I’m not proud of the fact that I’ve beaten all 13 mainline Assassin’s Creed games (and all their DLCs). At their best, Ubisoft’s flagship series delivers tense stealth-action exploration while teaching you historical trivia. At their worst, they’re a hamster wheel of repetitive tasks, pointless busywork, and incomprehensible sci-fi nonsense. 4y6u60

As the credits rolled on the interminable Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I vowed that this would be the last time I’d get suckered by the franchise. Last year, I was gifted a copy of the refreshingly concise Mirage, which made me recall the many things I’d once enjoyed about this series. Now, with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, it’s clear Ubisoft has given the series a serious style transfusion.

Since the early days of Assassin’s Creed, fans demanded a game set in feudal Japan. After all, with hooded, stealth-focused, assassin heroes, doesn’t a game where you just play as a straight-up actual ninja make logical sense? And yet, possibly because this setting was low-hanging fruit, Ubisoft waited… and waited.

Having now sunk a ridiculous number of hours into Shadows, I’m glad they waited. This is the best the franchise has been in at least a decade, leaving the stodgy Valhalla in the dust and improving on the great bits of Origins and Odyssey. At least on paper, not much has changed: you have a list of targets to stab, an open world to explore, and characters and bases to upgrade. But there’s a streamlined sleekness to this iteration, feeling like everything from character control to combat to the design of the world has been tuned up.

Let’s take lead character Naoe as an example. She moves much faster than previous assassins, can lie prone (a feature I’ve been craving for years), has a nifty grappling hook, and a fine line in flips and rolls. Controlling previous assassins occasionally felt like driving a station wagon: you point them in the right direction, hold down the parkour button, and hope for the best. But Naoe is more like a sports car, capable of quick, precise maneuvers and sudden exhilarating bursts of acceleration.

That’s counterbalanced by secondary lead Yasuke, whose design philosophy appears to be based around him being the biggest guy in all of Japan. He’s a true powerhouse in battle, can charge right through the scenery, but is frankly bordering on comedic when he tries to sneak. If Yasuke were the only lead in Shadows it wouldn’t feel like an Assassin’s Creed game, but his presence is like being able to swap between Naoe’s sports car and an armored Humvee.

The overall narrative is also vastly improved. The best Assassin’s Creed games have all been revenge stories, which may be repetitive but at least gave the characters clear motivations. In the (somewhat cutscene-heavy) introduction, when the game introduces you to Naoe’s peaceful village and her kind and ive middle-aged father, most people will be able to see precisely where the story is going.

Though the overall arc might be familiar, it’s at least well-executed. Care has clearly been taken to improve the cutscene direction, which is a huge improvement over Valhalla‘s parade of static dialogue and talking heads. The story also smartly zeroes in on Naoe and Yasuke’s social status at this period: Naoe bristling under an implacable patriarchy and Yasuke finding himself thrust into a high-status role after years as a slave.

Given the samurai-packed setting, it’s perhaps inevitable there’s a lot of Kurosawa influence on show, though there’s also a neat leaning towards more pop-inflected fare like 1971’s Lady Snowblood. This dovetails into a loose Tarantino feel when the action cranks up, with the best bits accompanied by a killer needle drop. Samurai movie purists will probably be demanding their shamisens and hyōshigi, but if watching ninjas battle samurai while a 60s-sounding psych rock track blares out is wrong, I don’t want to be right.

All that’s buoyed up by some truly incredible graphics. Ubisoft’s evolution of the Anvil engine is a sight to behold, particularly when running on 4K on a beefy PC or PS5 Pro. For once, ray-tracing doesn’t feel like a resource-hungry marketing gimmick, with the game so consistently pretty that I’m really putting the photo mode through its paces. Appropriately given the title, it also feels like there’s an aesthetic shift towards high-contrast visuals, where daytime feels sunkissed and night is an inky blackness that (unlike practically every other game) actually feels dark.

And the weather! Not since Metal Gear Solid 2 has rain felt so wet and oppressive. When a proper storm kicks up, the game excels, particularly if you’re playing with surround sound/headphones and can hear every drop splatter on the roof above your head and the wind whip through the trees.

As an aside, I’ve also been playing the game on my Steam Deck, knocking out a few side quests or exploring a waypoint during my daily commute. Frankly, Shadows has no business running this well on the Deck and, while it’s severely visually cut back and only ever lands in the rough territory of 30FPS, it’s very much playable.

Focused design, a firm directorial style, and those killer graphics combine into a polished package. This franchise has had a reputation for visual bugs and glitches at launch, but I suspect the last-minute delay from Nov. 2024 to Mar. 2025 gave the developers time to iron out any rough edges.

And, finally, it’s deeply satisfying to see this game succeed, as its victory is infuriating the worst people on the internet. From the moment the first trailer launched, there’s been a constant social media screeching from – let’s not mince words – racists annoyed that there’s a black samurai in the game.

That dovetailed into a full-on hate campaign spearheaded by the most pathetic people imaginable, all of whom have been slavering over the prospect of Shadows‘ failure and frantically trying to generate puffed-up ‘controversies’. All indications are that Shadows is not just a critical hit but a sales success too. That crunching noise you can faintly hear? That’s the sweet sound of racists grinding their teeth in frustration.

