A new open-world Star Wars game is currently in development at Ubisoft Massive, with Lucasfilm Games breaking the exclusive hold that EA has had over publishing the franchise's games. It's worth noting that nothing can still come of this until 2023, but with this head start, perhaps that year will be a good year for Star Wars video games. Though many fans may be hoping that Ubisoft games like Assassin’s Creed might be the basis for Massive’s new game, it should not be the only influence.
Ubisoft’s open-world Star Wars game can learn a lot from CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3. Though the upcoming game may not be an RPG, at least in name yet, The Witcher 3’s design has a lot to teach other games when it comes to aligning the most fun parts of an open-world with in-character incentives in the story.
The Witcher 3’s Open-World
Though the whole game received widespread acclaim, there’s one aspect of The Witcher 3’s open-world which works particularly well. Players get the most out of an open-world game when they are encouraged to explore and are able to lose themselves in search of hidden locations or the intrigue of a side quest that might otherwise be missed in favor of the main plot.
The genius of The Witcher 3 is that it makes exploring the game’s open-world and completing side quests make sense in-character. Though Geralt has a main mission – looking for Ciri and Yennefer – the game is set up in a way where enjoying the world doesn’t detract from or undermine his motivations. Geralt is on the road, and as a Witcher, he needs to take on Witcher contracts along the way if he hopes to make his way towards his main goal.
These contracts give the player in-character permission to explore the world in a way that would otherwise risk portraying Geralt of Rivia with skewed priorities, going off on adventures instead of finding out the fate of his makeshift family. Even in The Witcher books, there was often a main plot which overarched more episodic monster encounters, which makes the integration of the Witcher contracts and the open-world into the overarching story work even better.
Open-World Star Wars
Ubisoft’s open-world Star Wars game could learn a lot from the way The Witcher 3 balances its main plot with the player’s out-of-character desire to explore all the world has to offer. The Witcher 3’s execution of its open-world allows for players to be invested in a character-driven story and the open-world at the same time, without exploring the open-world undermining the motivations of the main character in the story.
The new Star Wars game will need a carefully designed narrative which, while having a lot at stake, doesn’t make its stakes so immediate that exploring the world and doing side quests relies on a greater degree of suspension of disbelief. Just as Geralt’s Witcher contracts and other odd jobs make sense in the story as his means of survival as he searches for Ciri, the protagonist of Massive’s Star Wars game could be in a similarly precarious position which contextualizes exploring the world within their priorities in the larger narrative.
What exactly that narrative will be in the new game remains to be seen. The Star Wars franchise is currently undergoing a significant expansion, with multiple new games and TV shows in development. The Mandalorian uses a similarly episodic structure to The Witcher series despite also having an overarching plot, and may provide some insight into how Ubisoft Massive could create a compelling and immersive open-world for a new Star Wars story.
Ubisoft Massive's Star Wars game is currently in development.