Star Wars Outlaws began life in a café at E3
It's E3 2018 and Julian Gerighty is preparing to take the stage at The Orpheum Theater to showcase The Division 2.
While the creative director was preparing for the Ubisoft press conference, his boss at the time – Ubisoft Massive's managing director David Polfeldt – was out the front in a café "chit-chatting" with Disney about the possibility of the two working together.
"They had a shortlist of developers that they wanted to work with, and Massive happened to be on that list," Gerighty shares with us. "David was very enthusiastic about that relationship, too.
"I wasn't sure we were going to work on Star Wars. It could have been other Disney properties. But inside each one of us, we all dream of being able to one day make a Star Wars game. So that was the origin point."
This isn't the first time I've heard of a significant licensing deal coming about due to an E3 meeting. In fact, the very next year at E3 2019, Disney met with Rare, which led to the inclusion of Pirates of the Caribbean in Sea of Thieves.
"It's that concentration of everyone in the same place, rather than one person being at this end of town, and this person over at this end of town," Gerighty says. "I mourn E3 because we don't have these moments anymore."
Star Wars Outlaws is one of two major licensed productions that were developed side-by-side at Ubisoft Massive, the other being last December's Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. The Swedish studio has expanded significantly as a result, and has partnered with more co-developers.
"It has grown bigger and bigger," Gerighty says. "[Mario + Rabbids developer] Ubisoft Milan is a brand new collaboration with us. We've never worked with them before, and they have done a phenomenal job. Their animation work is stellar.
"The team at Massive has grown. We have hired a bunch of people because of Avatar as well. But we have generally found people who share the same DNA. The person in charge of the control of the speeder and the ship comes from Criterion, who worked on
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