All of which means Shadows has me firmly back aboard the Assassin’s Creed franchise for the foreseeable future. All indications are that this will kick off a new trilogy of games based around the same incredible graphics tech, and I’ll be shoving a wristblade into unfortunate mooks’ necks in all of them.

The games industry is understandably nervous about AI. Most predictions see the new tech burrowing into the heart of game development, putting designers, artists, musicians, programmers and even game designers out of jobs. We’re not too far away from an entire game developed by AI, and if you want an advance peek into what that future will look like, pick up Star Wars Outlaws.

Outlaws has three main gameplay systems: stealth-based sneaking, third-person shooting, and open-world exploration. Ubisoft has mastered these systems across a dizzying amount of games, with Outlaws developer Massive Entertainment specifically responsible for the underrated Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and The Division franchise. If an open-world Star Wars game must exist, Massive and Ubisoft are the best candidate to make it. And yet something has gone awry in development.

First up the basics. Set in the original trilogy era, you play as Kay Vess, a young thief out to make a name for herself in the Star Wars underworld. Assisted by her adorable sidekick pet Nix, you explore a series of open worlds, take jobs for competing crime gangs, and crouch-walk your way through bases littered with waist-high crates. If you’ve played an open-world game in the last twenty years you’ll know the formula: accept a mission, head to a waypoint, sneak/blast your way to a button in the middle of an enemy base, watch a cutscene, rinse and repeat.

Outlaws is frustrating in that it’s not outright bad, it just does the bare minimum. Much of the game will be spent sneaking around enemies, but the stealth mechanics would have been considered underbaked 20 years ago, let alone now. In an ideal stealth title enemies are responsive to your actions, respond in a broadly realistic manner to threats, and are satisfying to outsmart and manipulate. In Outlaws they’re just braindead, not noticing an intruder ambling around the small room they’re in loudly punching their buddies to death mere meters away.

A moment that summed it up for me came when I was sneaking up behind a Stormtrooper and accidentally knocked a metal tray over. It clattered to the ground and I held my breath, cursing my lack of environmental awareness and expecting them to spin around and riddle me with blaster fire. But, sadly, they didn’t react and promptly became the 20th Stormtrooper in a row to perish to Kay Vess’ mighty fist (the Empire really needs to have a word with their helmet supplier…). We are now around a decade on from Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain and Arkham Knight, each of which delivered satisfying and complex stealth — why have we regressed so far?

Combat and exploration suffer similar problems. Outlaws constantly feels like we’re getting the basic gameplay foundations on which fun and novel wrinkles should have been built on, but weren’t. When these systems — the “game” part of the game — are so obviously lacking in depth and creativity, it feels like Massive went to some game development equivalent of ChatGPT and told it “generate a third-person stealth/action game.”

Outlaws also has some glaring visual problems, at least on consoles. Like Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora this is fully ray traced on the Snowdrop Engine, but splashing out on the fancy lighting tech inevitably means sacrifices are made elsewhere. I played on the PlayStation 5’s 40fps balanced mode, which (as per Digital Foundry) targets an internal resolution of somewhere between 936p and 1252p, which is then reconstructed to 4K by FSR.

The result is, frankly, a visual mess. Detailed moving elements like hair and foliage have an unpleasant aliased shimmer and objects and characters even in the medium distance are smeared and blurry — it’s clear to anyone with eyes that Massive’s implementation of FSR is struggling with the low internal resolution on consoles. An interesting comparison is 2018’s Red Dead Redemption 2, which utilizes far less complex lighting and environmental tech, but delivers a crisper, more consistent, and better-looking final image.

And, while I’m beating this drum, the ray tracing in Outlaws often looks outright bad! The shiny floors of Imperial bases should be an opportunity for ray tracing to show its worth, but they display an offputting blur that doesn’t resemble any real-life reflection I’ve ever seen. One planet features a large lake to speed across, and the water’s surface looked bizarre to the point I wondered if the game had glitched. Results seem better on high-powered PCs, so perhaps Outlaws‘ visual deficiencies are down to current-gen consoles buckling under the weight of resource-hungry lighting (which it goes without saying adds precisely nothing to gameplay).

Then there’s the fact that the character modeling and animation look prehistoric. The underworld setting means many NPCs are aliens, all of which look fine, but human characters’ facial animations and model design make you recall games from generations past. Unfortunately, this all strongly applies to Kay Vess herself, with her oddly angular face and robotic expressions draining away whatever personality mocap and voice actor Humberly González provides.

It’s worth underlining that Star Wars is one of the biggest and most lucrative franchises in entertainment history and Ubisoft is one of the most prominent publishers in gaming. If any game should arrive with ultra-high levels of polish, graphical fidelity, and complex gameplay systems it should be a megabudget Star Wars adventure! I can only theorize that Massive’s resources were stretched by it being developed in parallel with Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and that, combined with a fairly strict Q3-4 2024 release window, meant that “eh, good enough to ship” became the behind-the-scenes philosophy.

For the final time, I want to underline that Outlaws isn’t a bad game. It’s merely adequate, clearing the lowest bars possible with no sense of individual authorship or direction. It is, ultimately, a box-ticking exercise that carefully fulfills contractual expectations between Ubisoft and Disney. Some will be satisfied by this slop, but just that the vast financial and artistic resources necessary to bring Outlaws to life could have been used to make a truly special Star Wars experience that we will now never get.

