Stormtrooper-ing the colour.
Image credit: Ubisoft
The Star Wars Outlaws team has devised a solution to that ‘yellow paint’ debate.
Many video game developers have introduced yellow paint into their games, as a way of signposting players where to go next. Not sure where to climb? Look for the yellow scuffs on the cliff side. If it’s a building, maybe look out for a yellow drainpipe or window ledge. Resident Evil even features yellow locks for players to pick.
Needless to say, yellow paint – or indeed any brightly coloured marker – is a pretty common occurrence across the video game landscape. It is a useful accessibility tool for many players. And, this same paint-based path finder also features in Star Wars Outlaws. That is, unless you don’t want it to.
At a press event earlier this month, PC Gamer confirmed that the upcoming Star Wars game will include an ‘Explorer Mode’ for those who, quite simply, want to turn off the guiding colour markers.
Reporter Morgan Park said they didn’t get the chance to experience Outlaws in Explorer Mode during the preview, but they would probably use it on the game’s release, as the yellow paint otherwise was quite prominent, particularly during climbing sections and puzzles.
It bears saying, Star Wars Outlaws is by no means the only game to allow players to toggle a guiding colour on or off.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which was released back in 2018, offered players the chance to independently adjust difficulty for puzzles, traversal and combat. Flick traversal to easy, and white marks would show up on the path Lara should take. Scale the difficulty up to harder modes, however, and those handily painted points will be gone.
But, even with these games giving players the option to curate their guidance experiences, the yellow paint debate has been ongoing for many, many years. Most recently, in February of this year, the demo for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth got players in a bit of a tizz due to that sunshine yellow colour being splashed across rock faces.
Hopefully Outlaws’ Explorer Mode will placate those who prefer to make their leaps of faith a little less obvious.
For more, our Ian recently went hands on with Star Wars Outlaws, and enjoyed his experience with the game. “It’s not quite the Star Wars GTA that a lot of people were hoping for, but if you’re after a familiar, inoffensive bit of Star Wars, I don’t think this one will miss the mark,” he wrote in Eurogamer’s Star Wars Outlaws preview.
You can listen to Ian and VG247’s Jim chatting more about Star Wars Outlaws in the video above.
