Thursday, 28 January 2021 21:53

What Ubisoft's Open World Star Wars Game Should Borrow from Far Cry

Written by Drew Ferguson
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Ubisoft's Massive announces it is working on a new open-world Star Wars game, and it should take a page out of Far Cry's book.

Ubisoft and Massive have officially announced they're working on a brand-new open-world Star Wars game. Not much is known about the game thus far, and fans are speculating as to just what exactly this Star Wars game is going to be. Ubisoft has a tendency to follow a formula with a lot of its games, with some notable exceptions, like Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle and Immortals: Fenyx Rising.

If Ubisoft does end up borrowing some ideas for this new Star Wars game, one property that has some distinct ideas it should take a look at is Far Cry.

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Though not exclusive to Far Cry, one of the things that separates Far Cry from a lot of other Ubisoft properties is the first-person perspective. Everything from the cutscenes to the gameplay in Far Cry is handled in first-person, and that adds a level of immersion to the game that not a lot of other games accomplish. It really puts players in the shoes of the main character when NPCs are literally looking at them when talking. It's subtle, but it changes how the game feels in an important way.

There haven't been a ton of Star Wars games in first-person, especially not the narrative ones. But being in the first-person perspective, or at least having the option, in a Star Wars game could be really special. It would completely change the feel of the combat from a lot of other Ubisoft single-player games, giving everything a bit more of a visceral feel.

The robust wildlife in Far Cry was an aspect that the game always had going for it and was pretty unique to the franchise for a long time, though other games have started including this as well. At just about any point in any of the most recent Far Cry games, players can be mauled by some kind of upsettingly aggressive animal, really making it feel like players are out in the wild instead of in a controlled environment. These animals are always really well-detailed, all the way down to their animations and the way they interact with the world.

Bringing a system like this into Star Wars has a ton of potential. Creatures in the Star Wars universe obviously don't actually exist, but providing that same level of detail to the creatures on different planets would go a long way in making the game more robust, while also making each location feel distinct, something other Star Wars games have had some trouble with in the past. There's so much potential here when it comes to creating different creatures, especially if there's more than one planet in the game. Seeing creatures like Rancors and Tauntauns realistically recreated would be something a lot of fans would love to see.

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Something Far Cry handles really well is the variety of vehicles and tools at the player's disposal. From hang gliders to ATVs to prop planes, Far Cry has a little bit of everything thrown in there. It makes traversing areas of the open-world that the player's already explored more fun, or at least faster.

There is so much potential for vehicles when it comes to an open-world Star Wars game. The most obvious vehicle would be, of course, a speeder-bike. Zooming through a forest on Endor or the sand dunes on Tatooine would be a blast, possibly literally if the player isn't great at maneuvering. Aside from speeder-bikes and spaceships, there could be Mandalorian-style jetpacks, landspeeders, snowspeeders, and more. All of these would add another layer to the game, and give the player more options as to how exactly they want to handle the objective they've been given. Giving players agency over how they handle situations is a staple of Far Cry, and it's something that should definitely be pulled into this Star Wars game.

Far Cry's open-world has always been chaotic and reactive, making it one of its most recognizable features. There are a thousand variables present in just about every single situation in Far Cry. This means that any situation can go sideways in a heartbeat, and players need to be on the ball in order to stay on top of things. Far Cry is designed specifically to let players tackle situations any way that they see fit, and that player freedom mixed with the game's proclivity towards chaos has made each Far Cry game have a ton of memorable, and personal, moments.

Plans in Star Wars stories rarely, well, go according to plan. The original crew definitely didn't want to end up in a trash compactor, Anakin probably didn't plan on landing a Separatist cruiser in Coruscant that day, and Han Solo likely didn't intend for his son to stick a lightsaber through his torso. Star Wars characters always have to think on their feet and react to what the other characters are throwing at them, for better or worse. Replicating this in an open-world Star Wars game could prove to be a really solid choice. Imagine a player sneaking up on a camp of Stormtroopers on Tatooine, rifle ready. Right as the player opens fire, a group of Tusken Raiders show up, attacking the Stormtroopers at the same time. And, incidentally, they start attacking the player, too.

Any number of scenarios like this could play out, from Tusken Raiders to Bounty Hunters tracking the player down at any given time, to a Wampa lumbering through a cave the player took shelter from the cold in. Every time something like this happens, it plays out in a unique way, because no two players are going to react exactly the same. It creates personal moments for the player, and those personal moments are things that they'll remember for a long time.

Ubisoft and Massive's open-world Star Wars game is currently in development.

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