The final previews for Star Wars Outlaws are in and it seems that the galaxy far, far away fans are in for a treat when the open-world actioner drops on August 30.

Ubisoft has presided over a string of hit-and-miss releases over the past couple of years. Whether it be the severely underwhelming latest installment in Far Cry or another Assassin’s Creed entry that doesn’t manage to retain relevancy for more than a month, or even a disastrous launch like Skull and Bones, the French game publisher desperately needs a huge win to balance it against all the recent scrutiny.

Well, it appears that Star Wars Outlaws, against all odds and despite the lackluster gameplay trailers, might be just the title to finally allow Ubisoft to rise from the ashes. In fact, the final previews from different outlets claim that the game’s open-world works so well, it might be on par with Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption.

Many publishers spent hours in-game and were impressed by how everything comes together in Massive Entertainment’s new creation.

Other Star Wars fans who got early access also came out of the game positively surprised.

In fact, if there’s one thing everyone can agree on, it’s that the open-world experience is simply sublime.

Apparently, the game is so good that it’s going to remind you why you fell in love with Star Wars in the first place.

It’s always the small details that immerse players in the world. For example, you can pet the creatures you come across in Star Wars Outlaws.

Lastly, GamesRadar asserted that Outlaws is the perfect Western Star Wars adventure you could possibly ask for, with “serious Red Dead Redemption vibes.”

Of course, as you can imagine, a lot of people are still not sold, especially when the previews goes so far as to compare Outlaws to one of the greatest games ever made.

How much did ubisoft pay you to say that

— Davos (@davoscrypto) July 30, 2024

Another major deal-breaker for people is the outrageous price tag.

with the price of the base game being over $100 where i live (and the giga deluxe being over $200) its hard to justify buying this game unless the reviews are heralding it as the second coming of christ lol. i like star wars, but imma wait for a sale or for it to hit ubisoft+

— Jaraghan (@jaraghan) July 30, 2024

Our own initial thoughts on the game highlighted how generic everything looked, both in of gameplay mechanics and storytelling craft, but it seems that Massive has somehow managed to make it all work.

Still, despite my overall lingering pessimism, I can’t deny that some of these features in the open-world environment sound compelling. We’ve all always secretly wanted an open-world Star Wars game that allows you to traverse the galaxy and create your own adventures, and it seems that for the time being, and for better or for worse, Outlaws is as close as we’re going to get to that perfect experience.

We’re a few months out from the highly anticipated open-world game Star Wars Outlaws, and the anticipation has people wondering what sort of options will be available to play it when it comes out and whether it will launch on Xbox Game .

Outlaws, published by Ubisoft, follows the adventures of outlaw Kay Vess, an up-and-comer in the criminal underworld of the Star Wars universe. Kay will be forced to make tenuous alliances with the different criminal factions in the universe to work her way up the criminal ladder.

The game’s set in between Star Wars: Episode 5 – The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Episode 6 – Return of the Jedi, so expect to see quite a few familiar faces. The game will be released on August 30 on the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC. Here’s a story trailer:

Unlike goody two shoes Cal Kestis from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor, Kay is an actual criminal and will have to complete nefarious deeds and outsmart and outthink her fellow criminals. The game will cost $69.99, and won’t be a day one release on Game . That doesn’t mean it won’t be on there eventually. There is a service that will have it, though, and that’s Ubisoft+ , which service costs $17.99 a month.

Alternatively, if you really want to go all out you can buy the Ultimate Edition of the game for $129.99. This version comes with a digital art book and some additional skins.

There is no denying that Ubisoft has some serious problems when it comes to monetization. Its corporate greed is neigh unmatched in the gaming world, and it has proven time and time again that it cares about little more than scooping up as much cash as possible.

Combine that with what gamers view as lackluster copy-pasted open worlds, repetitive gameplay, and tedious side quests and it’s a recipe for irritated gamers, and wide-reaching boycotts.

Why are gamers upset with Ubisoft games? 6k346m

The frustration players feel when it comes to Ubisoft has been building for years. For older gamers, who might not subscribe to the often-vitriolic discourse online, the hate might come as a surprise. Ubisoft was a leader in the industry throughout the early aughts, releasing daring titles like Beyond Good & Evil, Rayman, Brothers in Arms, and of course, the entry titles to their flagship series like Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry.

It’s hard to pinpoint when the anger first started. For some players it was the 2012 shift to Uplay, the company’s solo digital distribution platform. The launch and subsequent 8-year run was fraught with bugs, required an internet connection to play games, and was often down for days, leaving players without access to purchased games. Every major publisher is pushing for personal launchers, Ubisoft and EA are just taking the lead.

Coincidentally, they’re also the leaders in what one Redditor perfectly described as “fast food games… cheap, fast, you know what you’re getting and they are just good enough.” Baldur’s Gate swept the 2023 Game Awards with its ingenuity. With many players feeling the squeeze when it comes to shelling out for games that feel unfinished, recycled, and are laden with microtransactions, there is less space for “fast food.”

In another “pioneering” approach, the company is moving to subscription services, much like Xbox Game . The company believes that the days of physical copies are over — relics to be left molding in an attic somewhere.

