Day 1 at Massive Entertainment: The Star Wars scoundrel fantasy comes to life

"Let me see your identification", one of the two stormtroopers says to me. Instead of waving my hand and saying "you don't need to see my identification" like Obi-Wan, I stand and look sheepishly for a moment before saying that I don't have it, after which I am directed to the counter on my right.

The scene takes place not on Tatooine, but in the foyer of Massive Entertainment's offices in Barkgatan in Malmö, where I've come to hear a lot about, and of course play, Star Wars Outlaws. As a games journalist, there are roughly two kinds of trips that publishers invite you on. There are the ones to exciting locations, where the subject matter is easy to overlook, and then there are the ones where content is king and you learn a lot about the game and maybe even the studio behind it. Over the two full days I spent at Massive, I got a detailed tour, saw eight different in-depth presentations on different aspects of the game, played three distinct sections and had four solo interviews with nine senior members of the team - including the two directors Julian Gerighty and Mathias Karlson. In other words, this is a tour in the second category.

After my not-so-cool introduction and a bite of breakfast, the day starts with a tour. Massive is located in a beautiful red multi-storey building near Triangeln in Malmö, which their approximately 600 employees completely fill. They've been here since 2020, when the building was completed after four years of renovation. The result is an impressive four-storey studio space where even the winding corridors are spacious and lead to bright and inviting common rooms, and a rooftop terrace and patio add to the more, shall we say, recreational aspects of life as a game developer. And then there are impressive in-house facilities such as seven sound studios. When everyone from PR people to directors talk about the company's history, they make no secret of the fact that the foundation of their size and comfort is built on the success of The Division, which catapulted the studio into the game development super league.

However, my two days at the studio will not be about a post-pandemic New York, but a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars Outlaws is about to be released and the PR machine is in full swing, but the visit to Massive is by far the most thorough and in-depth look at the game we've had to date.

If there's one word that recurs throughout the two days, apart from Star Wars, it's scoundrel. As the title suggests, in Star Wars Outlaws you play as neither a Jedi nor an X-Wing pilot, but a Han Solo archetype modelled not on Harrison Ford's legendary character, but rather a wide range of classic scoundrels, including Lando Calrissian and many of Errol Flynn's most famous roles. The Scoundrel Experience, as Massive calls it, is such an essential component that it was one of the three keywords the developer pitched to Lucasfilm back in 2020. "Single player, open world, scoundrel fantasy", as creative director Julian Gerighty puts it when I sit across from him towards the end of day one.

You have to hand it to him and the rest of the team that the original pitch is very much representative of the part of the game we get to play. Star Wars Outlaws has its limitations, but it sells the fantasy of being free to roam George Lucas' legendary universe without restrictions better than any other title.

But before we get that far, it's worth turning back the clock to 2018, when Massive was in Los Angeles to showcase The Division 2. The developer's then CEO David Polfeldt was sitting in a café in front of the auditorium talking to representatives from Disney, who told him that they had approached Massive Entertainment to possibly work on one of their IPs. "Which IP would you like to work on", according to Julian Gerighty, was the question from Disney to David Polfeldt. Polfeldt hesitantly replied: "Yeah, it could be something with Disney characters... or it could be Star Wars?". "Ok, let's make it happen", was the surprisingly straightforward answer from the Disney representative. From here we jump forward to 2020. The Division 2 has launched and Massive is now talking directly to Lucasfilm, inviting them to San Francisco to pitch and see if the two companies are a good fit. And this is where the aforementioned quote comes into play. "We pitch them 15 slides, but it's really three ideas: "Single player, open world, scoundrel fantasy. And the open world is seamless, so vehicles and spaceships". The pitch went down well with Lucasfilm, who said yes. "And then Covid hit", Julian Gerighty concludes the story.

However, he emphasises that even though the start wasn't ideal, the team, which has been working together for 10 years and is now a well-oiled machine, was able to use the time constructively, which is why they are ready to release Star Wars Outlaws just four years after they started working on it. That's impressive by today's standards - especially considering the game contains a lot of elements that are new to Massive such as speeders, spaceships and interplanetary travel.

