Nintendo has suggested The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom aren’t part of any previously confirmed Zelda timeline but instead the start of something new.
A presentation at Nintendo Live 2024 in Sydney, Australia, shared by @Wario64 on X/Twitter, outlined The Legend of Zelda history and its myriad timelines, but the two latest games were placed separately to the three previously confirmed narratives.
Zelda canon is, dare we say, a touch messy, as while Nintendo insists the games all connect to each other, they only doing so via three alternative realities. It all begins with the events of Skyward Sword, followed by Minish Cap, Four Swords, and eventually Ocarina of Time.
But it’s here the timeline splits in three. One path sees protagonist Link succeed in saving the kingdom of Hyrule and remain an adult, choosing not to return to his life as a child through the game’s time travelling shenanigans. Things later go south, however, and Hyrule is flooded, spawning The Wind Waker, Phantom Hourglass, and Spirit Tracks.
The timeline where Link succeeds and returns to being a child is immediately followed up by Majora’s Mask, then later Twilight Princess and Four Sword Adventures.
The dark timeline, however, where Link is defeated altogether, spawns A Link to the Past, Link’s Awakening, Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, A Link Between Worlds, Triforce Heroes, and finally and ironically the final two games of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link.
Fans have therefore theorized where exactly Breath of the Wild falls since its release in 2017. The game introduces a quite different Hyrule that doesn’t fit neatly under any of the timelines, but because that’s not stopped Nintendo before, fans have persisted in trying to figure it out.
Tears of the Kingdom arrived in 2023 as a direct sequel to Breath of the Wild, meaning a connection between the two was obvious, but still it didn’t help definitively place the pair on any of the three Zelda timelines.
Nintendo has now suggested they’re part of a completely new timeline, however, and perhaps one that isn’t fully established yet. While there’s a canonical link between every other game, these two sit on Zelda’s timeline completely separate, not connected to anything else or even each other.
The pair are likely part of a brand new Zelda timeline as a result, but where or why or how it connects to the rest of the games remains to be seen. Nintendo could be embracing the multiverse approach of recent years to justify their existence, or it’s perhaps waiting to connect them elsewhere later.
What’s the greatest NES game of all time? Super Mario Bros 3? Perhaps it’s Mega-Man 2, or The Legend of Zelda? There’s almost certainly no definitive answer to the single best game on the console, but what If I told you one of its greatest games was one that not only shattered the perception of what you could achieve on the NES, but was also a game you’ve (probably) never heard of?
Gimmick!, developed by Japanese studio Sunsoft, was a Nintendo Entertainment System masterpiece. But despite critical acclaim – including praise from industry legends Shigeru Miyamoto and Masahiro Sakurai – it was almost immediately forgotten, in no small part thanks to the fact it was only ever released in Japan and one small Scandinavian pocket of the West. Despite its obscurity, though, one Swedish fan not only loved Gimmick!, he obsessed over it. This was more than a mere hobby, too, as he set up his own studio with the lifelong goal of creating the sequel Gimmick! deserved and finally exposing it to the world.
But the journey wasn’t easy. From being laughed out of a pitch meeting to mass layoffs threatening the studio’s existence, the path to Gimmick! 2 has been as tricky as its notoriously difficult predecessor.
This is the Inside Story of Gimmick!, the greatest forgotten NES game and its unexpected 2024 sequel.
Despite its relative obscurity, Gimmick! is appreciated. It’s regularly mentioned in top lists by hardcore NES enthusiasts and original copies trade on eBay for ungodly amounts of money. Iconic Nintendo game director Shigeru Miyamoto said it was “fun”, extremely high praise from someone who rarely (if at all) praises other people’s games. Kirby and Super Smash Bros visionary Masahiro Sakurai has been even more enthusiastic, saying Gimmick! was “a technical marvel”.
But what is it about Gimmick! that’s so revered? Why do hardcore fans and industry legends worship a game about a green, star-throwing blob called Yumetaro?
“It just did a lot of things to stand out,” says Illusory Wall, a Dark Souls YouTuber and huge fan of Gimmick! “It was offering an experience that was unique.” That uniqueness was exemplified by Gimmick!’s star mechanic, a charged projectile that also could serve as a platform to jump off – a rare feature by even today’s standards, but in 1992 it was revolutionary.
“I can’t think of another platformer on the NES that has anything close to the mechanics of this game,” says Pat the NES Punk, retro Nintendo enthusiast, YouTuber and Gimmick! obsessive. “What’s amazing about the star attack is that it’s based seemingly on realistic physics. It deflects off objects and enemies, it bounces and dissipates.”
I firmly believe that Gimmick! would always be on anyone’s top 5 NES game had it been released beyond Japan and Scandinavia.
Gimmick! was more than its star mechanic, though. Not only was it a tight, colourful, and fun platformer equal to many of its peers, but Gimmick! also set new standards for variety and detail. In an era where Super Mario games constantly reused sprites and tile sets, Gimmick! was full of environmental diversity. Each level was unique and also loaded with bespoke one-off moments; moments that often weren’t required, but just added an unprecedented level of depth to each space.
“There’s these two sprites at the beginning of level six that don’t exist anywhere else in the game and it’s basically a guy playing with his dog,” explains Illusory Wall. “The dog gets excited for you holding onto the star, it treats it like you’re holding onto a ball – It’ll wag its tail and come after you. The guy is tepid, he doesn’t want to be in your business. The fact that they’re not even trying to attack you adds an extra layer. They feel like these living creatures in the game, they’re not just obstacles.”
“In the second stage, you can knock over the spiny turtle enemy. If you then jump on the legs of the character it’ll kick you in the opposite direction, it’s realistically pushing you off the enemy,” explains Pat the NES Punk. ”There’s no gameplay reason for that to exist in the game. It’s just a cute little touch that other games [of the era] wouldn’t have.”
Gimmick! is jam-packed with these moments. Its second level even features a Metal Gear Solid-like moment where the end-level boss can be found asleep if you reach him too quickly. Each level is full of detail reserved for only the most ambitious games of today. “I firmly believe that Gimmick! would always be on [anyone’s] top 5 NES game had it been released [beyond Japan and Scandinavia]” claims Pat the NES Punk.
Gimmick! fans know it’s special, but despite being a critical hit, the game never reached an audience large enough to gain commercial success. Gimmick! (or Mr. Gimmick! in Sweden) was never released outside of Japan and Sweden. And even in the two countries where it did make it to shelves, its availability was limited. So much so that many of the Swedish developers working on the sequel hadn’t heard of it before they joined the project.
“I first heard of Gimmick! through a Swedish retro gaming YouTube channel,” says Olof Karlsson, Lead Programmer on Gimmick! 2. ”I grew up playing Nintendo games, and I never played Gimmick! It’s like Kirby’s Adventure in the quality level, except that no one really knows about it. How?”
So why was Gimmick!, despite its apparent quality, never widely released in the West? Perhaps it arrived too late into the NES’s lifecycle, or was an unfortunate victim of cost-saving measures. According to Sunsoft’s former vice president of development in America, David Siller, the company’s managers felt the game’s characters were too “strange or quirky”. For a game aimed at children, this – paired with the elevated difficulty level – perhaps didn’t present well for its target audience. That’s right, Gimmick! Is hard. REALLY hard.