“One of the things we saw is that gamers are used to, a little bit like DVD, having and owning their games… They got comfortable not owning their CD collection or DVD collection. That’s a transformation that’s been a bit slower to happen [in games]… So it’s about feeling comfortable with not owning your game.”

Phillipe Tremblay

For others, it was when the Assassin’s Creed franchise moved to yearly releases, like Call of Duty, Madden, or FIFA – repetitive, half-a**ed, and aggressively-monetized mediocre titles.  The formula worked for about 5 years, with back-back successes in Assassin’s Creed II, Brotherhood, Revelations, Assassin’s Creed III, and Black Flag before the magic was lost on the often overlooked AC Rogue.

Worse was the buggy launch of AC Unity. While the game received fairly high praise from critics, players were plagued by frequent Uplay crashes and more horrifying bugs than a game has any right to have at launch. Ubisoft’s response was to offer a free game as compensation – with the caveat that gamers couldn’t sue over the disproportionally buggy entry.

Outside of the tangible, a certain subsect of players have found themselves at odds with Ubisoft’s emphasis on DEI (Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion). Over the years the publisher has made concentrated efforts to include LGBTQIA+ characters, as well as represent people of color, diverse gender expression, and various nationalities. While a quick look back at many of their titles shows that this shift has happened over years, some players say this is happening at a disproportionate rate.

The latest entry in the franchise, AC Shadows, takes place during the Sengoku Period in Japan. The title features dual protagonists Naoe, a female shinobi, and Yasuke, an African man turned samurai. Commenters on the YouTube trailer were quick to rage about having a woman character and a man from a different country as the primary protagonists, claiming it pushes a “woke” agenda.

This same argument has been repeated since Syndicate (2015), when it was revealed that Jacob Frye was bisexual– though at the time it was more revolutionary than “woke,” and there was little fury over a female protagonist.

Since the Shadows trailer dropped in mid-May, it’s been dragged online as disrespectful to Japanese people, and for pushing a DEI agenda. For any casual viewer, the comments are toxic, filled to the brim with as-of-yet-unjustified hatred and abhorrent racism. Still, even some reasonable voices ed the chorus of dissent, questioning the breaking of precedent with Yasuke’s main character status, when the story is set in Japan.

At the time of writing, it had more than 700k downvotes and only 270k upvotes. On the AC subreddit, however, the comments skew much more positive – even if players have little positive to say about Ubisoft itself. “They have more misses than they do hits,” one player commented, concluding, “There’s too many options from better publishers.”

Beyond their alleged DEI pandering and aggressive monetization tactics, the company has massive problems internally. The Indeed reviews from employees detail low pay, high expectations, and awful management. Problems with management spiraled to the legal level in 2020 as part of the #MeToo movement; five of Ubisoft’s upper management were fired or forced to resign when the French newspaper Liberation uncovered that years’ worth of sexual misconduct complaints had been ignored. The former chief creative officer, Serge Hascoët, and four others were arrested on sexual harassment charges in 2023.

According to Bloomberg, Hascoët was the primary reason Ubisoft was unable to produce content with only female leads. In Assassin’s Creed: Origins, Aya was originally intended to carry much more of the game — likewise, Kassandra was meant to singularly carry Odyssey. According to Bloomberg, Hascoët believed that women wouldn’t sell games. Other publications, like Gamesutra, corroborated Bloomberg’s report, and found that issues stemming from executive mismanagement had affected multiple studios.

The result was a cascade of executive departures, a revamping of Ubisoft’s internal procedures, and several class action lawsuits against the company. Throughout 2021, multiple groups of Ubisoft employees came forward to try and force to company to comply with its promises, and to shed light on more discrimination and sexual harassment issues. Axios reported in December 2021 that an “exodus” of employees had left the company due to low pay and the impact of the allegations.

Despite Ubisoft’s jump on the subscription bandwagon, aggressive microtransactions, and soaring price tags – the latest Assassin’s Creed title, AC Shadows starts at $69.99 for the base game and caps at $129.99, and those aren’t even collector’s editions – the company can’t seem to keep the good talent in, and the bad actors out. The “fast food” model isn’t very fresh, and players are ready for new horizons – which don’t seem to be coming from the AAAs anymore. Most players are content dropping $40 on amazing indie title like Manor Lords rather than snagging an Ubisoft subscription and, just like the company’s Director of Subscriptions Phillipe Tremblay says, and get “comfortable with not owning [their] game.”

It seems like every other week there is a new “controversy” in the gaming world. The loudest opinions always surface first, and people can’t help but ride that hate train.

Fresh off a debate on whether or not Stellar Blade’s censored outfit was a woke move, or if Hades II’s goddess of love Aphrodite is too masculine to be sexy (guys, she is mostly naked, c’mon) gamers have set their sights on Assassin’s Creed Shadows.

The newest entry in the colossal franchise is set to release in November 2024, and though we have nothing beyond the first trailer, gamers are furious – and suddenly experts on Japan’s Sengoku period.

Why are gamers mad about Assassin’s Creed Shadows? 452q36

Developer Ubisoft has found itself at the top of players sh*t-list over the last few years for a litany of issues, including price gouging, copy-pasting settings, locking content behind pre-order walls, repetitive gameplay, and, of course, historical inaccuracies.

