WHAT'S - Star Wars Outlaws™ ?
Star Wars Outlaws is a 2024 action-adventure game.
Set in the Star Wars universe between the events of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983), the story follows Kay Vess, a young scoundrel who assembles a team for a massive heist in order to pay off a crime syndicate.
The game is played from a third-person perspective, with the player traversing an open world environment and engaging in various activities.
Star Wars Outlaws was released for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on August 30, 2024.
DLC - Wild Card (All-In Quest) :
Kay’s journey continues with the first story pack, Star Wars Outlaws: Wild Card, featuring notorious high roller Lando Calrissian. Kay crosses paths with Lando as she infiltrates a high-stakes Sabacc tournament, where she quickly learns that another game is being played.
Context : « Lando sneaks Kay into the Mirogana spaceport inside a shipment of Tolium gas – a gift for the Governor . While Lando keeps Thorden busy, Kay slips out of the crate and infiltrates the Mirogana starport.
Kay ascends the levels of the spaceport, avoiding stormtroopers and security systems. While she climbs, Kay overhears pieces of Lando’s conversation with the corrupt Governor. Thorden is warming to Lando, and starts to reveal details of his operation. Kay reaches the landing pad at the top, finding the shuttle that Thorden used to bring the map. Kay sees a heavily guarded entrance – that must be Thorden’s Compound. Kay and Nix work together to break inside. »
My mission was to co-produce the last quest of the DLC with another Level Designer (we cut the quest in two due to a production time constraint). I took care of the whole last part of the quest from Beat 4 to Beat 8.
Top Down :
You can click on the circles to see a screenshot of the location.
It’s an airstrip, where goods transit. The player will pass through here twice, the first time the roof will be open and there will be no big challenge. The second time will be a AT-ST Boss Fight and the roof closed, a darker, more tense atmosphere.
The Check-In is a guarded area where goods pass through to be checked. The player arrives via a secure vantage point, giving him time to analyze the situation. There are two main paths, so that the player can reach the other side of the room.
Here, the visual ambience contrasts sharply with what the player has seen before. It’s a natural traversal moment, with a game of timing between a large fan that will push the player if he’s not under cover when it reactivates.
A very large room, where Thorden’s stocks up on weapons and equipment in preparation for the fall of the Empire. This room is managed solely by Droids, to prevent any leak of its existence. Players must avoid detection to avoid starting a fight.
The player must retrieve an object stored behind enormous forcefields. His only way of access is to use the systems coming from this Compound. On the 2nd floor, the player must unlock the Crane by coordinating with Nix.
• [Beat 01] - Check-In :
The Check-In is a guarded area where goods pass through to be checked. The player arrives via a secure vantage point, giving him time to analyze the situation. There are two main paths, so that the player can reach the other side of the room.
Left :
Right :
• [Beat 02] - Natural Cave :
Here, the visual ambience contrasts sharply with what the player has seen before. It’s a natural traversal moment, with a game of timing between a large fan that will push the player if he’s not under cover when it reactivates.
Level Design Intentions :
As well as creating a challenge with the fan. In this area, I wanted to work and push the camera framing as far as possible. So that the ventilator is always as visible as possible, but also that the visual of the cave is highlighted. I integrated a custom camera following a spline to achieve optimum results.
It was very important for the player to be able to obtain information on the current state of the fan, so that he could decide whether or not to move forward. I therefore had to rework the fan’s light feedback (Activated = Red light / Deactivated = Light off / Pre-Activation = 3 Flashes then Activation).
It’s also worth noting the intention to highlight the next objectives (grapple point & exit) for the player, to make progression as smooth as possible.
• [Beat 03] - Thorden's Compound :
A very large room, where Thorden’s stocks up on weapons and equipment in preparation for the fall of the Empire. This room is managed solely by Droids, to prevent any leak of its existence. Players must avoid detection to avoid starting a fight.