Which brings us back to the game we'll soon be holding in our hands. How has the vision the Swedes shared with Lucasfilm made the journey from pitch to (almost) finished product? The final answer is less than two months away, but from the three sections I got to try, it's clear that Massive is going to deliver a love letter to George Lucas' brainchild that captures the look and feel of adventure in exemplary fashion. Julian Gerighty speaks confidently and nostalgically about how A New Hope was practically breathed into him, and the team at Massive, along with the Snowdrop team (also based in the building), have developed special lenses and filters that make the game look like a modern version of the original trilogy, which only makes sense since Star Wars Outlaws takes place between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

The first time I, as protagonist Kay Vess, accompanied by my adorable sidekick Nix, escaped an Imperial Star Destroyer by flying out of the hangar of my own ship, the Trailblazer, to be thrown directly into a firefight with Tie Fighters in an asteroid belt before landing on Toshara, where I immediately jumped on my speeder and roared off into the impressive world, I felt some of the same things the original films gave me in my childhood: adventure, danger, surprise and awe. These feelings are evoked partly by the game's art direction, but largely by the seamless way you travel between planets. And it's something the team is rightly proud of. As world and art director Benedikt Podlesnigg puts it: "To be able to create this connection between planets and space is a dream come true". Yes, there are short sequences where you are not in control, but they are masked as well as possible by cinematic cutscenes that maintain the immersion. It hasn't been easy, game director Mathias Karlson assures me, highlighting this part of the game as both the most challenging and the one he is most proud of. Very natural, considering it was also part of the original pitch.

In short, Star Wars Outlaws seems to hit the broad strokes just right. Blowing across the windswept surface of Toshara on your speeder, or stepping into one of the game's lifelike cantinas (which, incidentally, feature various bands playing everything from post-punk to jazz), it fulfils the Star Wars fantasy in a more broadly satisfying way than I've experienced before. And, unsurprisingly, organic exploration seemed to be more prominent than we're used to in an open Ubisoft world, which, given that Julian Gerighty says that one of the core principles of the game is "the joy of discovery", should perhaps come as no surprise. Toshara is an original creation that Massive developed for the game together with Lucasfilm. This moon was inspired in part by the diverse landscape of Tanzania, and members of both the sound and art and world teams travelled to the African country to record sounds and conduct research. Massive describe it as their "signature location", which is evident in the key art hanging around the studio. Depictions of the moon's impressive landscape, led by the mushroom-like Mount Mirongana, home to the lunar capital of the same name, adorn the walls of meeting rooms and the communal canteen. Toshara is one of five planets in total. The others are Kijimi (Episode 9), Cantonica (Episode 8) Tatooine (which needs no further introduction) and Akiva, which has only appeared in one novel.

It was only on Toshara that I had the opportunity to tap into the open world and experience the transition from space to planet - or moon, to be precise. The other two sections took place on Kijimi, where Kay has to infiltrate the Ashiga clan base and steal an artefact, and on Akiva, where an ancient wreck is explored. While the section on and around Toshara impressed me overall, Star Wars Outlaws' weaknesses became more apparent when the broad lines were replaced by the more granular moment-to-moment gameplay where Kay sneaks, shoots and climbs around. Here the game appears more ordinary, with blaster duels that are functional but lack oomph, climbing sequences straight out of Uncharted on PlayStation 3, and stealth where everyone in the area can magically pinpoint your location the moment a colleague sees the top of your head. On the other hand, your companion Nix is fun to use to distract enemies or pick up items like key cards, but overall I agree with much of the criticism the game received in the wake of its hands-on debut during SGF. So I can understand why Julian Gerighty gave me a clear invitation to try out the open world when I tell him that during my first session with the game I only had time to run through the Toshara demo with no detours, because Star Wars Outlaws impresses more when the close is mixed with the wide.

Another thing that impressed me during my visit was the team's dedication to creating the most complete representation of the Star Wars universe to date. For example, Lucasfilm sent them scale architectural drawings of Jabba's throne room and the Mos Eisley cantina, and Massive Entertainment was given access to an internal Lucasfilm database where they could find details on everything from characters' outfits to models of different types of spaceships. They also gained access to Lucasfilm's library of sound files, but recorded 61,996 lines of English dialogue and used the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to record the more symphonic themes - written by Wilbert Roget II, who previously scored Vader Immortal and, funnily enough, this year's other popular galactic gem Helldivers II.

This dedication and the team's obvious enthusiasm for working with the Star Wars universe bodes well for the final product, but we won't know the outcome until August.

My first day at Massive is over. It's been all about the vision and the broad lines as well as hands-on. Day two is of a more technical nature. Among other things, we'll hear about the work on the game's cutscenes and the many lenses and new features for the Snowdrop engine developed specifically for Star Wars Outlaws. In other words, it will be quite a nerdy session, which you can read about on July 17th.