Star Wars Outlaws composers take us inside the music of the first open-world Star Wars video game (Exclusive)

As a music enthusiast and Star Wars fanatic, I find myself utterly captivated by the extraordinary work of Cody Matthew Johnson and Wilbert Roget II in crafting the musical landscape for Star Wars Outlaws. Their combined expertise in open-world music systems and their meticulous attention to detail have created an auditory journey that seamlessly blends the familiar with the fantastical, all while paying homage to the original trilogy’s timeline.

Previously this autumn, Ubisoft debuted the game titled “Star Wars Outlaws“, marking a fresh venture in the distant galaxy. This game stands out for several significant aspects. To begin with, it’s the first “Star Wars” title to be published since the expiration of EA’s ten-year contract for exclusive production of “Star Wars” games, allowing new studios to offer their unique interpretations of the universe. Additionally, it’s the inaugural open-world “Star Wars” game, developed by Massive Entertainment in partnership with Lucasfilm and Ubisoft, the team behind the “Assassin’s Creed” series. Consequently, “Star Wars Outlaws” is a large-scale video game, offering players significant freedom to explore its expansive worlds at their leisure.

In the game titled “Star Wars Outlaws”, players take on the character of Kay Vess, an aspiring rogue aiming to establish a reputation in the galaxy’s criminal underworld. Her companion throughout this journey is Nix, a small and helpful merqaal creature that assists her in thefts, distractions, and various other beneficial tasks. Together aboard their ship, the Trailblazer, Kay and Nix traverse well-known “Star Wars” locations such as Luke Skywalker’s homeworld of Tatooine, as well as new planets like the windy plains of Toshara. Along this adventure, they forge relationships (or rivalries) with some of the franchise’s most influential crime organizations.

I’ve logged upwards of 70 hours in Star Wars Outlaws at this point, and have been loving every second of living in this video game rendition of the Star Wars galaxy. That’s long enough that I’ve gotten to fully experience one of the game’s secret weapons: the music, which helps bring its expressive worlds to life. This is an area where Star Wars Outlaws truly outdid itself, with dozens of unique songs accentuating the various landscapes and peoples in the game. Then you step into one of the many cantinas known to harbor scum and villainy, and there’s a whole other soundtrack with different songs depending on the locale to give each bar its own unique flavor.

Constructing that grand soundtrack was just as challenging as you’d expect. To delve into the music behind Star Wars Outlaws, I had conversations with composers Cody Matthew Johnson and Wilbert Roget, II. Notably, Roget, II oversaw the scoring of the game, creating numerous themes heard in the soundtrack, collaborating with partner composers Kazuma Jinnouchi and Jon Everist to complete the rest. On the other hand, Johnson was responsible for crafting all the songs played in the cantinas, ensuring each planet’s distinctiveness by considering their unique characteristics.

Suiting the massive soundtrack of Star Wars Outlaws, you’ll find not one but two albums available on Spotify for the game. If you’re interested in Wilbert Robet, II’s score, check out the Star Wars Outlaws: Original Video Game Soundtrack. On the other hand, if you fancy a cantina-like atmosphere, Cody Matthew Johnson’s Songs from the Underworld: Original Music from Star Wars Outlaws is perfect for you.

To find out more about how these two visionary composers went about creating the music for Star Wars Outlaws, read on for our exclusive interview with Cody Matthew Johnson and Wilbert Roget, II. I recommend throwing on one of the soundtracks in the background for the full experience.

Daniel Roman greets Wilbert and Cody: “Hey there, I appreciate you being here! Let’s kick things off. Can you tell us how you two got connected with the Star Wars Outlaws crew?

Wilbert Roget II worked within LucasArts from 2008-2013, giving him prior experience with the Star Wars franchise. His roles included music editing and implementation on the Force Unleashed series, composing for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and working on an unreleased project called Star Wars: First Assault. Subsequently, he composed Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series, which caught the attention of Lucasfilm’s team, who subsequently recommended him as a composer for Star Wars Outlaws.

