Star Wars Outlaws needed a speeder because of its ‘fairly vast’ distances

Star Wars Outlaws, the Star Wars game that will finally let us play a blaster-toting scoundrel who probably thinks a lightsaber is a low-fat cavalry weapon, is being published by Ubisoft. That brings with it certain expectations. Since this isn’t a Rayman game, those expectations include an open world that’s perhaps too big for its own good.

In a recent interview at Comic Con, creative director Julian Gherity explained that open world locations in Outlaws, like the desert moon of Toshara, are so big they needed to give player-character Kay Vess her own speeder to cross them. “There isn’t just this bustling city,” Gherity said, “in Toshara’s case it’s called Mirogana, but there’s all the wilderness outside where the player and Kay—driven by their objectives, but distracted by their curiosity—can go and explore. But those distances are fairly vast, so to make them fun, accessible, to grow access for the player, we came up with the speeder.”