Star Wars Outlaws takes place during a period of extreme chaos for the criminal syndicates in the galaxy.
In-between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, the Empire is so caught up in the fight against the Rebellion that they’re not paying much attention to the criminal bosses. Into that void stepped Qi’ra and Crimson Dawn, as told in the War of the Bounty Hunters story, whose plan involved pitting the syndicates at war against each other. So it’s a period of plenty of instability between the major syndicates.
And into that mix will step a new syndicate, created specifically for Outlaws: the Ashiga Clan, operating from the familiar homeworld of Kijimi. Here’s what creative director Julian Gerighty told StarWars.com about the clan while at San Diego Comic Con:
The Ashiga Clan is a clan that we created in close collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. They’re based on Kijimi, which we saw in The Rise of Skywalker. It’s a faction that we really designed around this idea of a very hierarchical society that’s based on honor, tradition, history. Their visuals are very much inspired by insects, and they propose a gameplay challenge for the player in terms of NPCs that are really contrasted to everybody else. So that’s not just in combat, but it’s also in stealth. There’s a lot of things that they manage to fill out for us to be able to have a very different experience for players compared to some of the other syndicates that you’ll meet, like the Hutts or the Pykes.
When we first glimpsed Kijimi in the trailers I assumed it was because of the Spice Runners, who were known to operate on the planet. The Spice Runners are the group that Poe Dameron got caught up in during his youth, a group that also included Zorii Bliss and her family. They were known to be active during this period in the galactic timeline, even though they would rise in prominence later. But as we’ll see in Outlaws the Spice Runners aren’t the only criminal family on the planet, as the Ashiga Clan is too.
It sounds like the real impetus behind their creation was to serve a unique purpose for the game in terms of gameplay, allowing them to broaden the approach to different syndicates. That will make it particularly interesting to see how the different syndicates operate in different ways, as for example the values that drive Ashiga – honor, tradition, and history – aren’t the same values that drive all the others. So I’m guessing we’ll come to learn more about how each of these factions work, which will make for a really unique exploration of the criminal side of the galaxy. And, of course, it’s always great to get some new canon elements introduced as well.
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