Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws receives an encouraging update that suggests the final stretch of its development is progressing well.
Highlights
- Star Wars Outlaws has received an ESRB rating in mid-April.
- Aside from indicating that the game is on course to release without any delays, the classification also hints at some of its contents.
- Among other things, the newly surfaced age rating suggests that Star Wars Outlaws may have an even bigger stealth focus than fans have been anticipating, in addition to confirming one of its mini-games.
Star Wars Outlaws has received an age classification from the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The timing of its ESRB rating's emergence is an encouraging sign for fans, as it indicates that Star Wars Outlaws is on course to release without any delays.
Ubisoft historically secures ESRB age ratings for its games two to four months ahead of their eventual market release. That is what happened with Assassin's Creed Mirage, Valhalla, The Division 2, and plenty other games from the company over the years.
Star Wars Outlaws Rated 'Teen' by ESRB
Star Wars Outlaws has now also also been classified by the North American self-regulatory organization. It has received a "Teen" rating in mid-April, which appears to be dovetail with the game footage that Ubisoft has shown so far. Between the publisher's track record and the emergence of the rating itself, this turn of events is another encouraging sign suggesting that Star Wars Outlaws is on course to hit its release date, August 30, without any delays.
ESRB Suggests Star Wars Outlaws May Have a Bigger Stealth Focus Than Expected
As per usual, the ESRB provided a summary of the newly published rating, which goes into a bit more details regarding the actual contents of the upcoming open-world game. One particularly interesting tidbit concerns its quest design: while it has long been known that Star Wars Outlaws will feature stealth elements, its ESRB classification claims that "most" of the game's missions will focus on sneaking instead of fighting. It also indicates that all stealth takedowns performed by Kay Vess will be of the non-lethal variety.
Star Wars Outlaws Rating Confirms the Game's Gwent Equivalent
When it comes to actual combat, the game will apparently be free of blood depictions, which are not mentioned in the rating's sumary. What the classification does mention is that players will be able to play Sabacc, an iconic blackjack-like card game that has long been part of the franchise. Star Wars Outlaws teased its Gwent equivalent as early as June 2023, with a cinematic trailer that showed Kay playing Sabacc.
Aside from gambling on card games, Star Wars Outlaws will also allow players to place bets on "fantasy races," as per its newly published rating. However, this may not be a full-fledged gameplay mechanic, with the classification specifically labeling it as a way to advance "a plot point," singular. With Star Wars Outlaws being scheduled to hit the market at the end of summer, the game will plausibly go gold around mid-August. Most Ubisoft studios have historically been happy to confirm their projects going gold, so Massive Entertainment seems likely to continue that trend.
Franchise Star Wars Platform(s) PC , PS5 , Xbox Series X , Xbox Series S Released August 30, 2024 Developer(s) Massive Entertainment Publisher(s) Ubisoft , Lucasfilm Games Genre(s) Open-World , Action-Adventure