Back in 2007, Ubisoft moved to rectify some of those immersion breaking errors in chronology, like removing Altier’s crossbow. Even so, the game focused on the assassination of real historical figures, who were obviously not off-ed by a shadow organization of assassins in the real world. More recent entries have seen the studio move away from even the illusion of accuracy in the name a narrative – even if their ancient setting have been used for educational purposes (we’re looking at you, AC: Origins).

Alas, those gamers who missed the shift to a new direction when the god Anubis reared his jackal head in Origins, or when Eivor started riding the giant wolf Hati in Valhalla, are making a stink over the perceived inaccuracies shown in the reveal trailer dropped in mid-May.

The complaints range from decrying the “forced inclusivity” of one of the dual protagonists, the real historical figure Yasuke, an African samurai, to the female co-protagonist, the Shinobi Naoe, not being Japanese enough.

For the record, the character comes from the Iga Province, the home of the Shinobi, and her father is none other than Fujibayashi Nagato the ninja who saved the Shinobi way of life during the 16th century.

But the dual protagonist nature of the game seems to be lost on gamers, who are almost solely focused on the Yasuke of it all, even through the historical figure has 2 anime adaptations, Afro Samurai and Yasuke based on him.

The comments section of the YouTube video is filled with gamers hashing it out.

One conversation drifting around harkens back to 2009, with the release of Resident Evil 5. The white protagonist, Chris Redfield, is sent to Africa, where he is forced to fight his way through waves of infected locals. At the time, it was controversial for the perceived insensitivity of a white man engaging in essentially mass murder against Africans. s on Twitter, now X.com, feel that Yasuke cutting his way through Japanese people is much the same.

Streamer Asmongold weighed in as well, and while his “hot takes” about Yasuke were no different than the plethora of others on social media, he did take a second to call out Naoe as, “some girl,” and say that her inclusion ruined the immersion for him because, “there’s not a real situation where a woman is going to be able to beat 3 guys as an assassin.”

Where were those same complaints with Kassandra, Eivor, Evie, or Aveline?

Ubisoft also confirmed that, much like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, players will have their pick of romantic partners, but trolls seem to have yet again forgotten AC precedent. There have been queer characters since Leonardo Da Vinci popped up in AC II Brotherhood and crushed on the dreamy Ezio Auditori.

But the icing on the ridiculous cake is the actual editing war taking place on the Wikipedia pages for AC Shadows and Yasuke. Since the trailer dropped on the 15th, Yasuke’s page has been altered 100’s of times, with posters adding and subtracting information to suit their chosen narrative. Its a ridiculous back and forth, and one that will end as soon as the trailer fades from the cultural zeitgeist.

For some, who are more able to articulate their frustrations than others, the core issue seems to be Ubisoft’s political messaging. Fans feel that their preferred historical setting has been overridden by Ubisoft’s “radical progressivism.” When it comes to making games, which is a form of art, its only natural for those involved with development to let their opinions seep into the fabric of the story. At the end of the day, all a consumer can do is avoid engagement – even flaming a trailer.

As an American, I can’t speak to the Japanese reaction to the drama, but there are plenty of Japanese comments on the YouTube channel voicing concern over erasure of their history. There is, of course, a Japanese protagonist as well, but that doesn’t diminish the feeling of being left behind. We can only hope that when the game releases in mid November, it’s good enough for gamers to leave their worries behind as they assassinate some Jesuit-Templar baddies.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows could not come out at a better time, as the recent wild success of Shōgun has proven fans are ready to dive into feudal Japan.

This will be the setting for the newest game in Ubisoft’s highly successful gaming series. For decades, Assassin’s Creed has brought players to all corners of the world at different historical points. Japan has long been a coveted time to set the series, and now gamers have the opportunity. But Shadows is special, not just because of the locale, but the innovations made for the game.

The new venture will feature not just one protagonist but two. These dueling perspectives allow fans to play the classic assassin role in the shinobi character and a samurai. Both characters team up in a tale of fiction inspired by historical events. The samurai character is none other than Yasuke, known throughout history as the first Black samurai. Brooke Davies, the narrative director for the game, informed IGN of the joy of implementing the historical figure into the game. 

“Yasuke is somebody who is going to tie together many of the most powerful figures in our era. He really is a great point of entry to this as well, with Oda Nobunaga on one side, and on the other side the Portuguese that he arrives with. He really does a lovely job of connecting the dots historically, what we know factually. And then narratively, we had so much fun imagining the kind of person who would have this trajectory.”

Yasuke aids the shinobi assassin, Naoe, the invented daughter of the real-life figure, Fujibayashi Nagato. This melding of history and fiction primes the new Assassin’s Creed game to be one for the ages.

Release date for Assassin’s Creed: Shadows e2q17

The trailer kicks off with our titular assassin and their terrified victim — a taste of what is to come. After a quick romp in the woods at night, the visuals show a landscape in the daylight — the natural beauty of historic Japan. This beauty is short-lived when a band of samurai attack Naoe and her father. As her home burns, Naoe gets the first glimpse of Yasuke, whose fate will become entwined with hers. 

Players can switch between these two perspectives depending on which skill set is required. Yasuke is a powerful fighter, which will come in handy when force is needed. Conversely, Naoe will be your pick when stealth is required.

Producer Karl Onnée explained to IGN how they’re focusing on player choices which will affect the gameplay, which will include a focus on the changing seasons of the year:

“We’ve really been pushing about making sure that gameplay and art are not separate, but they’re intertwining.”