Despite its cute looks Gimmick! is more of a Castlevania than a Kirby.
“It’s a game that looks cute and colourful – probably most analogous to Kirby on the NES. But Kirby was more reasonable to get through,” explains Illusory Wall. “Despite its cute looks [Gimmick! is] more of a Castlevania than a Kirby.”
“The difficulty of Mr. Gimmick was one of its advertising features,” recalls Pat the NES Punk. In fact, an ominous warning was even on the back of the original box: “Every game you played before has only prepared you for this ultimate challenge. You’ll call on many skills, techniques and tricks you’ve learned to help Mr. Gimmick survive the evil onslaught. Only the strong will survive and only the very best will experience the secret ending.”
Despite the positive critical reception Gimmick has received over time, its inevitable lack of commercial success never presented an opportunity for a sequel. Gimmick!, like many forgotten gems of its era, faded into obscurity, with Sunsoft leaving Yumetaro to gather decades worth of dust. 30 years later, though, one hardcore Swedish fan had different ideas…
“I didn’t own Gimmick!, I [only] played it at a friend’s house, but I truly remember the characters in the game. They were so much alive compared to [other] games,” says Niklas Istenes, the CEO and founder of Bitwave Games and creator of Gimmick! 2. “[Later on] when I started to collect games I finally bought the cart and I remembered I loved it. I watched speedruns, I watched people highlighting the secrets, I was so intrigued by how many details there are in this game. It was my go-to title when people came over and saw my retro collection. I always brought out my Gimmick! [cartridge] first.”
It’s clear that Istenes is a super fan of Gimmick!, and that was reinforced when IGN visited the Gimmick!-filled Bitwave office in February of 2023. But the dots still needed connecting. How had this small, Swedish developer –- who at the time had only released one game called Pictoparty on the Wii U – been allowed to create the sequel to a forgotten, Japanese, Nintendo cult classic?
“I had no idea if Sunsoft was still around, maybe they’re bankrupt or something?” shares Istenes. “Maybe they don’t care anymore about their old IPs? So I wrote… not even a pitch, it was more of like, ’Hey, do you still have this IP? We’re interested in doing a sequel. What’s the royalty cost, yada, yada, yada.’”
“My proposition was around $10,000. They’re like, ‘No, that’s small fry for us. You’re a nobody. You made a party game on Wii U. No way you’re getting one of our most cherished IPs.’ I don’t know what I expected. It was a shot in the dark.”
The vision of my company was to do the sequel Gimmick!, so that’s what I pitched.
Istenes’ attempt was bold and certainly naive. He explained that Bitwave Games (previously known as Retroid Interactive) was built on a foundation of his love for Gimmick!. He would often wax lyrical about the forgotten platformer to his colleagues, and now it appeared his dream of making a sequel was now dead. But a few years later, right in the eye of the Covid pandemic storm – an event that threatened the studio’s very survival – there was a glimmer of hope…
“It was a very low period, and there was a lot of talk of whether we should just close down” recalls Istenes. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. So I reached out to a friend called Martin Lindell. Martin came back and he was like, ‘I started at Embracer. Could you pitch your company to us?’ The vision of my company was to do the sequel Gimmick!, so that’s what I pitched.”
Embracer Group is a large Swedish game licensing company that, at one time, was making an unfathomable number of acquisitions, Bitwave being one of them. Embracer not only liked what Bitwave had to offer, but was on board with trying to get the rights to a Gimmick! sequel. It immediately got to work putting Istenes in front of Sunsoft to pitch the concept after an undisclosed, but no doubt significantly improved offer.
“I couldn’t see how they reacted because it was a very small window in Microsoft Teams, and they were all wearing face masks,” recalls Istenes, describing his awkward videocall pitch to Sunsoft. “The translator also had an issue with her camera, so she had to turn it off. Then her default image was a cat, so it was like a cat was translating it. It was just weird. They could feel my passion for the game, though, and I think that’s what truly nailed it in the end.”
Finally, a lifelong dream could be realised. Bitwave Games could now create a sequel to the long-forgotten masterpiece. There was just one problem… they now had to make a game that not only honoured the original, but one that surpassed it…
“We wanted it to stand on its own. We want it to be a fun platforming game that appeals to everyone,” explains Lead Programmer Olof Karlsson. “ We want it to be accessible, but also a true sequel. We don’t want [fans of the original] to feel like we’ve massacred their boy. It should be like, ‘Wow, they really took this to a new direction but it’s still Gimmick!.’”
The passion for Gimmick! 2 at the Bitwave office during our visit was undeniable, but it was all built on the foundation of their love of the original. Istenes is proud of the space, particularly his treasured retro collection. And of course, the items that took pride of place were his valuable original editions of Gimmick!.
“I bought the PAL version first. It was $250,” recalls Istenes. “The guy who sold it had no idea what he had on his hands. He was cleaning his mother’s basement, found a bunch of NES games he played when he was young, and decided to sell them on Tradera [Scandinavia’s eBay equivalent]. He was [very confused about] why this was so special.”
He wasn’t the only person struggling to understand the second-hand value of this long-forgotten cartridge. Gimmick! recently featured on the Swedish TV show, Bytt är bytt, A.K.A Trash or Treasure. It’s a show that tasks contestants to estimate the value of antique objects. Not only had the contestant, despite being a self-proclaimed NES fan, never heard of Gimmick!, but the host also openly declared it “The game that nobody wanted”. But Istenes wanted it. And he didn’t just want the Swedish edition, he wanted the definitive release.
“The Japanese version is the version you need because it has an extra sound chip,” reveals Istenes, pointing out that only the Famicom edition featured the revolutionary YM2149 sound processor, a piece of hardware that doubled the game’s audio channels. And when Istenes finally acquired his very own Japanese version, inside the collector’s item’s case was more than just an enhanced Gimmick! cartridge. The seller had included a secret note…
“Hi, Niklas, my name is Takumi Hamada. Thank you bid. I’m very happy. I want to be friends with people around the world on eBay. Please contact bullshit. I always want to Japanese products. I help you anytime. Arigato.”
“He wanted to be friends with me on eBay,” says Istenes, smiling from ear to ear. “If you’re out there, thank you very much for this amazing product, which does not contain any bullshit at all!”
Gimmick! was more than a game to Istenes. It was nostalgia in its purest form, reminding him of the time he spent enjoying the game with his childhood friend. Decades later, Gimmick! was still helping him forge friendships. “When I joined, it was just Niklas and Gustav and both of them were consultants,” explains Karlsson. “I was the only one working in-house. The reason I joined this company was because I wanted to work with Niklas.”
The Gimmick! 2 team was quickly being assembled, but by the time production of the long overdue sequel was in full swing Istenes obtained perhaps his greatest coup: “I reached out to a composer I used to work with, but he was too busy for the project,” says Istenes, “He told me to shoot for the stars though. Which composer would I want to work on a game like this? I thought it would be cool to work with someone like David Wise.”
