,people on Twitter are fighting over what makes a Glup Shitto. I’ll go ahead and say now that the vast majority of Star Wars characters are Glup Shittos to me. I have the memory of a goldfish, and though I’ve seen quite a lot of Star Wars media, if you’re not showing me a major movie protagonist or aKnights of the Old Republiccharacter, I’ll probably have to look up the name to figure out who you’re talking about.
Most of these characters just don’t have much of an impact on me, and I’m definitely not enough of a fan to be digging into novelisations of the series. I am, definitionally, a member of the mainstream audience, and therefore my Glup Shittos are objectively correct.
That was a joke, hit backspace on that mean comment right now.
This doesn’t bother me. My introduction to the universe wasn’t through the movies – my dad was actually more of a Trekkie, so we didn’t have any major Star Wars fans in the house – but the aforementioned 2003 video game Knights of the Old Republic. Being inducted into the galaxy far far away through a now non-canon, though widely loved, instalment in the franchise meant that everything was new to me, and I quite liked it that way. It felt whole in its own way, a self-contained world I could get lost in again and again.
And part of that wholeness came from the fact that KOTOR had no cameos, meaning there were no characters slipping in from the movies for players to gasp at. The game was pure Star Wars, without having to lean on fan service. It was a truly original story, one that required no prior knowledge of the universe to fall in love with.
Star Wars Outlaws Has Plenty Of Cameos
We already knew from the game’s early trailers that Outlaws has plenty of familiar faces. Jabba the Hutt, one of the franchise’s most famous characters, makes an appearance, as does Han Solo, albeit locked in carbonite. These are names I recognise, as will most people, since they’re also extremely famous characters.
There’s also anexclusive Jabba the Hutt missionlocked behind a paywall,which is pretty wild.
But as more details about the game are released, I’m getting increasingly lost in the Star Wars sauce. Game Informer confirmed that Lady Qi’ra from Solo is in the game – that’s a movie I didn’t watch, and those who did barely remember, so she’s a Glup Shitto to me.
And last week, aseason pass roadmapposted on Ubisoft’s website revealed what the post-launch DLC for the game will encompass. The Fall 2024 story pack Wild Card will have Kay crossing paths with Lando Calrissian, a character I only vaguely remember because, again, Star Wars movies really don’t stick in my brain all that well. The Spring 2025 DLC A Pirate’s Fortune will have Kay running into the “veteran pirate” Hondo Ohnaka who was in… uh… let me check.Clone Wars and Rebels, apparently? I’m sorry, this is another Glup Shitto.
Single-player games shouldn’t even have season passesto begin with, but that’s a whole other issue.
Cameos don’t necessarily ruin a Star Wars game – I lovedStar Wars Jedi: Survivor, which had major surprise appearances in the form of (spoilers) Darth Vader and Boba Fett. The Darth Vader appearance, in particular, was impactful because of its massive narrative consequences. But I do have to wonder at what point these cameos become pure fan service.
These particular cameos aren’t as egregious as they could be – after all, the game is about a smuggler, and Jabba and Qi’ra run some of the biggest crime syndicates in the galaxy, while Hondo is a bounty hunter. It’s plausible that Kay would cross paths with these characters, but I find that these familiar faces make the universe feel smaller.
In a galaxy this big, shouldn’t things feel more unfamiliar than familiar? Are we supposed to play Outlaws the same way we watch Marvel movies, waiting for familiar faces to show up so we can point and clap? It feels like the game is patting fans who stream every single movie and series on the back for being such good and loyal watchers. Again, the cameos are plausible, the same way Daredevil showing up in a Spider-Man movie is technically plausible. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fan-service.
Cameo culture has bled into every IP-based franchise, and I was hoping Outlaws wouldn’t fall prey to the trend. Knights of the Old Republic was perfect for my uninitiated child self, because it stood on its own two feet and didn’t expect me to recognise characters from movies and shows that the casual fan wouldn’t have bothered to watch.
I don’t know yet if these Glup Shittos are going to annoy me because of their blatant fan-servicey nature, or if they’ll be carefully and delightfully woven into the game’s story, pushing me to want to know more about them.It’s still an Ubisoft game, so I’m guessing it’ll be the former – but I’ll hold my judgement till I meet Glup for myself.
Star Wars Outlaws
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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.