Puzzle Breakdown :
The player must retrieve an object (the Map) stored behind enormous forcefields. His only way of access is to use the systems coming from this Compound. On the 2nd floor, the player must unlock the Crane by coordinating with Nix.
If I have to explain in a few sentences how the puzzle works in addition to the diagram:
- The player arrives in the puzzle area. He notices that there’s a button, but that only Nix can access it. If Nix interacts with it, the Crane will move but return to its initial position. Something is blocking its progress.
- Around the player is another room, with a Lever (hold). Access to this room is blocked by a forcefield (it’s not a door, as a forcefield allows you to see through and leaves a line of sight to the lever).
- He needs to find a way to deactivate the forcefield to access to the room. A cable is visible thanks to the Nix Pulse, but if he doesn’t use it the player simply needs to take an elevator (which has been highlighted for this case) that will take him directly to the room to deactivate the forcefield.
- Now the player has access to the Lever, and as soon as he interacts with it, there’s a look at which shows that it opens a door that blocks the Crane’s movement. Player has to send Nix on the button, and hold the lever as the Crane approaches the door.
- Once the puzzle has been successfully completed, all the player has to do is follow the skull to reach his next objective.
• [Beat 04] - AT-ST Boss-Fight :
This part was a real challenge. The idea was to have a boss fight. But with little technical support to make it happen. I had to keep as much of the AT-ST behavior as possible, and reuse a space where the player had already been before.
What’s more it’s impossible to destroy/kill the AT-ST.
For the reuse of space, I felt it was necessary to have a visual impact that gave the feeling that the space wasn’t really recognizable. I suggested that the landing pad’s roof could be closed, and conceived a design around the opening of this roof.
With all these constraints in mind, I decided to design a boss fight where you use the power of the AT-ST to solve a “puzzle” that will open the roof and allow the player to escape.
There are 4 Pillars, each containing a Capacitor (an object that can be charged using a blaster module and which activates an event – a system already present in the main game).
The pillar design didn’t exist in the game, so it’s a “novelty” for this fight. It’s simply a destructible element with 2 states (normal, destroyed) which is capable of knowing whether it’s the AT-ST firing on it or not.
Capacitors : when the player can shoot them (= destroyed pillar), open a part of the ceiling (which looks like a pizza cut into 4).
Once all 4 parts of the ceiling are open, the player can go to the Lambda Shuttle ramp and escape = end of DLC.
MAIN GAME (Revelator Quest) :
During the production of Outlaws, my job was to design a main mission, the last in the game: Revelator.
In it, Kay, disguised as a stormtrooper, embarks on a dangerous mission to retrieve ND-5 from the bridge of an Imperial destroyer. You simulate Gedeek’s arrest to get around the ship. But not everything goes according to plan.
I was in charge of the whole Escort part with Gedeek and the Escape, which takes place in the hangar and check-in area of the Star Destroyer. Later in the quest, we return to the hangar to escape with our Trailblazer.
I also designed the Space Battle against the Star Destroyer that concludes the quest.
Top Down :
The challenge of this first part of the quest was to design a space that felt alive and coherent. With Stormtrooper and Officer training and the presence of Workers repairing or working on the Star Destroyer.
All these sets of patrols, and ambient life was an element of iteration to serve the space (art & movie references) and the narrative.
You can click on the circles to see a screenshot of the location.
The Hangar’s challenge was to populate it with the ambiant life. It’s a large space, and the lack of life could quickly be felt.
Note : the distance between the various NPCs is higher here, in relation to the space, which is very large.
The HUB is an area where a number of patrols have to cross paths, and where goods transit from the hangar. There’s also a check-in area for the player to go through. The feeling of high security here should be an element that stands out for the player.
Hence the addition of NPCs at a height above the player.
Turbolift area look like the HUB, but with much more horizontal & vertical space. There are more Stormtrooper troops and snipers on high ground.
Around the Control Room I added a mini-puzzle, as the escort could become a redundant. As well as a Takedown, giving the player the feeling of securing the room. There’s not much challenge, but this extra was much appreciated and solved the redundancy perceived during playtesting.