It was clear that Istenes had no problem shooting for the stars. After already successfully getting the rights to his dream game, he boldly reached out to the iconic David Wise; the video game composer famous for soundtracks such as Donkey Kong Country and Battletoads. He was Istenes’ dream composer. And, perhaps to his surprise, Wise immediately said ‘yes’.
”I love [classic] Nintendo games and working on the platform,” says Wise. “It was an easy ‘Yep, I want to be involved.’”
The pair immediately got to work on finding Gimmick! 2’s unique musical tone, looking for the sweet spot between the original and the sequel’s two countries of origin. “I’ve made sure I’ve used this wonderful instrument called the Nyckelharpa,” explains Wise, referring to a Swedish instrument whose name translates to ‘key harp’. “It’s like a violin, but it’s got these little wooden switches on them. It’s got its own ethereal sound and I was very keen to get that into the soundtrack.”
“I remember playing Donkey Kong Country and listening to the aquatic theme that he made and doing fan drawings when I was in school,” says Istenes. “It was just so amazing to be working with him.”
Not only had Istenes got the rights to make his dream sequel, but he had also struck a deal with his dream composer. Gimmick! 2’s production was progressing well. So well, in fact, that it was only a matter of time until disaster struck…
In June 2023, Embracer Group announced a restructuring program, making significant cuts to the entire workforce across all of its acquired studios. Unfortunately, staff at Bitwave Games were among the many casualties, losing half of their colleagues in one fell swoop. Gimmick! 2 was immediately put in jeopardy.
“When the news hit it was scary,” explains Istenes. “I didn’t know exactly how it would affect the studio. It wasn’t like I had a list of people that I knew would have to leave. But since it’s a monetary situation, it needed to happen fast.”
“It was one of the darkest days in the history of our company,” says Senior Game Developer, Hampus Lidin. “I don’t think we’d had such a huge setback before.” It was a setback that caused Lead Programmer Olof Karlsson to feel a little lost: “I was very confused about how to handle this. How do I feel? What am I supposed to feel?”
It was one of the darkest days in the history of our company.
“People who had to leave were a part of the company for five years, and there are some staff members that’d been a part of the project from the beginning,” shares Istenes. “You kind of just have to shut off your human part of the situation.”
Understandably, this was a tough pill to swallow for the affected staff. But Istenes was also deeply troubled by the situation, as he’d always thought of Embracer as the studio’s saviour. In a single moment, everything was turned upside down. “I’m not blaming Embracer for what happened,” says Istenes. “It’s external forces and how the industry is. My relationship with Embracer is still very good. They’re just pivoting as well to just try to make the best out of a situation. Some hard calls needed to be made.”
Six months had passed since we first visited the studio in February of 2023, and since then the Embracer cuts hadn’t been the only bad news for the production of Gimmick! 2. During that time, Lead Programmer Olaf Karlsson had stepped away from the project due to burnout, only to later return out of necessity after the layoffs.
“The fact that I only lasted six months before burning out was heartbreaking,” explains Karlsson. “I came back as a result of the layoffs. Niklas approached me and said, ‘I know that you burnt out on this previous project and that you didn’t want to hear about it anymore, but could you consider coming back?’ And I was like, ’Yes, of course.’”
Gimmick! 2 had stalled, and there was a genuine fear that this labour of love might never make it to the finish line. But there was still an underlying determination from its leader to see it through, and that passion emanated through the entire studio. “I don’t really want to work on something unless I feel like everyone around me really wants to do it,” says Karlsson. “To have the CEO want to do it this much [gives you] a level of engagement that you otherwise wouldn’t really get.”
It doesn’t just feel like something wearing the old game’s skin. It feels like a true sequel to Gimmick!
Surprisingly, despite the hurdles, Gimmick! 2 got back on track fast, with Istenes – in a desperate attempt to save his dream – introducing a pivot into production.
“I want it to be the best game ever,” says Istenes. ”I want every idea that I have to be in the game, which makes it very, very hard to design a game like that. When the news broke, I knew we could still [finish] the game, but we needed to pivot back to the roots and focus more on gameplay. It was pretty clear from the beginning what we needed to cut in the game to still make it great and as long and enjoyable as we wanted it to be.”
The pivot back to a gameplay focus allowed the Bitwave team to refocus on their original vision, cut out the unnecessary bells and whistles, and double down on the core experience that made the original so beloved. “It feels more true. It feels more like a sequel.” explains Karlsson. “It doesn’t just feel like something wearing the old game’s skin. It feels like a true sequel to Gimmick!. We can actually finish this still. This is doable.”
Gimmick! 2 is fast approaching. In fact, there’s a good chance it’s available for you to play right now. Despite the hardships, the whole project has been built with consistent passion. Whether it was a love of the original’s design, technology, hardware, or just plain nostalgia, Bitwave Games has been built on the foundation of Yumetaro, and that love bleeds through every frame of the sequel.
“The opportunity to work on Gimmick! 2 was a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” explains Karlsson.”I think what will make it special is a combination of what we’re aiming for; a very tight, mechanically interesting and fun platforming game with amazing visuals and a beautiful soundtrack composed by f**king David Wise of all people. How did we get David Wise? It’s incredible.”
“I hope it captures the same spirit of the original,” says Pat the NES Punk. “ I hope it seems like a world of wonder with interesting enemies and characters you encounter along the way.”
“I hope people will learn more about the original one,” says Istenes. “I think this will be a much better game in more than one sense. But I hope people will play this, enjoy the game, and then go back and play the original game. And, hopefully, we’ll make a sequel to this one as well!”
We didn’t pick this to be the game that would make us the richest studio in Gothenburg.
For better or worse, Gimmick! 2 fulfils a lifelong ambition. Time will tell if the sequel will create its own lasting impact like its predecessor, or perhaps even exceed the original’s legacy. We don’t know if Bitwave Games will thrive or fall under the weight of an ever-evolving industry, and we don’t know if Gimmick! will ever truly receive all the praise it so clearly deserves. What we do know is that Yumetaro started a dream. A dream that built a studio, helped craft a vision decades in the making, and forged an assortment of beautiful friendships.
Not bad for a barely released, forgotten ‘90s game about an anthropomorphic, star-throwing green blob.
“This game has always been a project of the studio’s heart,” says Istenes. “We didn’t pick this to be the game that would make us the richest studio in Gothenburg. It’s to set a trend of how we make high-quality games, that’s what we’re aiming for here. As long as some people enjoy playing the game, and get a fun player experience from it, then I’m happy.”
Thank you to Pat the NES Punk, Illusory Wall, Pekachow, David Wise, Niklas Istenes, and everyone at Bitwave Games for their time. Special thank you to Jesse Gomez for production and Andréas Göransson for sharing the story.
At last. The LEGO Great Deku Tree, available exclusively at the LEGO Store, is the first of its kind – a Nintendo-themed set that doesn’t concern a certain turtle-stomping, mustachioed plumber. Instead, we’re transported to a medieval land ruled by prophecy, fate, and magic. For thousands of years, our heroes, Link and Zelda, have saved Hyrule from the forces of evil.
