Assassin's Creed Odyssey helped shape Star Wars Outlaws because its director "could pick up the phone and talk to" Ubisoft's other devs about the technicalities of shaping their open world

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"How did you do this? What was too big for you? What was too long a distance for traversal?'"

Assassin's Creed Odyssey
(Image credit: Ubisoft)

Star Wars Outlaws' open-world planets are about the same size as three Assassin's Creed Odyssey zones stitched together - and that peculiar measurement tool was established because Outlaws' director could pick up the phone and ask the Odyssey team for advice.

Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty has made no secret of the impact that Assassin's Creed's ancient Greek outing has had on his game. In an interview with GamesRadar+, he expanded on that influence, as well as the relationship that he was able to have with the team that crafted Kassandra and Alexios' adventure. 

"I think it was this freedom of approach in a very large environment - with traversal [and] curiosity at its heart, with RPG light mechanics," Gerighty explains when asked about the inspiration that Odyssey offered Outlaws. Odyssey, he says, is "one of my favorite Assassin's Creed games without a doubt," so perhaps it's no surprise that it's had such an impact on his own open-world effort. What's perhaps a little more surprising is how directly that impact has been felt.

Gerighty says that for all of the development ideas mentioned above, there were "people that I could pick up the phone, talk to, and say 'okay, how did you do this? What was too big for you? What was too long a distance for traversal?'" Cribbing directly from the people who made one of his favorite games proved an invaluable resource - and Gerighty says it was "super practical having people [who] have made it being my peers in the same company."

I've spent 4 hours in Star Wars Outlaws' open world and it feels like Red Dead Redemption in a galaxy far, far away.

Ali Jones
Ali Jones
Managing Editor, News

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.