Star Wars Outlaws wants to be "virtual tourism" for George Lucas' original trilogy

rockpapershotgun.com:

Star Wars Outlaws is the next upcoming game in a galaxy farfaraway, and since it’s a Ubisoft Original (TM), our adventures with the main scoundrel Kay Vess take place in an open world. Outlaw’s newest behind-the-scenes featurette delves deeper into the game’s free roaming planets, both old (Tatooine, of course, because we play as a Han Solo-type) and new (Toshara, which actually looks pretty cool). Find it below.

The two planets shown above are certainly lookers, but creative director Julian Gerighty explains that the game aims to be “virtual tourism” for the iconic galaxy. Gerighty says that when people watch the original trilogy, “you do want to investigate the locations that George Lucas didn’t show on camera,” in an interview with StarWars.com.

“And the virtual tourism in a place like Tatooine is great because I’ve always wondered how far the moisture farms were from Mos Eisley,” continues Gerighty, “I’ve always wondered how the cantina was constructed.” Gerighty says that the game’s version of the recurring desert is a sort of “greatest hits” featuring all the dunes and canyons audiences would expect.

That virtual tourism is “very Ubisoft in a way,” according to Gerighty, nodding to how Assassin’s Creed mines historical locations and whatnot. It’s somewhat amusing that Star Wars is so recognisable, it’s almost akin to another AssCreed era to mess around in.

Star Wars Outlaws isn’t just retreading old sand, though. Both the video above and the interview sheds light on the game’s original planet called Toshara, which aims to capture that Star Wars mix of believable National Geographic nature and weird alien stuff. The team used Tanzania's rocky grass fields as reference and captured audio recordings from the