The Great Deku Tree was a key ally in four of their most acclaimed adventures: Ocarina of Time (1998), The Wind Waker (2003), Breath of the Wild (2017), and Tears of the Kingdom (2023). And accordingly, this set includes Easter eggs from across the franchise. It would appeal to any 3D Zelda fan, regardless of which series entry they grew up exploring.
The LEGO Great Deku Tree gives you two build options. In the first option, you build the Tree as it appeared in Ocarina of Time, where, in its dying moments, it summoned Link and sent him on his quest to defeat Ganon. The first boss battle, against the Queen Gohma, takes place inside the Tree.
In the second option, you build the Tree as it appeared in Breath of the Wild, standing watch over the Master Sword. This iteration of the Great Deku Tree is covered in pink leaves rather than green, and its root structure is more extensive and tangled, although its base is less solid and stout, like a swamp tree that’s evolved to survive in water. Perhaps over thousands of years, the ecosystem of the forest changed, even as the characters that inhabited it recurred.
The two builds are split into 22 bags. You cannot build both trees at the same time; there is extensive overlap, especially in the beginning and middle portions of each build, that prevent this from happening. You get a single, thick instruction book for both builds. There are no stickers in this build; all illustrations are printed directly onto the bricks themselves.
The two Great Deku Trees are not, canonically speaking, the same character; each new iteration of the Deku Tree grows from a seed and sprout of the prior one. They are all descended from one another, and thus, it is fitting that the first halves of both builds are identical. You start by laying down the forest floor and the base of the tree.
You also build two miniature builds separate from the main tree, and no matter which tree iteration you decide to go with, you will not have to ‘recycle’ them; these two miniatures will accompany the final build regardless. The first miniature is Link’s forest house from Ocarina of Time, which contains a box to store his supplies, including a hookshot, a bomb, red and blue potions, and a compass. It also comes with Navi the Fairy, which you can swap to be green, blue, or yellow, depending on whether Link is talking, searching, or fighting enemies.
The second miniature is of the pedestal in Breath of the Wild, where Link finds the Master Sword in Korok Forest. You also build Hestu (complete with his maracas) and Korok creatures that dot the forest floor.
The Great Deku Tree set comes with a total of four minifigures. You get a Breath of the Wild Link and a Breath of the Wild Zelda in their signature teal tunics, and you get two iterations of Ocarina Link – Young Link, whose tunic comes with a skirt piece around its waist, and Adult Link, who you can display with the titular Ocarina.
The minifigures come with numerous weapon accessories. In addition to the supplies in the various trunks and boxes, you have three options for swords – a short sword, the Kokiri sword, and the Master Sword – and three options for shields – the Traveler’s Shield, the Deku Shield, and the Hylian Shield with its signature crest.
After the first nine bags, you’re directed to branch off and choose either the Breath of the Wild build or the Ocarina build. If you decide to go with the former, you proceed right on to Bag 10, and you continue building up through Bag 19, in linear order. The final Breath of the Wild tree contains two remote Bomb Rune and a Sheikah Slate in hidden compartments along the tree’s base. There’s a tribute to the Riddles of Hyrule sidequest in the tree’s head. At the bottom of the tree is the Navel, which includes the General Shoppe, Spore Store, and Inn. The tree itself is rigged so that when you push down on a lever at the back, its eyebrows and mouth move. Lastly, you build four smaller trees that decorate the surrounding area.
If you decide on the Ocarina build, you take a more circuitous route to the end result. After Bag 19, you open Bags 10, 14, and 23 at the same time. Then Bag 13. Then Bag 16. Then Bags 17, 20, and 21. And then lastly, Bag 22.
The Ocarina tree comes with its own set of game-specific Easter eggs. The tree’s hidden compartments contain a fairy bow and a staff notes musical representation of “Saria’s Song.” The bottom of the tree is a dungeon, with a treasure chest that holds a Fairy Slingshot and a massive Skulltula that drops from the ceiling via a catch-and-release mechanism.
Outside, instead of additional trees, there’s a Gossip Stone and two carnivorous Deku Babas to eat Link if he gets too close. Lastly, the tree’s mouth opens into a doorway so that Link can crawl inside and explore.
If there is a drawback to this set, it’s that once you build one version of the set, you will feel hard-pressed to build the other. For the sake of this review, I managed it, but it required me to exercise foresight; I got a bunch of Zip-Loc bags and address labels to keep track of what went where.
So right now, I have the leftover pieces from Bags 10, 14, and 23 in a single bag. If I take apart the current tree, I’ll have to match up my tree with the instruction booklet’s tree to figure out what went there, and then rebag and regroup them. But even that doesn’t completely solve the problem, unless I separate everything into three piles, piece by piece. It’ll be a slow go, and that’s if I don’t lose a couple of pieces in the transition. So I probably won’t. Doing it once was enough.
If I had to choose which was the “better” build, it’s the Breath of the Wild tree. It’s more colorful and detailed, and its facial expressions are more animated. But that said, both trees are an impressive sight. And if you grew up with Ocarina of Time, then that’s the tree you’re building. Your nostalgia will make the final decision for you.
LEGO Great Deku Tree 2-in-1, Set #77092, retails for $299.99, and it is composed of 2500 pieces. It is available exclusively at the LEGO Store. For more, check out our picks for the best Nintendo LEGO sets, as well as the best Marvel LEGO sets.
Kevin Wong is a contributing freelancer for IGN, specializing in LEGO. He’s also been published in Complex, Engadget, Gamespot, Kotaku, and more. Follow him on Twitter at @kevinjameswong.
SSD prices are trending upward for 2024, but there are still some excellent deals to be found if you’re vigilant. Today, MSI is offering its PS5-compatible MSI Spatium M482 2TB PCIe Gen4 x4 M.2 Solid State Drive (SSD) for only $99.99 wtih free shipping. This is the best price currently for a 2TB SSD that fulfills all of the mandatory and recommended requirements for the PS5 console. You’ll need to supply a heatsink, but you can easily get a PS5 heatsink for under $10.
MSI Spatium 2TB M.2 SSD (PS5-Compatible) for $99.99
The PS5 is an outstanding gaming console, but the 1TB SSD is a real bottleneck. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, for example, can exceed 200GB alone. NBA 2K23 weighs in at 150GB and even older games like God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West require 90GB of space. Future games like Grand Theft Auto VI will undoubtedly demand even more space. The advantage of a PS5 console over the Xbox Series X is that the SSD slot is not proprietary; you can install most third-party PCIe Gen4 x4 SSDs as long as they are fast enough. Slower drives will still work, but they may bottleneck the original SSD so they aren’t recommended if you want a seamless experience.
The MSI Spatium M482 meets all the requirements for your PS5 upgrade. This is a PCIe Gen4 x4 SSD with an M.2 2280 form factor and transfer speeds of up to 7,300MB/s read and 6,400MB/s write which is well above the 5,500MB/s minimum threshold. It also makes an excellent boot drive for your gaming PC, especially with its 2TB storage capacity. For 2024, we’ve rarely come across a PS5-compatible 2TB SSD priced under $100, so you should jump on this deal. We may see deals of this caliber during Black Friday, but that’s still a few months away, and there’s no guarantee that SSD prices won’t rise again.
