Star Wars Outlaws concept artist Samuel De Vos and associate art director Marthe Jonkers talk about making the game feel like it’s part of the Star Wars universe’s original vision.
In the wake of its recent release, Star Wars Outlaws developers—concept artist Samuel De Vos and associate art director Marthe Jonkers—have spoken about the care that went into making sure that the title would offer Star Wars fans a visual experience that would be authentic to the original movie trilogy.
Speaking to GamesRadar, De Vos and Jonkers discussed what into giving the game an “authentic” feel, and how its art also makes use of design inspired from the science fiction of the 60s and 70s.
“Star Wars is one of the most established IPs in the world, so creating authentic additions to that universe takes a lot of special care,” said De Vos. “We looked at what inspired [Star Wars creator] George Lucas and [conceptual designer] Ralph McQuarrie in the first place to make sure that the very base of our ideation came from a similar place.”
“You might see a ‘70s monorail design is quite apparent in its construction, combined with the very grounded elements that you see all throughout Star Wars,” continued De Vos.
Jonkers went on to talk about making use of McQuarrie’s work on the originals to inspire the studio to make Star Wars Outlaws feel like it belongs in the same universe as the movies.
“We printed out Ralph McQuarrie’s designs and enlarged them, and they hung all around the office so that we were always surrounded by those visuals,” said Jonkers. “Looking at that art, McQuarrie had a lot of surprising ideas that didn’t necessarily make it to the movies, so we tried to take a similar approach in how we designed Outlaws as well.”
Star Wars Outlaws is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The open-world adventure game’s release hasn’t gone exactly to plan, to the extent of bringing down Ubisoft’s stock prices. The game puts players in the shoes of Kay Vess, and takes place between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. For more details on Star Wars Outlaws,.
