The Star Wars Outlaws wanted system is "very difficult" at the highest level - "it becomes a toy," says developer

Star Wars Outlaws features a Grand Theft Auto style wanted system that can be pushed to the limit.

Speaking to GamesRadar, lead systems designer Matthieu Delisle and lead gameplay designer Fredrick Thylander provided additional insight into the open world Star Wars game's wanted system, ahead of its August release.

According to Delisle, the wanted system reaches to level six and can be a difficult challenge early on in the game. The pair also go on to describe the wanted system as a "toy" that players can "mess with" and can be pushed "as far as you want".

"It's definitely a lot of fun to kind of bring it [the wanted level] to level six and then see if you can survive it," Delisle said. "And spoiler alert, it's very difficult, especially at the beginning of the game. But as kind of an end game challenge to yourself it works really well. Also, it's quite a different experience depending on which planet you're on. Because the Empire has a different presence on the different planets, and space. Same thing with the syndicates."

The developer continued, saying that players can get themselves caught up in chaotic situations where multiple syndicates will hunt you down if you have a "terrible reputation" with them, as well as the Empire.

"So that's kind of like the ultimate open-world playground type of self-imposed challenge because if you push it that far, you are really looking for it," Delisle added. "But yeah, we have mechanisms in place for you to get out of a bad spot, we have different tools for you to fix your reputation, getting contracts, there's data that the syndicates are interested in that you can trade against reputation. So there are many ways for you to get out of a tough spot. But if you want to challenge yourself [you can]." 

Thylander also made it clear that while you can have a bad reputation with the Empire, you can never have a good one, and explained that the team had a "hardline" where it didn't want Kay Vess (the playable protagonist) to be a partner with the Empire whatsoever since its the ruling power and Kay is a scoundrel.

"They are trying to be the law and you're trying to be the element of chaos in there," Thylander added. "So, we felt like matching them was a really fun way to play with a scoundrel archetype. And also it opened up to a lot of emergent types of moments."

Star Wars Outlaws launches on August 30, 2024, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. Pre-orders are also now available. Players can also expect two additional expansions to arrive post-launch, including the day one exclusive mission, Jabba’s Gambit.

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