For the last week, there’s been a lot of online discussion on Sony’s newly-launched multiplayer shooter, Concord. But it’s not because everyone’s playing it – it’s because seemingly no one is.
Plenty of games don’t sell well at launch, but observers have latched onto Concord’s dramatic failure due to its high-profile nature as a Sony first-party game, and its shockingly low Steam concurrent player numbers at launch. Upon its August 23 debut, Concord only had 697 Steam concurrent players, and it hasn’t risen any higher since. At the time I’m writing this, 130 entire people are playing Sony’s brand new, first-party game on Steam. That’s real, real low, even for a game with middling critical reviews (we gave it a 7/10, which at IGN means it’s “good”).
So, what happened? Why did a big Sony first-party game get sent out to die immediately? Is it actually selling badly, or are we just reading the numbers wrong? As usual when questions of this nature crop up, I asked a bunch of professional industry analysts to explain it to me.
Is Concord actually selling that badly?
Unfortunately for Sony…yeah.
While historically low numbers like the ones being experienced by Concord have a tendency to be used to drive narratives that don’t always paint a full picture, that’s not what’s happening here. Liam Deane, principal analyst at Omdia, said, “The Steam numbers are so bad that even without the exact data on the PS5 side we can be pretty certain that the game is doing very badly.”
Other analysts were able to share a bit of insight on the PlayStation side with me. Per Circana analyst Mat Piscatella citing Circana’s Player Engagement Tracker, on Monday August 26, “Concord ranked 147th in US PS5 daily active players across all titles, with fewer than 0.2% of Monday’s active PS5 players playing the game.” And analyst Simon Carless, who authors the GameDiscover.co newsletter, estimated that Concord’s total sales are sitting around 10,000 units on Steam, and around 15,000 on PlayStation (he responded to my email Wednesday, August 28, 2024).
Sadly, making a fun, high-quality shooter is not enough in the oversaturated live-service space these days.
Many of the analysts I spoke to lamented the reality. As they pointed out, Concord has been in development for years now, a substantial financial and time investment for Sony. And incredibly talented people worked on it: it’s well-produced, and as Midia Research analyst Rhys Elliott specifically notes, it’s fun to play. But, Elliott continued, “sadly, making a fun, high-quality shooter is not enough in the oversaturated live-service space these days.”
Why Isn’t Concord Selling?
Usually, when I reach out to analysts for comment on a piece like this, they largely have similar assessments of the big picture but can offer differing perspectives on certain details. In the case of Concord, everyone I spoke to agreed on the reasons it had failed. Concord suffered from poor marketing, a high price point, and most critically, a lack of differentiation in an oversaturated genre.
Start with the marketing. According to Piscatella, Sony dropped the ball on this front, badly damaging its ability to build momentum ahead of release. He said it suffered from “low awareness and purchase intent among video game players” and indicated that Circana’s PlayerPulse was showing that as of July, only a very small percentage of players were even aware Concord existed to begin with. Retail promotion was limited, “with just a handful of web placements across GameStop, Best Buy, Target, Walmart and the PlayStation Store.” Joost van Dreunen, NYU Stern professor and author of the SuperJoost newsletter, agreed, saying that “while there has been trailers and some gameplay reveals for Concord, pre-launch promotion for the game appears to have been relatively limited.”
At $40, Concord also suffered from what was considered to be an overly high price point given that its main competitors are free-to-play. As Carless pointed out, high-skill multiplayer shooters can struggle to gain traction, because players will only “shift” their preferred game if all their friends also agree to do so. Even then, players may be reluctant due to sunk cost fallacy around the various cosmetics and other perks they’ve picked up on their preferred game over time. This is also a problem, he says, for content creators, who won’t know in advance if their audiences will be interested in a new game they’re considering switching to.
For free-to-play games, players can at least jump in, try something out, and see if it sticks without a high commitment cost. But with Concord, the $40 price makes players unlikely to give it a shot in the first place, and van Dreunen adds that this is even less likely near the end of a console cycle when players are more reluctant than usual to take a chance on new games.
Overall the hero shooter market is already well served.
“A tight-knit group of players might be willing to take a chance on a new game for free, but paying $40 is a big ask in today’s macroeconomic climate,” Elliott observed. “Launching Concord as a premium game limited its audience numbers and user acquisition. The more people who play a game, the more appealing it is. Network effects are crucial for building a healthy, engaged ecosystem.
“Concord should have launched free-to-play – or at least as part of the PlayStation Plus subscription – to have a fighting chance in its overcrowded genre. It is not too late for this to happen, of course, but the damage might have already been done. First impressions matter.”
Every analyst I spoke to also hammered home what may be Concord’s biggest problem: lack of differentiation. Piers Harding-Rolls of Ampere Analysis noted that when Concord started development, Sony was banking on the then-hot trend of multiplayer shooters such as Overwatch. But in the years since, other studios made the same bet, many to great success.
“Since then, we’ve had a few more big budget hero shooters come to market – Apex Legends, Valorant and Overwatch 2 – each with their unique gameplay attributes,” said Harding-Rolls. “All three of these games are played by millions of gamers every month and dominate this category. Concord’s gunplay compares most closely to Overwatch 2 and overall the hero shooter market is already well served with a collection of very strong free-to-play titles.”
It also doesn’t help that Concord released on August 23, 2024, just three days after Black Myth: Wukong. Though the two games are significantly different, it’s hard to deny that the launch of the former overshadowed the latter in terms of marketing, hype, and sales. For what it’s worth, Concord’s release date was announced five months after Black Myth: Wukong’s. For one reason or another, Sony did not opt to nudge the game out of its wake.
What does this mean for Sony and live service games?
I asked all the analysts I spoke to if this means live service is over, especially for Sony. Hardly, they all say – but this should serve as a reality check.
“Live service games have a high failure rate,” Deane said. “There are many reasons for that but the main one is because they rely on network effects. Sometimes a single-player game can have a slow launch but eventually find its way to success. But the clock is now ticking on Concord in a big way because unless the player counts pick up soon there’ll be nobody to play against. So even if you personally would like to give it a try, there’ll be nothing to play. But while the risks are big, so are the rewards. It’s no secret that many of the highest-earning games in the market today are live service games. According to our data, only about 16% of the total revenue of the games market now comes from traditional full-game sales. Publishers are going to keep chasing that 84%.”
As for Sony itself, Deane expects it will continue chasing live service. Helldivers 2, after all, was a huge hit earlier this year. “Though clearly they won’t want any more Concord-level disasters, if half of their forthcoming slate of live service games over the next few years succeed, that won’t be a bad result.”
Elliott agreed. “It only takes one big live-service win to generate billions upon billions in revenue and unlock new audiences – two things PlayStation very much wants right now, as the console business is facing growth challenges and reaching saturation. That said, I also expect some resources to be redirected to strategies that are working better for the company: PC launches and cross-media/transmedia, for example.”
