Star Wars Outlaws has a new creative director, promises more work on three 'key areas': Combat, stealth, and controls

(Image credit: Massive Entertainment)

As part of its ongoing effort to turn Star Wars Outlaws into a game that more people might actually want to buy, Ubisoft has rolled out its first developer update, revealing that creative director Julian Gerighty has been replaced as creative director by The Division and Avatar veteran Drew Rechner.

"I'm very excited to be stepping into the role of creative director on Star Wars Outlaws and to be working with the incredibly passionate team here at Massive Entertainment along with our talented co-development studios around the world and Lucasfilm Games," Rechner wrote.

Rechner has big plans for the game, which has already received multiple updates and an acceleration of Outlaws' planned launch on Steam.There are three "key areas" on which developers are focusing: Combat, stealth, and controls, which he said will "[embrace] player choice more than ever before, whether it's sneaking through encounters, going in blasters-blazing, or everything in-between." Details on upcoming changes will be shared in future updates leading to the 1.4 patch on November 21, which is when Star Wars Outlaws will go live on Steam.

While swapping creative directors on a game that's only been out for a couple months might seem a little odd at first, particularly given Star Wars Outlaws' "soft" performance, in this case there's nothing untoward going on. With Star Wars Outlaws released, Gerighty is shifting his focus back to The Division: He was tapped as the new executive producer of the series in 2023 when Ubisoft announced The Division 3; as part of that announcement, Ubisoft said Gerighty would remain in his then-current position as creative director of Star Wars Outlaws until the game was launched.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.