A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

Humberly González, the actress who portrays Kay Vess in Star Wars Outlaws, says the video game industry has a lot of misogyny while also praising Ubisoft and Massive Entertainment for ensuring the only character in the game is female.

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

In an interview with CGM in the middle of August, the outlet’s Dayna Eileen asked, “So our nerdy fandoms, especially things like Star Wars, present very male-dominated, whether that’s the creative team or the fans. What’s it like to lead the charge on this both as the creative team and as the voice and the body of Star Wars Outlaws? To lead this male-dominated universe and have it be women first right now.”

The game’s main writer Nikki Foy responded by recalling a moment when she made a lightsaber at Galaxy’s Edge and then admitted she wanted to be Han Solo, “I just cried very hard the whole time because it was just like this brand meant so much to me, and I didn’t have someone like Kay to really see myself in.

She added, “I loved Princess Leia, but I wanted to be Han, right? And I think getting to bring that to life is so special. And our whole team, really, that’s been the goal from the beginning. It’s been really special.”

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

González then shared her answer, “Yes, to be a leading woman not just in a Star Wars story but in the video game industry, which also tends to have a lot of limitations and misogyny and kind of in-and-out politics of who can be a part of it and who you want to play as.”

“I am incredibly proud of the team having chosen someone like me, but also only me, that there isn’t a male counterpart to the story of Star Wars Outlaws that we are focusing on a female point of view of a scoundrel story because we’ve only really ever seen males in a scoundrel position,” she continued.

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

Next, she shared, “So the representation is incredible for me as an immigrant Latina in Canada to bring, to even get to speak about my country, about Venezuela, about what it means to me as an artist that I followed this dream not having any of my family here, not having a lot of mentors in my family or anyone to look up to or content to look up to.”

“Even in Star Wars, you know, there aren’t a lot of Latinas in this space. And so, for me, I knew that this was going to mean a lot, not just to me and my community and my family, but to everybody else who’s watching it too and playing it,” she added.

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

She then bizarrely posited, “When they go, ‘Oh, this is a cool character, I wonder where they’re from?’ and then they do the research, I just want people to feel seen and if I can be in any of those categories as a woman, a woman of colour, as an immigrant, as a Latina, any of those are so meaningful for someone who enters a franchise as big as Star Wars.”

“So for the next generation, for those little girls in Galaxy’s Edge, for the little girls watching, for anyone back home, for me, if they just simply get to see someone like them on screen, it means something to them. Feel inspired, feel strong, feel seen, feel represented. That, to me, is the goal. It’s incredible because it really is beyond just me.” she concluded.

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

Foy then chimed in, “ Yeah, and  I think, too, there’s an empathy element to it that I really love to think about. When I was a kid, I think there’s been a lot of research about this, and people who are talking about it talk about it.”

“But I think, too, it’s easy for young girls to empathize with male characters. It’s something that we’ve always been taught. And I think having this female character who everyone can love and see parts of themselves in is so exciting and fun, too,” she concluded.

Concept art for Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

This gambit does not appear to have paid off. As early sales data indicates the game is performing 55% lower than Star Wars Jedi: Survivor in the United Kingdom despite topping the sales charts in the country.

Games Industry Head Christopher Dring reported that “launch sales are 55% lower than what Star Wars Jedi: Survivor did.” He also noted it “was 15% bigger than Ubisoft Massive’s last game, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.”

Christopher Dring on X

In a follow-up he added, “So it turns out there may be some missing data from the physical numbers, so it’s worth waiting for the end of the week when the digital stats are in. Which is just true generally.”

Christopher Dring on X

True Trophies also reported the game had a mediocre debut on its Most Popular PS5 and PS4 Games chart. The game only placed in 25th out of the top 40 games.

The outlet’s Kes Eylers-Stephenson shared, “#25 is just below the middle of the chart and it sits behind pretty much every major and middling live service game in terms of popularity right now. Normally, these are the early 20s spots where PS Plus’ indie games debut — not new AAA open-world games.”

A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft

While the gambit to have Kay Vess be the main protagonist seemingly did not pay off it should not be surprising especially to Ubisoft given the Ubisoft Quebec’s Creative Scott Phillips revealed that when Assassin’s Creed Odyssey players were given the choice to choose between Alexios or Kassandra over two thirds of them chose the male character Alexios.

Phillips informed Game Informer back in 2018 via Destructoid that the split was “two third Alexois” and “one third Kassandra.”

A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (2018), Ubisoft

What do you make of González and Foy’s comments?