Nevertheless, analysts suggested that Concord is a perfect example of the dangers of AAA companies chasing trends, especially with how long game development cycles have become. Elliott pointed out a growing list of failures in the space, even from major companies: BioWare’s Anthem, Crystal Dynamics’ Marvel’s Avengers, PlatinumGames’ Babylon’s fall. Some developers, he notes, have even canceled projects in advance, such as Sega with Hyenas or PlayStation’s The Last of Us Online.
Sometimes everything that can go wrong does go wrong.
“Pivoting to live services is high-risk, high-reward venture, and the risk is heightening to levels that might not be worth it for many AAA console/PC publishers that aren’t already active in the space,” he said.
Concord’s failure has attracted attention due to the contrast between its status as a Sony first-party title in a popular genre with high production value, and the overwhelming cricket sounds that accompanied its launch. But the story of its failure is mundane. Sony, for whatever reason, chose not to market the game heavily enough to ensure players were aware of it. It chose to sell it at a premium price point despite all its serious competition going free-to-play. Had these factors been different, Concord might have stood a chance despite its relative lack of standout characteristics in an oversaturated genre. But even then, Concord was always fighting a difficult battle – a battle that will only get more fierce the more multiplayer shooters go to market in future years.
As Mat Piscatella summed up, “Sometimes everything that can go wrong does go wrong. Although it’s quite rare to see everything go this wrong.”
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Gearbox Software attended PAX West 2024 to reveal a collection of concept art and new details for its recently announced looter-shooter sequel, Borderlands 4.
Each shot highlights new foreign locations for players to explore while also not revealing too much about how the fourth Borderlands game will shake up the formula. If there’s one thing to take away from the concept art drop it’s that Gearbox wants to give players a variety of areas to loot and shoot through. One image shows a smokey, candle-lit room decorated with glowing blue lighting, while another shows a small neon town surrounded by snowy mountains. You can see some of what Borderlands 4 has in store in the gallery below.
“The Borderlands universe is super interesting and there is so much to get to play with,” art director Adam May said when describing the concept images at PAX West. “It is a post-apocalyptic world but in the distant future, so it’s like high-tech but lo-fi. It creates all kinds of interesting opportunities with what we can do with tech, our weapons, our characters, and world in general.”
The Gearbox team teased even more at PAX West. For starters, the Borderlands 4 teaser that was revealed at gamescom Opening Night Live earlier this month is now confirmed to take place seconds following the conclusion of Borderlands 3’s story. With new parts of its universe to explore, the team has taken the opportunity to incorporate technology in ways that haven’t been touched on in the past.
“I can’t say much, but this has a lot to do with it here,” May said. “A lot of the things we haven’t had much of a chance to play with too much in the past is some of that high technology stuff.”
He continued, teasing that the Gearbox team got to play with more tech and color than ever before, calling Borderlands 4 “the most diverse and beautiful game we’ve ever made.” A Borderlands 4 release date has not been revealed, but it is expected to launch for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X | S sometime in 2025. Gearbox still has more work to do before revealing more, so in the meantime, be sure to catch up on some of the more popular fan theories that have spawned from that first teaser trailer.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
Few premises are more immediately appealing than Squirrel with a Gun’s. A sandbox game where you control a gun-toting rodent and wreak havoc on the local population? Yes, please! And that premise certainly delivers to some extent, with quite a few laugh-out-loud funny moments right out the gate and a lot of enjoyment to be found in the goofy adventure’s opening hours. But this wacky Sciuridae simulator isn’t sitting on a stockpile of comedic acorns, instead stuffing its cheeks with silly gags all in one go, before finding its stores empty as the winter season fast approaches. Compounding that short-lived mirth are fairly serious performance issues, including regular crashes that made me repeat long stretches, which really took the wind out of my furry wings. Squirrel with a Gun still offers a couple hours of amusing sandbox goofiness, and I eagerly await a more fleshed out sequel in the same vein as Goat Simulator 3, but this first shot misses the target once the joke has run its course.
Like Untitled Goose Game and Octodad: Dadliest Catch before it, Squirrel with a Gun is a zany sandbox game where you play a troublemaking animal who becomes a real problem for the humans around them. After obtaining a pistol from a clumsy government spook, you’re let loose on a suburban community to rob people at gunpoint, wantonly destroy personal property, and exercise your Second Amendment right to blast fools in the face like the bloodthirsty little varmint you are. It’s a good time! But that dopey bit is exactly as shallow as it sounds, and though it only took me four hours to roll credits, it took even less time for the laughs to peter out.
Fighting as a squirrel packing heat proves pretty hollow. You’ll use pistols, rifles, and even grenade launchers to send Agent Smith-looking sons of a gun to their doom – and they mostly stand around and let you do so while putting up very little resistance. They’re the only enemies to be found here, and they all go down in a couple of shots. One highlight is when you stun enemies and are then able to kill them off with a special finishing move, like peppering an enemy with lead from an uzi or swatting their grasping hands away while you perform gunjitsu like a furry John Wick. Unfortunately, there’s only one of these animations for each weapon, so like a lot of things in this adventure, the novelty runs out fairly quickly. There isn’t much to combat beyond these basics, and each weapon feels like just another indistinctive piece in the arsenal in a matter of seconds.
There are two boss fights to shake things up, however, where you take on giant military vehicles, like a tank. These encounters are quick sequences where you shoot at glowing spots and whittle down a health bar, which doesn’t provide much of a challenge, but they are at least a nice change of pace and have a few gags that made me smile. If more stuff like this made it into the story, it might have gone a long way to extend my enjoyment, but like everything else in this brief adventure, these antics are fleeting.
The puzzle-platforming, on the other hand, is much more satisfying. Firing your weapons as a means of double-jumping or otherwise propelling yourself into the air to overcome platforming challenges is far more interesting than any of the combat in Squirrel with a Gun. The submachine gun is a great way to keep yourself airborne for extended periods of time while crossing gaps, but nothing beats the rocket launcher in terms of pure height – it sends you sailing into the air to land (mostly) safely on faraway platforms. None of the platforming is particularly tricky, but making your fluffy avatar sail from place to place doesn’t get old nearly as quickly as the rest of the gameplay.
Unfortunately, Squirrel with a Gun’s good times are prone to interruption by technical issues that proved quite problematic, even during its brief runtime. I found myself staring at a frozen screen more than five times in as many hours, losing a good chunk of progress in the process, and was forced to repeat entire sections. By the end, I got into the fear-driven habit of rushing over to the static save points that can be found in each area – and a good thing too, because crashes seemed to happen more frequently in the back half of the adventure. And that’s not the only issue I ran into, either: One cutscene triggered and forgot to add the squirrel where he’s supposed to go, which broke everything and forced me to reset, and there were several times where my tiny buddy passed through geometry when moving at high speeds and sent me tumbling to the ground, which forced me to repeat certain platforming sections. Thankfully, Squirrel with a Gun already embraces a certain kind of chaotic energy, so the occasional goofy glitch isn’t the end of the world. But it did make some of the otherwise entertaining sections lose some of their luster once I had to replay them a third time in the wake of a crash.
Star Wars Outlaws is one of the biggest gaming releases of 2024, and IGN is your ultimate destination for the game. Whether you’re looking for guides to assist your journey through each of the massive planets or for a review to determine if you’re going to pick up the game, we’ve got you covered.