Following an introductory conversation with Ubisoft Massive’s audio director, Simon Koudriavsey, I created a short sample of gameplay footage along with the main character’s theme as a demonstration. This demo ultimately served as the first track in the album titled “Kay Vess – The Outlaw”. The team appreciated that my work offered a distinctive feel to the game while maintaining an undeniable Star Wars vibe, leading to my appointment as the primary composer for the project. To ensure a wide range of musical styles throughout the player’s space voyage, I enlisted Jon Everist and Kazuma Jinnouchi as my co-composers.

CODY MATTHEW JOHNSON: My role in the production of “Star Wars Outlaws” commenced during its mid-development phase, with Wilbert having already started work on the foundational elements of his score. However, I can trace its roots back about 5 years to 2019. It’s unclear whether the idea for “Star Wars Outlaws” was initially conceived by the team at Ubisoft or Lucasfilm in 2019, but it was during that year that I first met Wilbert at E3! Following the release of my music for “Resident Evil 2” and “Devil May Cry 5“, Wilbert and I crossed paths online and later connected in person during E3. What started as a casual, friendly meeting evolved into a long-lasting friendship without any formal collaboration over the years. Then, in September 2022, Wilbert approached me with the possibility of working together on a project he was involved with. Since I value our friendship highly, I was more than willing to contribute if it meant assisting my friend.

In a couple of weeks, it was revealed that the project was codenamed “Star Wars” game. I found myself in a video conference call with Simon Koudriavtsey, our Audio Director, and Music Supervisors Häkan Glante and Tobias Gustavsson, discussing the cantina music. They placed their trust in Wilbert’s suggestion that I was the ideal candidate for the role, appreciating my diverse range of abilities and experience in producing various genres of music, including songs and scores.

Since playing the unveiled “Star Wars: First Assault,” my ambition has been to contribute uniquely to the franchise through music. Instead of just replicating John Williams’ iconic scores, I aimed to incorporate instruments and musical traditions seldom heard in the series, as well as creating innovative interactive music systems that enhance gameplay. At the same time, I wanted to ensure the authentic Star Wars feel remained intact. Since “Outlaws” was an open-world game with a focus on crime syndicates and stealth tactics (rather than Jedi, Sith, or lightsaber battles), this project provided me with a unique chance to combine these elements.

My passion for folklore knows no bounds; it’s simply indescribable. For me, folklore represents an intriguing intersection of stories, fictional customs, character growth, world creation, and much more. Delving into the world and deducing reasons behind character evolution, understanding how natural resources have shaped both problems and solutions, or exploring cultural conflicts due to value differences or resource scarcity, resonates deeply with my fascination for ethnomusicology – a field that shares similarities as it studies music cultures globally, their development, and the role of music within each culture.

In the engaging world of “Star Wars Outlaws”, I found a fascinating playground that seamlessly merged my two passions: fictional mythology and ethnomusicology. Delving deeper into established settings like Tatooine and Kijimi, I immersed myself in their rich lore and how they have been portrayed historically within the “Star Wars” universe. The real excitement came with unexplored territories such as Toshara and Akiva; here, I delved into Massive Entertainment’s creative design, art, and story to understand these new planets better. This knowledge then served as a foundation for me to creatively imagine the musical representation of their cultures and speculate on how music might have evolved on these planets, resulting in the music you hear in the cantinas within the game.

In my planning for the game, I chose from the start that the points in the “Outlaws” game would primarily reflect the initial “Star Wars” film, specifically “Episode IV: A New Hope.” Since this game is set within the original trilogy and follows the beginning of protagonist Kay Vess’s journey, I believed that “A New Hope,” with its emphasis on exploration and adventure, was the most fitting comparison.

In my creation, I purposefully avoided incorporating themes directly linked to the planets or factions from the prequels and sequels because they don’t serve the same function in this game as they do in the films. However, I did draw inspiration from the Stormtroopers’ motif introduced in “Episode IV,” given their consistent presence in “Outlaws” just as they are in the movies. To add depth, I expanded their musical elements, using the same brass, snare drums, and piano that were used in the films, while also creating synth patches based on samples from all three instruments to emphasize stealth gameplay.

In my project, I engaged Kazuma Jinnouchi and Jon Everist to create the musical themes for planets Kijimi and Akiva, as well as the Ashiga Clan and Crimson Dawn factions. We interacted in person on several occasions and prepared a music style manual to record our motif notations for the planets and factions, and to monitor which distinct signature sounds would be employed for each. The sound choices for the planets were influenced by their climates and history; for factions, they were determined by the characters involved, their combat styles, their financial resources, and their ideologies.

