Wilbert Roget II Details What Drew Him To Star Wars Outlaws

“They Wanted A More Adventurous Take On Star Wars Music”

Screen Rant: You’ve worked in this universe for a while. What was the thing that set this apart in the biggest way from your past Star Wars projects?

Wilbert Roget: I think the two biggest ones were the gameplay and what they wanted creatively. It’s an open-world game but, from my perspective, the more important thing was that now we have such a focus on stealth gameplay in particular. In previous Star Wars games that I'd worked on, we didn't really have that. We sort of did on Force Unleashed II a tiny little bit, but it was never as detailed as it is here, and it wasn't a true stealth system. It was, “You're either in combat or you're not.”

In Outlaws, not only is there a Splinter Cell-influenced stealth mechanic, but you can go in and out of stealth at any time and enemies can lose track of you. There are times when enemies are hunting you down because they know you're there somewhere, but they've lost track of where exactly you are. We needed to develop a very dynamic music system that was systemic. It wasn't just a scripted thing or a switch—it was a fully dynamic interactive music system.

Stylistically, the reason why I said yes to the project in the first place was because they wanted a more adventurous take on Star Wars music. They didn't want it just to have the John Williams orchestral music influence from the films. They wanted something else, and they didn't even know exactly what that was, but they knew that they wanted a unique sound for Outlaws. That really enticed me, because I'd already done the John Williams sound, particularly the prequel sound, many times before, and I was interested in doing something different, especially considering I'd done Mortal Kombat scores, Call of Duty, and Helldivers [2] before this. I wanted something that continued on from the kinds of music that I was doing for those titles rather than just being the more stereotypical Star Wars sound.

Roget Reacts To Star Wars Outlaws “First Open-World Star Wars Game” Criticism

“I’m Not Really Sure Where Exactly The Criticism Is Coming From”

So much is being made of this as the first Star Wars open-world game. When the marketing came out, I saw a lot of people talking about the fact that games like Star Wars: The Old Republic already had huge open worlds that could be explored. As the composer of Star Wars: The Old Republic, how did you feel about that?

Wilbert Roget: I don't really understand exactly where that criticism is coming from. Obviously, the team at BioWare EA did such an incredible job with The Old Republic, so I'm sure that they're not in any way trying to diminish that. But, I mean, there's a world of difference between a massive MMO title and an open-world title in the style of Outlaws. I never would've considered them to be anywhere near the same genre. So, I'm not really sure where exactly the criticism is coming from, but that's just me.

I play a lot of open-world titles. One of my favorites was Ghost of Tsushima or the Infamous series, and you can see a lot more in common with those than you can see with the Old Republic, which is a totally different style of gameplay. I mean, there are open-world aspects to it just due to the nature of the game, but it's one of those cases where you only have so many words in an article or a soundbite, and you choose your words as carefully as you can, but inevitably someone is going to misinterpret that in certain ways.

A Key Component Of Star Wars Outlaws Was Developing The Scoundrel Sound

“I’m Using Whatever Random Implements I Can”

There is a Jedi sound in Star Wars, and there is an Empire sound in Star Wars. How did you start figuring out what it meant to score the world of Outlaws?

Wilbert Roget: That was one of the most important things that the team at Ubisoft stressed—that we needed to find a scoundrel sound. We needed to find a sound for this type of character that is not a Jedi or a Sith, or anyone on either of those teams. I don't want to spoil things, but very early on in the game, certain things happen that even put her at odds with the Rebels. Kay Vess is her own thing, and so we had to have a sound that ed that. From my perspective, my idea was to do three things. One was to have a focus on solo instruments and melody that would carry her character. For the main theme, “Kay Vess, The Outlaw”, I used the electric violin to play her melody and sort of be that character.

The other part, and you'll hear this a lot in the stealth music in particular, [is that] I do a lot with what I might call “elemental sounds.” What I mean by that is I have a whole rack of Foley “instruments”— different percussive things that are not real instruments. They're just bottles of wine, beer, coffee tins, and random things where I just thought, “This is a pretty cool sound. Let me clean this and then save it,” and that's a huge part of what I would call the scoundrel sound.

I'm thinking of Kay Vess and how she solves problems, and she's very much an improviser. She doesn't have the best gear, the best equipment, the best training, or anything. She's just using whatever she can get her hands on, and that's how she's succeeding. I figure, “Okay, well, why don't I do the same as a composer?” I don't have very expensive instruments that I'm using for this character. Instead, I'm using whatever random implements I can and trying to make something musical of that.

Even with the real instruments that I use, sometimes I'll use them with unusual techniques. For example, I'll use guitars quite frequently, but maybe I'll hit them with sticks or play on the wrong side of the string—near the tuning peg, so you get just the one pitch. [I use] different techniques to get a unique sound that sounds improvised and has that kind of character.

