The Ubisoft Forward game showcase event debuted brand-new footage for “Star Wars: Outlaws,” Ubisoft’s expensive, open-world take on the “Star Wars” universe.
The gameplay saw players going through a third-person stealth-action mission filled with crouching, shooting, bonking people on the head and most other standard gameplay mechanics of AAA studio third-person games.
There was also speeder bike riding and spaceship flight to appeal directly to fans of the “Star Wars” fantasy. The game is due out in 2024.
There was also a mammoth amount of “Assassin’s Creed” content on display, including previews of the upcoming AAA blockbuster “Assassin’s Creed Mirage” and the new mobile title set in China, “Assassin’s Creed: Codename Jade.” But the show stealer for many was “Assassins Creed Nexus,” a VR title that will let players take on the roles of three of the series’ protagonists in a first-person virtual reality experience.
“Nexus” is coming to Meta Quest 2 and 3 “this holiday,” according to Ubisoft, though an exact release date hasn’t been disclosed and, tellingly, there was no gameplay shown. Instead, “Nexus” relied on a pre-rendered trailer, giving people a conceptual glimpse of how the game will work. The preview hinted that players will be able to swing tomahawks at redcoats in Colonial America, shoot arrows in Ancient Greece and parkour through the streets of what appears to be Renaissance-era Florence.
Whether “Nexus” hits its holiday 2023 target is anyone’s guess, but the lack of real gameplay with less than six months on the clock is curious. It’s also surprising that a VR entry in the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise, which has long been a console-centric experience, isn’t coming to PS VR2, Sony’s VR headset.
The third major reveal of the Forward event was an extended look at the first-person action-adventure “Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora,” which was preceded by an intro from James Cameron (the director of both “Avatar” films).
The game releases Dec. 7, 2023. It was originally slated to arrive last year, possibly to sync with the debut of “Avatar: The Way of Water,” but was delayed.
There was other news sprinkled throughout the showcase, but those were the highlights. “Beyond Good & Evil 2” was nowhere to be seen, despite fan anticipation for the title that’s been silently gestating for many, many years.
