Star Wars Outlaws is a game that invites you to wander around. As you move through the various locations, orbits, towns and farmsteads at a reasonable pace, you will discover all sorts of thoughtful props, quirks and details carefully placed to become part of the star Wars Galaxy through Kay Vess’ rogue eyes. While some of the locations featured in the game are familiar favorites from the star Wars Galaxy, other spots are less known.
In fact, Toshara – the savannah moon that serves as a seething crime hotspot and which you will visit at the beginning of the game – was designed by Massive Entertainment in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games and marks a new entry in the star Wars Galaxy. Adding a brand new creation to this established world is no easy task – and we had the chance to speak to two designers from Massive Entertainment about how the team created Toshara, right down to its inhabitants, wildlife and even plants, and how they also brought other beloved locations to life through a new lens.
With numerous pre-determined locations in the star Wars To tell the story of the galaxy, Massive Entertainment had to carefully consider which locations would prove suitable for telling the story of Kay Vess and Nix. The team wanted to show the variety of settings, from classic, recognizable areas like Tatooine, the desert home of Luke Skywalker, to lesser-known planets like Kijimi, briefly mentioned in “star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” as a snowy place for the villains of the galaxy. Akiva, on the other hand, is a jungle planet that has never seenonly described in the Aftermath series by star Wars Companion novels.
Toshara Building
But Massive Entertainment has created something entirely new with Toshara, the inhabited moon designed and purpose-built by the studio to serve as a core component of the Star Wars Outlaws
“We wanted to bring something completely new to star Wars that had never been seen before, and we really use this as our playground to tell exactly that story,” says Matthieu Delisle, Lead Systems Designer at star Wars Outlaws. “This is where we were able to experiment the most and set a standard for the rest of the game.”
Toshara serves as a place where the various syndicates of the underworld can come together. Although it is controlled by the Pykes, it is a place where the Empire is willing to let some things slide in exchange for a few credits. Places of interest include Mirogana, a bustling major city that is home to several syndicate districts, and Jaunta’s Hope, a smaller settlement. Off the beaten track of Toshara, you’ll also discover plenty of interesting places – flyers’ nests with valuable items stolen from the locals, fields full of grazing wildlife, or pirate camps with goodies just waiting to be taken.
“This is where we had the most freedom to define what feels good in terms of an open-world experience,” says Delisle. “We thought about the distance between the different activities and how we could create points that draw attention and lead to something interesting.”
Toshara is not only a completely new experience for star Wars Fans, it is also the first truly open world area that you can freely explore in a star Wars game. As soon as you land here, it feels like an authentic star Wars Places you’ve seen in classic movies before. But what’s most impressive is that everything on Toshara – from the sprawling, dusty vistas to the flora and fauna that live there – was designed by Massive Entertainment in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games.
“Because we designed Toshara from scratch, we were able to depict its entire history, from its creation to the first settlement, and how that fits into the larger star Wars schedule,” says Benedikt Podlesnigg, Art and World Director.
“We created all of the wildlife, the architecture, the food and clothing of the people of Toshara, their relationship with the Empire, and the way all of these things are connected. For example, if you look really closely, you’ll notice that the food the characters eat is growing on a tree somewhere.”
Massive Entertainment hasn’t just put thought into the visuals of Toshara. The team even went so far as to define the planet’s gravitational forces and surrounding solar winds, so pilots will have trouble steering their ships and landing them without crashing unless they’re very familiar with the planet’s orbit and layout. This seems like an extremely cool detail in particular, tied to Toshara’s presence as a hideout for criminals with minimal Imperial presence.
“It’s really in Massive’s DNA to create this logic of a world where everything makes sense,” adds Delisle. “There’s always a reason why something exists, and that’s really a trademark of ours – we try to make all of these places and details as believable and lived in as possible.”
An overview of Kijimi
Later in history Star Wars Outlaws Kay Vess travels to Kijimi, a dark, frosty planet home to Crimson Dawn and the Ashiga Clan, another crime syndicate developed by Massive Entertainment in collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. Similar to Toshara, Kijimi is largely anarchic, but the Empire has a much stronger presence here. Unlike Toshara, Kijimi was in previous star Wars Media that provided Massive Entertainment with a starting point to transform the planet’s eponymous capital into an interactive space, with a unique twist, of course.
“We worked closely with Lucasfilm on Kijimi. We got access to a large collection of concepts and behind-the-scenes footage, as well as the references they used for the location, these Japanese mountain towns that served as inspiration,” Podlesnigg tells us.
“We also saw the 3D model of Kijimi, which they used as an overview image of Kijimi City in [Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker]to get an orientation as to where, for example, buildings are located.”
Kijimi City is a densely populated area that is a stark contrast to the vast landscapes of Toshara and Tatooine. The urban environment consists of small streets and alleys full of questionable characters – walking through the city you feel a real sense of unease, as if you could notice everything.
“There’s a battle here between the Ashiga clan and Crimson Dawn, and there’s an atmosphere of mystery and daggers the whole time,” adds Delisle. “We’re telling part of the main story here, but what was interesting for us were the smaller stories we could tell about people who ended up on Kijimi. It felt like a nice change of pace compared to the other more open environments in. Outlaws.”
The secret ingredient is the underworld
While everyone in star Wars The outlaws vary in notoriety, but they have all been chosen with one main focus – the representation of the underworld. Each location is another taste of the shady dealings that Kay and Nix (mostly) willingly participate in – from the very first moment. Kay herself hails from Canto Bight, a gambling town in the Outer Rim that is famous in Star Wars: “The Last Jedi”.
The place is a breeding ground for the rich, who are careless with their earnings – a situation that Kay, as a thief, has learned to take full advantage of. The contrast between the setting of Canto Bight and Kay’s upbringing sets the immediate tone for Outlaws – this story wants to show you these places not through the eyes of a familiar hero, but through those of a villain, desperate and hopeful. In the sand dunes of Tatooine, Kay is not looking at the home of Jedi Luke Skywalker, but focusing on opportunities, sneaking down alleys, observing buildings, constantly on the hunt for something that will give her an advantage.
“One of our major goals when founding [Outlaws] was to show what was behind the curtain,” Delisle says. “Our generation grew up watching these movies and wondering, ‘What would it be like to go there?’ You see things in the movies, but you never actually get off the rollercoaster to really look at the world, see the wildlife, talk to the people who live there, and it was really important to all of us to give the players the opportunity to be someone who could just live in that world.”
“Every time I walk out of the Mos Eisley Cantina and jump on my speeder, I just have a big grin on my face,” adds Podlesnigg. “This is just a love letter to everything star Wars.”
