Star Wars Outlaws' Lead Writer discusses the making of two scoundrels in a galactic underworld

Star Wars Outlaws is looking to take on ideas and story elements that no other game based on the series has tried to date. The tale of a down-on-her-luck street urchin who grows into a lovable scoundrel that has to delicately juggle alliances between some of the galaxy's most dangerous crime syndicates is a fascinating one, exploring new corners of the Star Wars universe. Plus, it's all being done without a Jedi, Sith, or lightsaber to be seen.

How will players experience the story of Kay Vess and her loyal partner Nix? What does it mean to put together this complex story of a growing scoundrel in a big galaxy? How will Kay's story ultimately vary depending on which factions are willing to work with her and which ones want her dead? To answer these questions and several others, we spoke with Star Wars Outlaws Lead Writer Nikki Foy.

Shacknews: You started with the idea of a game where your main character is a lovable scoundrel. How did this core idea lead to the characters of Kay and Nix?

Nikki Foy, Lead Writer: I think that knowing that was the setting we wanted, the world we wanted to be in, there was a natural sort of evolution of Kay coming out of that. We wanted to tell a story of a character becoming something, starting from nothing and becoming this outlaw. So I think when we started to think about the planets that we wanted to explore, the things in Star Wars that were exciting to us, and places we hadn't seen before, thinking about where Kay comes from… like, she grew up in the workers' district of a casino planet, coming from this place of really nothing and needing to take the things that she wants. She has to steal, and demand, and scrap her way to success. I think knowing that, that was where Kay started.

And then, Kay and Nix have always been a duo for, in our minds, as far as I can remember. I think having these two sides of the same coin, this friend and family member who is also an extension of gameplay, those combined together, having this little thief running around with you, sticky paws who love shiny things. I think it just was a match made in heaven.

Shacknews: You've gone the extra mile to incorporate nearly every criminal syndicate that we've met in Star Wars. Tell me about your process in researching these factions and translating that research into the game.

Foy: We were really excited about the factions and having this opportunity to have these different syndicates and having the contrast between them was really important to us. We knew for sure [about] the Hutts, right out the gate. We had seen the Pykes a lot in recent stuff. We're very excited about that, too. And, it's really nice having these things like The Mandalorian or [The Book of] Boba Fett, where you can see what is going to happen with the Hutts and the Pykes on Tatooine and stuff like that. So we have all this great knowledge that we get to play with from the past of this storyline.

In terms of research, we are fans of [Star Wars]. It's really fun to research. We just get to watch, read, and do all this great stuff. A lot of it was just going to the media that exists and getting inspired from that. We read a lot of comics. We watched everything, obviously. Our associate narrative director, John Björling, he's like an expert. He's read every book and every comic.

Basically, [we're] just pulling anything we can and then collaborating with Lucasfilm, asking them questions, coming to them with proposals like, "What about this? Is this how the Pykies, is this how Crimson Dawn operates?" And then the last thing was creating our own syndicate, the Ashiga, which was so fun. We could look at the gaps that we had and how we wanted to differentiate these syndicates and really just fill it in with our own stuff.

So, yeah, we now end up with this cast of syndicate members. Players can really identify what kind of outlaw they want to be and align with those ones.

Shacknews: Playing every side is so important, but how much will your main story experience change depending on how the various syndicates see you?

Foy: We wanted to tell Kay's story. We wanted to control the important emotional themes along that story so that it felt the way that watching the original trilogy felt. The things that happen in-between those main story beats, how they happen is what's going to be affected: How the world responds to you, what you can do to achieve things, and in what way. Those are where your decisions that you're making will really feel impactful. If you are friends with Crimson Dawn, maybe the Pykes aren't going to want to chat with you so much.

We have a team of really great narrative designers who spent a lot of time thinking about stuff like this, especially in missions where the syndicates are very important. How would they react if you need to work with one? And if your reputation is terrible, they're going to have different dialog options and different moments than if they love you.

Shacknews: The wild card appears to be the Imperial side, a side that everybody seems to universally hate. Can you go into more detail on how the Empire's presence across every world affects Kay's journey and the various syndicates' operations?

Foy: The Empire is a really great wild card faction for us to work with, because having common enemies is the best way to bond. I think that having this force that you know that no one wants to work with as this antagonistic element adds a really great layer to an underworld story. There's always going to be a bigger bad guy and having that really helped us [with] storytelling, absolutely. But [also], with the feel of the world. Kay's doing illegal things. That means that by the Empire's standard, she's a criminal, but she's also doing things that aren't great to other syndicates. There are people there that she's taking from, too.

So the world really is against Kay. It's her and Nix against the world and the Empire is such a great way to support that feeling.

Shacknews: Tell me about some of the other supporting cast members who will meet over the course of the game, some that players may not be familiar with.

Foy: There are a lot that I really want players to meet organically, since we've spent so much time making sure that those feel great. Ones that I'm really excited about are, I think [Narrative Director Navid Khavari] was talking about him before, but Bosnok, this head in a jar who has a lot of opinions, personality, and who is quite good at Sabacc despite being ahead in a jar. I think there's some fun Rodian fellows hanging around that are very fun. And I'm really excited for players to meet the Ashiga Clan. I think having Queen Ashiga as the leader, a very mysterious, powerful Melitto matriarch is going to be really fun.

And my favorite, besides Kay is Danka, our Mon Calamari information broker who has this great voice. I love the actress, and I think she's such a fun character too.

Shacknews: In addition to new characters, we're also going to see some new worlds. Toshara is a world that's created just for this game. Can you talk about the process of working with Lucasfilm to build this world?

Foy: Working with Lucasfilm is so great. It's really nice. They always have great support for us. They always have really good ideas. If we can't do something, they're always there to build us up. Toshara, we really wanted it to be a new... it's a moon, and we really wanted it to be a new biome that we hadn't seen before, that we hadn't explored. It's inspired by these sweeping savannas and there are elements of it that take it just a little beyond to make it "Star Wars-y."

For example, Toshara's super windy. As you walk around, you can see where the wind has carved out the ground, revealing all this... "amberine" is what we call it. That sort of makes up this beautiful visual language that the art team developed, which is just incredible. Every time I play it, I'm like, "What the hell? It looks like this?"

It's really awesome and, in terms of the culture, the cities, and the people that live there, we really all did work together, all our departments to together create, like, "What's the unified vision? How do these people live?" We're making it the Tosharan people. Everyone will see they're nomadic. They're interesting. They are very handy and Kay's going to learn a lot from them.

Shacknews: Last question from me, you sort of touched on this at the start of our interview, but do we find out at any point how Kay and Nix first came together? Or is this a case like Han and Chewie, where when we first meet them, they just are who they are and we just accept them as a duo?

Foy: We are very excited for you to discover Kay's backstory. And I will say... there are... (long pause)... yeah. I'll say yeah. We are going to see how Kay and Nix came together.

Star Wars fans will experience Kay and Nix's story when Star Wars Outlaws comes to PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on Friday, August 30. Those interested in getting more details on the game's story, mechanics, and other aspects of Ubisoft's upcoming blockbuster can check out our most recent hands-on preview.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?