• [Beat 1] - Gedeek's Escort :
Here’s the final version of the escort. The main challenge was to create a lively environment thanks to the various patrols and sequences during our travels with Gedeek & Sliro.
As well as creating the escort system (visual scripting), which didn’t exist as is :
The design of this escort is simple, the idea being that Gedeek must always stay in front of the player. He follows a patrol path, but if he starts to get too far from the player he stops (Hold Position) and the player can run to join Gedeek. If the player starts to get too close to Gedeek, he’ll be forced to walk so that Gedeek always keeps a certain lead over the player.
So I had to create a position checker between the two entities. I perform a calculation to check whether or not the player is ahead of Gedeek.
• [Beat 2] - The Escape :
Top Down :
You can click on the circles to see a screenshot of the location.
The player will call Ank to trigger the explosives he had planted for the escape. The enemies on the right will be targeted and the player will be able to reach the Trailblazer. If he doesn’t move fast enough, those from part 3 will join the hangar and eliminate him.
The idea was to demonstrate collaboration with the companions, and have an explosive moment at the end of the escape.
Situation similar to 2nd. Except that the enemies are also coming from the left (not visible on the screen) and 1 “popcorn” enemy in the center.
The player has no choice to neutralize the one in the center and move forward to the hangar.
As soon as the player reaches the lower zone, many enemies arrive from the right, forcing the player forward.
Thanks to the playtests, I’ve noticed that a large number of enemies arriving from here is necessary to make it clear that if the player stays, he’ll be overwhelmed and that he shouldn’t fight.
The placement of the covers also allows the player to survive all the shots during the escape, without which he wouldn’t survive even if he was only running.
When this beat starts, the player knows he’s in escape, the alarms are activated. I place the player in a high position so that he can have a good line of sight of the opportunities. +2 “popcorn” enemies that are easy to kill but block the player’s way.
The player’s companions will guide him through the escape, but the visuals also help.
On the right, the forcefield is activated to show that he can’t get through. On the left, all the doors are closed.
Here’s the final version of the escape. The main challenge here was to get the player to understand that he couldn’t stay and fight, but that he still had enough chance to survive all the enemy fire. All the while using the space previously created for the escort with Gedeek.
• [Beat 3] - Space Battle :
My biggest mission and challenge was to design this space battle. The number of space tools was rather small, as space gameplay is only a tiny part of the game.
But the challenge was very interesting, as it was mainly scripting-oriented. It gave me the opportunity to improve my scripting skills and to manage a very large script with a large number of conditional and non-linear cases.
Beat Flow :
The player has just escaped from Star Destroyer. TIE Fighters attempt to destroy the TrailBlazer. The player must survive X secondes, trying to send a message for help.
After a while, Asara suggests that there must be a jammer preventing the player from sending a message.
With the jammer on the Gozanti Cruiser, the player must destroy it in order to call for help.
But the Traiblazer will be caught by the Star Destroyer's tractor beam.
The Trailblazer is caught in the Star Destroyer's tractor beam :
Rebel X-Wings arrive and destroy the tractor beam, freeing the Trailblazer.
The syndicate that Kay has earned the highest reputation with appears as reinforcements.
While waiting for the faction and rebels to formulate a plan the player must fight and defeat the TIE fighters around the revelator.
With the help of allies and rebels.
The allies ask Kay to concentrate these attacks on the Shield Generators.
In order to reduce the forcefield protecting the Star Destroyer and especially its Reactor.
With the Shield Generator destroyed, the forcefield is deactivated and the player can now destroy the Star Destroyer's Reactor and assign it the final blow.
The Star Destroyer starts exploding all over the place: allies, rebels and the player have managed to neutralize the Star Destroyer, which is threatening the planet Akiva.
It's the end of the game, other cutscenes follow.
ART SHOWCASE
Special thanks to Pierre Robin for these beautiful screenshots.
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