Detailed Map Genie Maps for Each Planet
The IGN team has Map Genie maps live for each planet in the game, ensuring you won’t miss a collectible or side quest in your playthrough! These maps will continue to be updated throughout the next week, but dozens of collectibles are already live across four planets!
Leading Game Help
IGN is your go-to for all the latest guides on Star Wars Outlaws, from a complete walkthrough to tips on Kessel Sabacc. Check out some of our available tips to help you get started below:
Be sure to stay tuned for more, as we’ll be updating and adding new guides well past launch day!
Star Wars Outlaws – The IGN Review
IGN Video Producer Tristan Ogilvie reviewed Star Wars Outlaws, giving the game a 7/10. In our review, he stated, “It’s ironic that Kay’s ship is called the Trailblazer, since there’s actually not a whole lot of ideas in Star Wars Outlaws that haven’t been done before in other action and open-world adventures. Instead, it’s quite like the Millenium Falcon: a bucket of bolts held together with repurposed parts and prone to breaking down, but at its best it’s more than capable of jolting your pleasure centres into Star Wars fan hyperspace.”
More Star Wars: Outlaws Content on IGN
Beyond game help, Map Genie, and our review, IGN has even more Star Wars Outlaws coverage available now and on the way! Our IGNFirst coverage dives deep into the game with exclusive commentary from the developers at Ubisoft Massive. Moving forward, we’ll also have plenty of breakdowns surrounding the game’s biggest features, analysis on the story, and all kinds of news surrounding the upcoming DLC.
Star Wars Collection at IGN Store
Last but not least, be sure to check out our Star Wars Collection at IGN Store. Whether you’re in the market for a new shirt, figure, or even hot sauce, there’s dozens of Star Wars-themed items available now.
Amazon Games said it “regrets confusion” over remarks by CEO Christoph Hartmann on voice acting and AI that drew sharp criticism online, seeking to clarify that it thinks generative AI needs to be used “responsibly” and calling actors “essential creative contributors.”
Amazon’s statement was in response to a lengthy comment from Hartmann, in which he mused on the difficulties games face with lengthy development cycles, and suggested that AI may “streamline processes” and help shorten the time it takes to make games. Asked for his thoughts on the SAG-AFTRA union strike seeking better AI protections, Hartmann responded in part:
“[W]hen we talk about AI, first of all, hopefully it will help us to have new gameplay ideas, which has nothing to do with taking work away from anyone. And especially for games, we don’t really have acting… The majority of the team sits in programming and that’s not going to go away because that’s all about innovation. If it takes something, it will be really the boring parts,” he said.
He then went on to opine that it may be helpful in localization, then added that he doesn’t believe any technology can “replace human creativity and the uniqueness… There’s always something special.”
While Hartmann sought to moderate his comments, they nevertheless provoked anger in some quarters. SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement negotiating committee chair Sarah Elmaleh was among those who took to X/Twitter to criticize Hartmann, saying, “What’s funny about this whole Amazon Games CEO quote is *I* thought it sounded like AI had written his statement. Turns out I’ve been unfair. To the AI.”
She subsequently provided a lengthy statement to IGN on behalf of SAG-AFTRA.
“Games don’t really have acting” is a wild statement. I’ve devoted most of my life to games performance, just like whole generations of new performers inspired by great games performers before them. Swaths of fans seek out these performers to tell them how much they connect with these characters through their performances, and the humanity they bring to them.
I’m an actor and performance director, not a CEO. But it seems to me that several of the largest companies in the world sitting down to negotiate with us aren’t doing it for their health — it’s because they recognize the proven viability of a games business model that requires human performance, needs union performers. That player connection and emotional investment I mention is correlated with billions and billions of dollars. Not all kinds of games require performance, but giving up using actors completely might just represent a significant financial pivot or sunk loss cost for our bargaining partners. But again, I’m not a fancy business person.
When CEOs do speak effectively and accurately on behalf of their company, they do so by listening to their employees. Whether game design, localization, programming, acting, anything – these highly specialized and professionalized workers are the ones who understand whether and how AI might be assistive or detrimental in their work. And workers should have the right and the means to advocate for the proper use of this tool. That’s what SAG-AFTRA is doing, why I’m proud and grateful to be part of a union for this craft I love, and why I fully support the organizing efforts of developers who likewise deserve their say in how we implement this technology to best serve this industry, to best serve videogames, to best serve our audiences. To this and all CEOs, including our own bargaining group — we stand ready to negotiate.
Asked for clarification on what Hartmann meant by his comments, and for their response to the fact that games such as New World utilize voice actors, an Amazon spokesperson told IGN:
We regret the confusion stemming from these comments. Of course games developed and published by Amazon Games include actors, who we consider to be essential creative contributors, both now and in the future. Like most developers and publishers we do not keep actors on staff, and Christoph’s comments were specific to our internal development teams. As with any tool, we believe generative AI needs to be used responsibly and we’re carefully exploring how we can use it to help solve the technical challenges development teams face.
Generative AI has become a flash point among artists, actors, and other creators throughout the games industry, many of whom fear that they will see their roles reduced or replaced in an already volatile industry. In July, the SAG-AFTRA union went on strike in an affort to gain stronger AI protections for video game voice actors.
In a follow-up comment in response to Amazon’s statement, Elmaleh said, “If Amazon Games would like to explore how AI can be used responsibly to solve technical challenges in game development as it relates to acting, we welcome them to a direct dialogue at any time. We have the blueprint ready.”
In the meantime, Amazon Games is trying to expand its footprint outside of MMOs, among other things serving as the publisher for Tomb Raider and the recently-announced King of Meat. Earlier this week, Amazon Games and Bandai Namco announced that Blue Protocol would no longer be coming to the U.S. New World: Aeternum, an updated console release of the game released in 2021, is set to release on October 15.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
Star Wars: Outlaws may focus on a new character – smuggler, thief, and all-around scoundrel Kay Vess – but it’s also a story set smack dab in the middle of the original Star Wars trilogy. The game takes place in between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. That leaves plenty of room for familiar heroes and villains to appear during the course of the game, and they definitely do.
How exactly does Outlaws fit into the bigger picture of the Original Trilogy? How does the game forge connections between Kay and iconic Star Wars heroes and villains? Here’s what you need to know.
Warning: this article contains full spoilers for Star Wars: Outlaws!
Lady Qi’ra and Crimson Dawn
In Outlaws, Kay slowly makes a name for herself and works her way up the chain of command in the game’s various criminal syndicates. It’s inevitable, then, that she’ll eventually encounter some familiar faces. The Star Wars franchise certainly has its share of memorable crime lords.
Kay eventually encounters Crimson Dawn’s leader, Lady Qi’ra, during her missions on the icy planet of Kijimi. Qi’ra was played by Emilia Clarke in 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story (though she’s voiced by Tamaryn Payne here), where we learned that she was Han’s old flame before being recruited into Dryden Vos’ organization. The movie ends with Vos being killed off and Qi’ra traveling to meet the real boss of Crimson Dawn, Darth Maul.