Onnée gave the example of how, in winter, waterways would be frozen, as opposed to in the springtime.

Assassins Creed Shadows is slated to drop on Nov. 15 2205 on PC, PS5, and Xbox, so many elements are under wraps. 

Star Wars has had many lucrative gaming endeavors in its long lifetime, but none taking place in an open world before. Star Wars Outlaws will be the first. 

Published by Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry developer Ubisoft and developed by The Division‘s Massive Entertainment, Star Wars Outlaws will put the player in the shoes of a young hero making her way through the crime syndicates as a way to find a better life. Star Wars has historically had a love for scoundrels, and now players can play as one during the period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi

Characters confirmed for Star Wars Outlaws 1j6v10

The original trilogy setting means there are characters both original and new to pull from.

• Kay Vess — The protagonist of Star Wars: Outlaws, Kay is a young woman looking to find her way in the galaxy. As the aforementioned scoundrel of the game, she seeks a big score with the help of her trusty companion. As with most scoundrels, she finds herself on the most wanted list, making her life that much harder.

• Nix — Kay’s creature companion who accompanies her on her travels. Every protagonist needs a cute alien friend and this one is a Merqaal. 

• ND-5 — A droid built by the Confederacy of Independent Systems, ND-5 was involved in the Clone Wars and falls into Kay’s spectrum during a heist gone wrong. 

• Sliro – The confirmed villain of Star Wars: Outlaws, Sliro is the leader of the criminal syndicate Serek Besh. An original character created for the game, Sliro poses a great threat to Kay after putting a hit on her

• Vail – It isn’t Star Wars without bounty hunters and the newest one is coming after Kay. A human female, she is hired by the crime syndicate Serek Besh.

• Jaylen Vex – A character that sends Kay on her ultimate journey. He offers her a job that turns into disaster when Sliro puts a bounty on her head.

• Danka – A Mon Calamari featured in the official Star Wars: Outlaws trailer. She was an information broker during the Imperial Era

• Qi’Ra – One surprising character who is not original to the game. Lady Qi’Ra is the leader of the criminal order Crimson Dawn. After leaving Han (Alden Ehrenreich) in Solo: A Star Wars Story, it appears she’s still kicking and causing complications as a syndicate leader.

• Jabba the Hutt – The galaxy may be big but that doesn’t stop Jabba from taking his cut from wherever possible. Both he and Salacious B. Crumb make an appearance in the trailer, along with an appearance by the frozen decoration of Han Solo.

This cast of characters shows a love for the rich origins of Star Wars while exploring new territory. Star Wars Outlaws will be released on August 30, 2024. 

With the $2.3 billion box office smash that was 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water, James Cameron’s ecologically conscious sci-fi fantasy cemented its place as one of the biggest entertainment franchises in the world. And yet, it’s widely noted that there’s not a ionate Avatar fanbase on the same level as the MCU or Star Wars. Well, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora may be a big step to that finally happening.

You will slide on the loincloth and pick up the bow of a player-created Na’vi. The conceit is that you and your friends were captured as children by humans soon after their arrival on Pandora. The intention was to groom you into becoming an RDA operative, though the events of Avatar result in the programme being immediately shut down. The order is to terminate you, but you and your friends are instead placed in cryostasis and are unthawed a year before the events of The Way of Water.

From there it’s out into the “Western Frontier,” a new region of Pandora not yet seen in the movies. Despite this being a fresh environment, anyone who’s seen Avatar will immediately recognize the rainforest flora and fauna, flying rocks, and magic trees — and the first tribe you encounter aren’t a million miles away from the forest-dwelling Omatikaya of the films.

Just another Ubisoft open-world game? 4v6f1m

Let’s get some things out of the way up top. Yes, Frontiers of Pandora is a Ubisoft open-world game with all that that entails. Thankfully there are no towers to climb to reveal the map, though the overall design will be familiar to anyone who’s played a Far Cry game. You must explore the map, take on missions, accrue resources and gradually upgrade your gear, all the while attacking enemy bases of increasing difficulty.

To be fair to Ubisoft, the Avatar setting fits neatly into the Far Cry template and it’s easy to see why they went this route with the license. That said, there are a few wrinkles that come with the territory.

The first is that Frontiers of Pandora is almost entirely played in first-person, meaning you don’t often get to actually see your Na’vi warrior. Like Cyberpunk 2077, you have a wide range of cosmetic customization on offer, all somewhat undermined by the only part of your character usually visible being your wrists and ankles. To be fair, the game does switch to third-person when you’re riding a mount and there’s an online co-op mode to show off your tribal-chic accessories, so I guess it’s not entirely wasted.

The focus on first-person also weakens the feeling that you’re playing as a Na’vi. In of gameplay you’re not doing anything a human character couldn’t and it’s only in the photo mode that you see your character inhabit Pandora. Perhaps third person would have been better?

The crafting mechanics 75zj

Frontiers of Pandora also leans heavily into one of my least favorite modern gaming mechanics: crafting. Yup, this is one of those games in which you obtain armor and weapons by getting the recipe, perusing your “hunter’s guide” to figure out where to pick up the right kind of moss and animal parts, and then head to a crafting table to construct it. Now I do 6% more damage against RDA opponents. Whoop.