In my previous response, I explained how each world was meticulously depicted with intricate details about its planetary biome, geographical and ecological features, extending down to the local flora and fauna. Just as music evolved not only from cultural practices but also from the availability of resources to create instruments, I created instrumentation that would be heavily impacted by the resources available on each planet. To give it a unique touch, I added a dash of “galactic space pop” flavor – the Empire’s influence is omnipresent in this timeline, much like on Coruscant! Then, I delved into the conceptual design of the music: scales, harmonic language, and rhythmic patterns. These elements were all thoughtfully designed according to the cultures expressed through each biome – Akiva has a blend of equatorial elements, Kijimi shows obvious arctic influences, and Toshara has African-like savannah vibes – and these cultures formed the foundation for reimagining unique music systems that feel both familiar yet carry an inexplicable “twist.

Essentially, our interactive music system in the open world operates on seven distinct levels. These levels consist of three different intensities each for combat, stealth (or “combat-ready” as we refer to it), and a middle ground called “hiding.” This “hiding” layer activates when enemies were involved in a previous fight, have lost track of the player, and are now actively searching. The intensity levels adjust according to the assumed difficulty of the enemies; for example, an area filled with elite guards or numerous Stormtroopers may possess a higher intensity compared to a single common enemy. Additionally, the combat-ready layers feature several sub-layers that react to enemy awareness, proximity, and player actions such as melee takedowns.

At Massive, our music architect Erik Jacobson brings prior expertise in crafting open-world soundtracks for _The Division_ franchise. Similarly, I’ve designed an open-world system for the initial version of _Dead Island 2_ at Yager Studios before its reboot. In essence, we pooled our creative ideas during a collaborative session. Over subsequent months, there was a lot of experimentation and refinement, but the objective was consistently to enhance action with greater interactivity than my previous scores for any _Star Wars_ game.

Discovering motivation lies beneath every stone, hidden behind each door, and lurking around every bend! I compiled an unofficial playlist of tunes that fueled my inspiration, consisting of pop, jazz, and post-punk from the late ’70s and early ’80s. Since our story unfolds between episodes V and VI of the original trilogy, we are squarely within the timeline of the saga, which shares a bond with the late ’70s and ’80s as it was first introduced during that era. To maintain creative consistency, we had to remain rooted in that timeframe without limiting the musical diversity of the numerous planets throughout the galaxy. However, this doesn’t restrict the musical expression of these worlds; instead, it aims to resonate with fans of the franchise and evoke memories of the popular music from our world during the release of the original Star Wars.

In my enthusiasm for ethnomusicology, a field my cousin excels in as a renowned linguist, I drew inspiration during the creation of alien languages for these tunes. As I’m not a linguist myself and wished to steer clear of established in-world languages to maintain an immersive cantina atmosphere, I opted for composing lyrics in English, imbuing each song with a forgotten narrative. To achieve a lively performance aspect, I then employed a sequence of scripts that auto-translated the lyrics into various earthly cultures reflective of each biome. Lastly, using syllabic combination scripts, I assembled new words that were familiar yet distinctly “Star Wars.

WRII: If I were to hazard a guess, it would be Cantonica. It’s basically space-Vegas, where the rich travel from far and wide to gamble and party. So one would assume they can budget the best musical acts around!

In simple terms, I believe that Cantonica, with its unique blend of rich and poor cultures, would host a diverse and influential music scene. However, in my view, it’s the neutral space stations, such as Renpali Station, which unite various syndicates and citizens from across the galaxy, that are likely to have the wildest party scenes!

We greatly appreciate Cody Matthew Johnson and Wilbert Roget, II for generously sharing their insights about their project, “Star Wars Outlaws,” during our conversation!

The game titled “Star Wars Outlaws” is currently playable on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms. The initial downloadable addition, named “Wild Card,” will be released on November 21st, with another expansion called “A Pirate’s Fortune” expected in 2025. In the “Wild Card” expansion, the character Kay Vess competes in a significant Sabacc tournament, encountering the iconic “Star Wars” figure Lando Calrissian along the way. However, she finds out that the card tournament has more to it than meets the eye.

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2024-10-28 19:42