Ubisoft says a Star Wars Outlaws planet is the size of '2 or 3' Assassin's Creed Odyssey map zones put together, which takes about 5 minutes 'nonstop' on a speeder to cross

Star Wars Outlaws
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

It's not the size of the open world that counts, it's what's inside it—but I'll admit I've been curious to see how Ubisoft plans to tackle the open world maps for multiple Star Wars planets. This is a notoriously tough nut for space exploration games to crack. BioWare tried to make Mass Effect 1's barren planets more interesting in Andromeda, only to fill them with generic, cookie cutter quests that went over about as well as the facial animations. Bethesda justified Starfield's largely dull procedurally generated planets as realistic. What should we expect from Ubisoft, which has made some truly massive open world maps, bringing that scale to the whole galaxy?

Well, for one thing, we know Outlaws won't be going down the endless procedural planets route—Ubisoft has revealed five explorable planets so far, which you'll be able to fly between in your spaceship. Thanks to an interview with IGN, we now also know roughly how big they are. 

Creative director Julian Gerighty said that the first planet (or rather, moon) you visit, called Toshara, takes "four or five minutes nonstop" to cover while riding your speeder bike, which I'm guessing moves a bit faster than a horse in Assassin's Creed Valhalla or The Witcher 3. "Which doesn't sound like a lot, but once you're committed it's a fairly large amount and you are always going to be distracted," he said. 

Gerighty brought up Assassin's Creed Odyssey as a point of comparison, explaining that that game's maps were broken into zones. Toshara is the size of "two or three of those [zones] put together."

What about Outlaws' other planets? Tatooine will be bigger, but considering it's mostly sand, that seems about right. The jungle planet Akiva will be comparable to Toshara's size, which leaves two more planets as question marks.

Building on what the team did in The Division 2, game director Mathias Karlson said that Outlaws will have "living world systems" that populate the planets with activity: pedestrians, speeders, Imperial patrols, and so on. Gerighty claimed that with Outlaws' side activities the studio aimed for "quality over quantity," but also that "every two, three minutes there'll be something that's happening, whether it's an ambush or the Empire arresting some civilians or getting into combat with some criminal syndicates" and that it's "up to you whether you want to engage or not." That worryingly reminds me of modern Far Cry's complete lack of chill—you can't go more than a minute without an animal or gang of baddies rolling up to attack you—but hopefully Outlaws settles into a slightly better groove.

TOPICS
Wes Fenlon
Senior Editor

Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites like The Wirecutter and Tested before joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he'll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.

When he's not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it's really becoming a problem), he's probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).

Read more
Elden Ring's Sellen thinking
Elden Ring geographer tests rigorous calculation against weed-fueled horse math to determine the exact size of The Lands Between
Avowed - Giatta casts a spell
By opting out of an open world for Avowed, Obsidian says it can give players more interesting choices to make: 'Pacing is really tough in open world games'
A woman in gold with a glowing blue visible under flowing white hair
'Borderlands 4 does have some open-world-like features,' says Gearbox, before clarifying it isn't an open world game 'in the traditional use of that term'
Avowed companions - Kai
Avowed's first zone of Dawnshore is the anti-Hinterlands: A fantastic first impression that I didn't mind sinking 16 hours into
A planet with trees and rocks
Black holes, buildings on poles, and a 'sea urchin planet': PUBG creator's world-sized tech demo may be hiding some bizarre machine learning 'hallucinations'
assassin's creed shadow naoe
Despite everything, Assassin's Creed Shadows preorders are 'tracking solidly,' Ubisoft says, 'in line with those of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, the second most successful entry of the franchise'
Latest in Action
A shock trap transformed into a Lego brick in Monster Hunter Wilds.
A modder keeps turning Monster Hunter traps into Lego bricks so that the monsters will know true pain, and they've just done it again
Nova, a hero from Marvel Comics, smolders at the camera while surrounded by flames.
The team behind Shredder's Revenge has a Marvel beat 'em up on the way with a whopping 15 characters and unsurprisingly gorgeous pixel art
The First Berserker: Khazan tips - Khazan
10 The First Berserker: Khazan tips to smash your foes
Crysis hero Prophet running down a beach while under fire
Crysis Remastered Trilogy activates maximum value mode as upgraded version of the legendary, hardware-crushing FPS series is currently 60% off
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The First Berserker: Khazan review - Blade Phantom
How to claim The First Berserker: Khazan pre-order bonus and deluxe edition DLC
Latest in News
A witch riding a broom sails past a Fish and Chips shop.
Cozy gamers rejoice: Witchbrook finally has a release window, and yes, you can fly around on a broom with your friends
starcraft 2 face
StarCraft fans taunted by the announcement of a new StarCraft... board game
kingdom come: deliverance 2 henry looks confused
'Medieval Batman' completes Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 pacifist playthrough with zero kills and 535 knockouts
SUQIAN, CHINA - OCTOBER 6, 2024 - Illustration Tencent's plan to buy Ubisoft, Suqian, Jiangsu province, China, October 6, 2024. (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Ubisoft and Tencent are forming a new company that will take control of its most successful franchises: Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six
The Huntress holding a bloody spear.
The biggest update since Path of Exile 2's early access launch is coming next week, bringing a new class and a bunch of endgame changes
Key art for the Ranger class in Path of Exile 2
Path of Exile 2 director isn't worried about ARPG competition, in part thanks to seasons: 'So long as people are willing to come back and play our game for a month four times a year, then I'm good'