If you only follow the Star Wars movies, you might not know how Qi’ra’s story has unfolded since then. She eventually takes control of Crimson Dawn herself after Maul is killed shortly before the events of A New Hope (as seen in the animated series Star Wars Rebels). Qi’ra has gone on to play a pivotal role in Marvel’s Star Wars comics; she’s at the center of 2021’s War of the Bounty Hunters crossover, where she steals the carbonite-frozen Han from Boba Fett and auctions him off to the highest bidder. In Outlaws, ND-5 even references that ill-fated auction in a conversation with Kay.
Qi’ra wants to free the galaxy from the tyranny of the Sith, which is what she’s referencing when she talks to Kay about true freedom.
As War of the Bounty Hunters and subsequent storylines establish, Qi’ra’s ultimate goal with Crimson Dawn is to use it to destabilize the Empire. A loyal pupil of Maul, Qi’ra understands better than most how Emperor Palpatine has been pulling the strings of the galaxy for decades. Qi’ra wants to free the galaxy from the tyranny of the Sith, which is what she’s referencing when she talks to Kay about true freedom. So although Qi’ra comes across as an antagonistic figure in this game, manipulating Kay and using her to help weaken the upstart Clan Ashiga, ultimately her goals are pretty noble.
What happens to Qi’ra after the events of Star Wars: Outlaws? As explored in comics like Star Wars: Crimson Reign and Star Wars: Hidden Empire, Qi’ra eventually makes her move against Palpatine. While unsuccessful in destroying the Sith herself, Qi’ra’s actions help give the Rebel Alliance a much-needed boost and lay the groundwork for Palpatine’s eventual defeat at the Battle of Endor. With Crimson Dawn in ruins, Qi’ra goes into hiding. Her post-Return of the Jedi story has yet to be told.
The Wrath of Darth Vader
Is it a proper Star Wars game without an appearance from the Dark Lord of the Sith? Darth Vader himself plays a small but key role in Outlaws as players learn the truth behind Sliro and Zerek Besh. It turns out that the galaxy’s newest and hottest criminal syndicate is actually just a front for the Imperial Security Bureau. Sliro himself is a soldier for the Empire, albeit one who has used his position to amass great wealth and power.
The ISB has played a major role in many Star Wars projects in the Disney era, most notably Star Wars: Jedi Survivor and the Andor series. This organization represents the other form of Imperial power during the Galactic Civil War. Star Destroyers and Death Stars are great, but when it comes to rooting out terrorists and Rebel sympathizers, sometimes a subtler hand is needed.
The goal of Zerek Besh is to build a vast intelligence network that can pierce the criminal underworld and reveal the identity of many hidden Rebel agents.
As Outlaws reveals, that’s exactly what Palpatine has tasked Sliro with accomplishing. The goal of Zerek Besh is to build a vast intelligence network that can pierce the criminal underworld and reveal the identity of many hidden Rebel agents. But although Sliro has managed to quickly build a powerful syndicate, he hasn’t actually produced the results Palpatine desires. That’s where Vader comes in. He’s a terrifying enforcer meant to remind Sliro that failure for someone in his position means death.
Vader ultimately seals Sliro’s doom by agreeing to hand control of Zerek Besh over to Jaylen Vrax (revealed to be Sliro’s estranged half-brother). Thanks to Kay, though, Jaylen is stopped before he can give over the valuable intel to the Empire, and Zerek Besh is effectively destroyed along with Jaylen himself.
In her own way, Kay herself winds up contributing to the downfall of the Empire in the build-up to Return of the Jedi. Zerek Besh’s destruction robs the ISB of a valuable resource and weakens what had been one of Palpatine’s most potent weapons against the Rebellion. The failure of Zerek Besh likely made Palpatine pivot all the more towards battlestations and weapons of mass destruction as a means of maintaining order. And we all know how that works out for him in the end…
Gambling With Lando Calrissian
While most of the core heroes of the Star Wars Original Trilogy remain MIA in Outlaws, busy with rebuilding the struggling Rebel Alliance, Kay does meet one key figure during her travels. It’s only fitting that she rubs elbows with fellow scoundrel and gambler Lando Calrissian (voiced by Lindsay Owen Pierre).
Lando appears to be up to his old tricks in the game, as he approaches Kay with a mission to recover a valuable artifact he gambled away in a high-stakes game of Sabacc. That’s a callback to the time Lando infamously lost the Millennium Falcon to Han Solo in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
But after winning the item back and helping a band of Rebels fight off an Imperial attack, Kay learns the truth behind her mission. Lando was using the artifact as a covert way of retrieving intelligence from a Rebel spy planted in the criminal underworld. His days of idly gambling away his most valuable possessions are behind him.
This questline gives greater insight into Lando’s role in the Rebellion before becoming “General Calrissian” in Return of the Jedi. At this point in the timeline, Lando and Chewbacca have tried and failed to liberate Han from Jabba the Hutt’s palace, and Lando hasn’t yet taken up a cover identity as one of Jabba’s palace guards. He’s simply biding his time, fighting alongside the Rebels and proving he has the heart of a hero.
Lando also shows us what Kay could become if she, like him, commits herself fully to a cause bigger than herself. As mentioned earlier, Kay winds up dealing a significant blow to the Empire without necessarily even meaning to. What could she accomplish if she put her mind to it? For now, though, Kay is concerned with protecting her own crew and making a few credits wherever she can. Maybe she’ll think bigger in the sequel.
We know this won’t be the only encounter between Kay and Lando. The first DLC story campaign for Outlaws, “Wild Card,” will reunite the two as Kay enters a Sabacc tournament while working for the Empire.
Meeting the Future Resistance
Outlaws may be set during the Original Trilogy, but there is one familiar character from the Sequel Trilogy who appears during the course of the game. During a mission on the planet Akiva, Kay encounters a teenage mechanic named Temmin Wexley (voiced by Sam Scherzer). Fans may know him better as hotshot Resistance pilot Snap Wexley (played by Greg Grunberg in the movies).
The game builds on the origin story for Temmin that was established in the Star Wars Aftermath novels. At this point in his life, Temmin is on his own, with his father having been captured by the Empire and his mother serving in the Rebellion. He’s a humble mechanic who builds droids to keep himself company. Eventually, though, Temmin will follow in his mother’s footsteps and join the Rebels, training under no less an authority on piloting starships than Wedge Antilles. The rest is history.
The Hondo Ohnaka Easter Egg
Outlaws features an Easter egg that seems to be directly setting up future DLC missions. During one of Kay’s encounters with Tatooine’s Sheriff Quint, Quint references the infamous pirate Hondo Ohnaka. Hondo is basically ubiquitous in animated series like The Clone Wars and Rebels, and it seems he’s going to make his video game debut soon.
This Easter egg seems to be setting up the game’s second DLC campaign, dubbed “A Pirate’s Fortune.” There, Kay will team up with Hondo to seek out a legendary treasure. But can she actually trust this notoriously self-serving criminal? Probably not.
Which iconic Star Wars character should Kay Vess meet next? Cast your vote in our poll above and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