To be fair, if crafting mechanics suit any franchise, Avatar is it. While it is arguably just busy work, progression relies on you learning how Pandora functions, which dovetails nicely with the overall narrative of your captive Na’vi reconnecting with their people and how the human invaders are wrecking the ecosystem. Engaging with crafting is also mandatory as story missions have gear requirement levels. You can attempt them under-leveled, but even two levels below what’s recommended will see you die in a few shots.

But it’s a testament to Frontiers of Pandora‘s overall quality that someone who hates crafting mechanics as much as I do was willing to push through them to get to the juicy fun at the core of the game. Developers Massive and Lightstorm have bent over backwards to make traversing the forest smooth and streamlined. From practically the minute you break out into the lush jungle you’re able to acrobatically leap, slide and abseil through the environment at speed.

Taking to the skies r6v4v

That sense of freedom only increases when you eventually bond with your Ikran and take to the skies. I’ve had a lot of great gaming experiences this year, but flying through a bitter thunderstorm and ascending the clouds to find peaceful serenity while a remix of James Horner’s awesome score plays is up there with the best.

Combat is also satisfying. Regular human soldiers are cannon fodder, though the RDA’s AMP suits provide fiercer resistance. Thankfully while humanity has mastered interstellar travel they haven’t quite figured out how to make an arrow-proof glass cockpit, and sending a massive heavy projectile through them never gets old.

The world-building 6a5269

Frontiers of Pandora also fleshes out the lore of James Cameron’s world in a way the movies simply don’t have time for. There’s a fan Wiki-level of geeky detail in the descriptions of Pandora’s wildlife, presumably much of it from Cameron’s extensive story bible. I particularly loved encountering the sleepy zakru, giant elephantine creatures who snooze with their trunks stuck deep in the ground sucking up nutrients. A Na’vi tribe follows the zakru migration over the plains and sets up camp around them, caring for them and drinking their milk for sustenance and their culture is deftly sketched out in just a few scenes.

Learning this granular detail retroactively makes the movies better. I rewatched Avatar and The Way of Water while reviewing this and, in a testament to the developers’ attention to detail, everything I saw in the movies tessellates perfectly with the game. Sure, watching the movie and being able to name the plants in the background is about the most useless information imaginable, but it tickles the nerdy side of me.

I was skeptical about Frontiers of Pandora. I’d thought I was burnt out on the Ubisoft open-world formula, didn’t want to play a game with heavy crafting mechanics, and assumed this would be a quick n’ dirty Far Cry reskin. But I had a blast exploring Pandora and making sure each and every polluting human invader got a honking great arrow through their chest.

In an era when movie-licensed action games are surprisingly rare (Star Wars aside), Frontiers of Pandora reminded me how great they can be in the right hands.

At first glance, Star Wars Outlaws is aiming to realize all of your galaxy far, far away fantasies, but if you look closely enough, Massive’s new open-world actioner is an amalgam of numerous other games that came before it, rehashing all the tired tropes of interactive blockbuster entertainment to create a set of selling blurbs with no real depth.

We’ve seen it countless times before. Licensed games usually persevere at the forbearance of a franchise’s name and popularity, rather than their own merits. For games like Outlaws, publishers take that a step further by incorporating higher production values, imitating game design philosophies from other prominent titles, and even resorting to fan service. But it’s not necessarily the so-called “corporate cash-grab attempt” that puts us off, but the game’s own roaring mediocrity. 

In this article, we will discuss why Star Wars Outlaws will almost certainly fail, and, to give credit where credit might be due, why there’s a very small chance that it might succeed despite the odds being stacked so clearly against it.

Here’s how the gameplay demo for Outlaws plays out: You’re introduced to the game’s main character – a scruffy-looking nerf-herder who goes by the name of Kay Vess. She’s a wiseacre, an outlaw, and a person out for her own interests at the height of the Empire’s tyrannical rule over the galaxy. Sound a little too familiar? Well, don’t worry, because Massive Entertainment has a big twist to completely throw you off your calculations. This time, instead of a bipedal Neanderthal growling unintelligibly as a comic relief sidekick to your burgeoning hero, we have a commando droid, called ND-5, cracking jokes and filling in the silence that looms over long stretches of play in a setting that has yet to justify its allusion to open-world game design.

Kay Vess finishes her current mission and slowly creeps her way out of a criminal gang’s hideout, but this being a gameplay demo for a global showcase, she doesn’t get away undetected. The NPCs see our heroine and start shooting in her direction, whereupon she unholsters her own blaster and returns fire. The gunplay is anything you might expect from a third-person shooter, except that it doesn’t do much besides giving you the option to change settings on the blaster’s fire mode. 

The main character then grapples down the building, gets on her speeder bike, and drives away from the compound. The enemies give chase, and Vess oh-so-generically remarks, “These guys don’t quit.” She manages to lose them, of course, and traverse a seemingly open-world landscape that stretches many kilometers in each direction, ultimately coming up on a small town. After concluding their business, Kay and ND-5 board their ship and fly to orbit, where they engage in a starfighter combat with a couple of hustlers. 

The mechanics in this part eerily remind us of Star Wars: Battlefront, but what sets this apart is the seamless manner in which you can fly off a planet and then jump into hyperspace, arriving at another destination without so much as the glimmer of a loading screen.

