Outlaws’ Trailer Looks Shockingly Bad

Something is very off about the first trailer for Ubisoft’s upcoming Star Wars: Outlaws. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is, but I found myself deeply unimpressed by just about all of it, which is a shame since it sounds like the kind of game I’d really enjoy.

Outlaws follows the exploits of Kay Vess (Humberly González) and her adorable Merqaal companion, Nix (Dee Bradley Baker). González has mostly done live-action work, but contributed to Far Cry 6 and Avatar: Frontiers Of Pandora. Baker has voiced a ton of different characters in shows like The Legend Of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe and Star Wars shows like Rebels, Clone Wars and The Bad Batch. (I’m a little curious to see what kind of voice-work is required for a Merqaal). Jay Rincon plays the cool, trenchcoat-wearing droid ND-5. His credits include Dead Island 2, Atomic Heart, Horizon Forbidden West and much more.

Here’s the trailer:

I don’t know about you, but I think this looks pretty bad. The graphics are okay, but facial animations are wooden, the dialogue is stilted, and there’s something about it that makes it feel like a game simply masquerading as a Star Wars title.

I think the dialogue issues are less about the main cast, and more about the supporting cast. There’s a pretty good chunk of exposition explaining the precarious situation Kay is in from a guy named Jaylen Vrax, and the delivery is just terribly flat. Why include so much of it in a trailer? Bizarre.

Fortunately, the gameplay trailer looks much better than the story trailer, which could mean any number of things. It could mean that this is just a bad trailer, for starters. It could also mean that the story and dialogue stuff will be bad, but the gameplay will be great fun. I suppose I could live with that.

It’s interesting also to go back to the World Premiere trailer—a CGI trailer—and how much better everything looked. I don’t mean just the graphics. I mean how characters look in general. For instance, the bad guy Sleero (not sure if that’s how you spell it) looks like this in the new trailer vs the announcement trailer:

Even Kay Vess herself has been downgraded in the latest trailer, looking less like the actor who plays her and having both her hair and face changed in subtle, yet puzzling, ways:

Everything feels cheaper in this story trailer than in either the previous gameplay trailer or announcement trailer. I guess I’m just a little shocked at how bad it looks when both those trailers had me pretty hyped for this game.

ND-5 still looks great, though, and Nix’s cuteness cannot be denied.

ND-5

Nix

For now, I’ll remain skeptical but hopeful that this game will be a worthy Star Wars adventure. I love the idea of a game that isn’t about Jedi, Sith or any of that. That’s one reason I love Andor so much, and Rogue One. And while Solo: A Star Wars Story wasn’t perfect, all the underworld stuff was very enjoyable. It appears this game is tied to all the Syndicate stuff in that film, including one of its main characters. Does that mean we’ll get some Darth Maul? We shall see. Ubisoft hasn’t exactly been doing itself any favors with news that the game will have incredibly pricey special editions, an early access period for pre-orders and a Season Pass for a single-player game. Quit bleeding us dry, Ubi. Maybe people will be a little more inclined to trust your games.

Star Wars: Outlaws releases on August 30th.