Here, we have to give Massive credit for utilizing the incredible speed of ninth-gen SSDs to create such an expansive open-world experience, but the rest of this showcase, as described above, brings to mind a very ill-formed mashup of things we’ve already seen before. 

What would even constitute the idea of an open world in the galaxy far, far away? Starfield, the newest game from Bethesda, is set in an open-world galaxy that contains more than a thousand planets for players to explore, and though we truly believe in the team’s abilities to craft an immersive open world, we already know that many of those places will be a shallow algorithmically generated disappointment. How many planets will Outlaws feature when it arrives? And how massive will each map on those planets truly be? Will they be filled with meticulously crafted side quests and hand-sculpted landscapes where each corner has a unique identity and a story to tell? Or will it be more in the vein of other recent Ubisoft open-worlds as seen in Assassin’s Creed or Far Cry, where there has never been a better embodiment of “quantity over quality” in of content">Image via Ubisoft

There’s nothing wrong with a cliché if the execution is right. In fact, when it comes down to it, few ideas are truly original and innovative, and even those draw a fair bit of their initial spark out of things that already exist. If we were to nitpick unoriginal games — or more broadly, works of art in the entertainment industry — then most of the products out there would be dismissed without a second glance. But if a creative truly understands what they’re doing with a genre and its tropes, then they can make it work under that context even if it’s repetitive and unoriginal.

It’s our deepest hope that Massive is down the right path in this regard, but with the studio having its hands tied working on two massive open-world games — the other being the ambitious Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora — we’re not optimistic that will be the case. 

And that is, if neither of the games is subject to any delays, as can be prevalent in the gaming industry. As of now, Frontiers of Pandora is slated for release on December 7, 2023, for current-gen platforms, while Outlaws is being scheduled for an unspecified date in 2024.

The first open-world game in the Star Wars franchise is coming soon. Touted as a “scoundrel fantasy,” Star Wars Outlaws has finally dropped some tasty teasers as to what fans and gamers can expect from it. From Massive Entertainment and Ubisoft, the game is expected to drop in 2024, but when exactly?

Star Wars has been spoiling us recently, with The Mandalorian, Andor, and Ahsoka still to come, fans have been getting full-on content from the beloved sci-fi franchise. Now, though, there is a new offering making its way to the buffet table; Star Wars Outlaws is inviting us to in on the action in the franchise’s first open-world game (although other games have had an element of open-ended play before).

Players take the role of Kay Vess, a character that sounds somewhat reminiscent of the lovable ruffian Han Solo, as she navigates a world that falls between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  

“Explore distinct planets across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, an emerging scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion, Nix. Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates as you the galaxy’s most wanted.”

So, as we aren’t taking on the role of a Jedi, players will have to rely on wit and street smarts to get through this game. No fancy lightsaber spinning or throwing objects using the Force for players here, then. What you do get to make up for this is Kay’s animal companion Nix, whom you can direct to do your bidding in certain scenarios. Together, the duo have to pull off an elaborate heist in the Outer Rim, all while avoiding the attention of The Empire.

Ubisoft finally released gameplay footage at its Forward Event, which allowed fans to see what kind of scrapes and situations they may find themselves in.

Within the 10 minutes of footage, you get an idea of what you’ll be able to do as Kay. Another aspect that has people excited is that you are not limited to one planet, either. You can hop off your speeder bike and get straight into a spaceship, jetting off without needing the game to load.

What is Star Wars Outlaws‘ Release Date? 3z6d52

There is still some time yet before gamers can get their hands on this particular game. Star Wars Outlaws is set to be released in 2024, but no month – or even which quarter we can expect to get our mitts on it – has been confirmed. We are sure that in the buildup to the release, more information will be teased to get us all suitably hyped, and a specific release date will be announced. Until then, all we can do is wait, and imagine what it will feel like to play in a galaxy far, far away.

The game will be available to play on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

When it comes to the Star Wars franchise, fans have to it that the galaxy far, far away has been treating us well with the likes of Andor and the Ahsoka. But the real icing on the cake has only been revealed now — Star War: Outlaws, the first open-world Star Wars game, has finally blessed us with its first glimpse when Microsoft and Ubisoft debuted a trailer for the new game at the Xbox Games Showcase today. 

Set to release in 2024, Outlaws takes place between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.  

“Explore distinct planets across the galaxy, both iconic and new. Risk it all as Kay Vess, an emerging scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion, Nix. Fight, steal, and outwit your way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates as you the galaxy’s most wanted.”

In its press release for the game (via IGN), Lucasfilm Games VP Douglas Reilly has assured fans that Star Wars: Outlaws will be “an action-adventure story filled with characters and planets both new and well-known to the Star Wars galaxy.”

While the trailer is high on action and rolls out a gripping tale of surviving the crime syndicates as Kay Vess as she attempts “one of the greatest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen,” it does leave much to be desired. But the trailer confirms that we will be treated to a full gameplay walkthrough and more footage during the Ubisoft Forward event on June 12, i.e. tomorrow. Yay!!

Hype and hope are both at an all-time high for the game as avid gamers ponder and cautiously dream of it managing to be a stellar deep dive into the world of Star Wars despite harboring concerns that it might end up being another underperforming game from Ubisoft.