The last bit is [that] we did use quite a lot of synthesis. One thing that we discovered early on was that we wanted an analog synth style. Believe it or not, John Williams does use quite a lot of analog synth in his Star Wars scores. There are analog synths in the original trilogy as well, most notably, in—it has different titles depending on which soundtrack you get—“The Magic Tree”, where Luke goes into the tree and sees Darth Vader on Dagobah. There's very prominent synth usage there, so it felt like it made total sense. Analog synths actually blend incredibly well with the orchestra. If you listen to almost any Han Zimmer score, you'll hear that blend, and it works really well because you're getting two analog sound sources. So, we did a lot with analog synthesis on Star Wars Outlaws blending with the orchestration.

Roget Reveals Where Star Wars Outlaws’ Modern Sounds Came From

“In A Word, Selfishness” (And Two Korg Synths)

I don’t know if you’re actually using 808s (for non-musicians, the Roland TR-808 drum machine has a famously booming bass drum that is popular to this day), but my thought while playing the game was, “I’ve never heard so many 808s in Star Wars.” What made you want to lean into that kind of modern synth music in a way that’s even less subtle than the John Williams piece you’re referencing?

Wilbert Roget: In a word, selfishness. And opportunism. I think, as a composer, you always have to write what is interesting to you. You have to think, “Well, what is it that's going to hold my interest for the next potentially two or three years?” And, at the time I started Star Wars Outlaws, I was really getting into synthesis and developing new sounds. I had bought some new gear, and it made sense at the time to use it because I wanted the game to have a modern sound and something different from what we'd heard before.

I don't use 808s, but what I used a lot were these small Korg synths. The Korg Volca Sample and Korg Volca Drum were very useful for getting what’s almost like a low-tech high-tech sound. They're very simple machines, but they have a very powerful sound. You record them, create some kind of a beat on there, put it into the computer, do whatever effects you want, and there is just a unique blend of timbres that you can get.

As a gamer myself, I love hearing rhythm and interesting syncopations and beats, and I didn't really find any reason why I couldn't do that for a Star Wars score. It actually never even occurred to me that this might be strange, because if you think about it, the way John Williams writes for Star Wars is all about rhythms and syncopations. That’s really what makes Star Wars music shine. He's constantly having really interesting rhythms within the orchestra, so it just made sense that maybe I could use some synth drums or synth bass to do the same thing.

Star Wars Outlaws’ Stealth Sequences Required A “Wild, Crazy” Music System

“We Can Have The Computer Assemble It In Real Time”

I’m really curious about how music implementation works in regard to stealth, as you mentioned earlier. How did you work with the team to put your music in, and even write music that works with that system?

Wilbert Roget: These drum machines, other synth sources, and other non-orchestral elements were really what allowed us to have a full stealth and combat system. We needed things outside the orchestra to make sure that as you were switching states and going to and from different intensities, there was something that we could freely manipulate in real-time. You can only do so much with the orchestra in of manipulating it in real-time, remixing, and rearranging, especially with the Star Wars orchestra where there's such an expectation of a more traditional orchestration. That’s actually the real answer as to why we used so much synth percussion and synthesis.

In of how we came up with the system, we knew that there would be different intensity levels. We narrowed it down to three basic intensities—low, medium, and high—and we said, “What are the basic AI states?” They are either in combat, they're completely out of combat, or they were in combat, but they've lost track of Kay, and they know she's around there somewhere. We call that hiding.

For these three states and these three intensity levels, we had cues that could freely cross-fade in and amongst themselves. It was essentially a seven-layer dynamic system for combat. We would have the strings and brass separate from each other so the low-intensity combat cue might have only strings and then various percussion or synths, but once you get into a medium intensity, it can add brass and woodwinds into the mix. Finally, for the highest intensity, the brass and woodwinds stay the same, but the string parts are now intensified, so we have a different of strings. This allowed us to cross-fade very seamlessly, because there's always some element that's still from the previous intensity level. Then, of course, the percussion, synths, synth drums and whatnot can be different for each layer.

It was the same thing with the stealth music, but the non-combat cues have a little bit of a more complicated setup. They're actually multilayered so that we can have non-looping music. Essentially, we've abstracted the idea of a stealth Star Wars cue so that we can have the computer assemble it in real time rather than it being a single through-composed piece of music. And it has all of its different layers, so it's actually more like 13 layers or some absurd thing like that. The team at Massive did an incredible job of co-deg and implementing this wild, crazy system that we'd come up with.

Roget Reveals The One Theme He Took From Star Wars & Shares New Favorites

“For The Needs Of The Game, It Made Sense To Do Our Own Themes”

In this game, we're revisiting a lot of places players have seen before, like Kijimi and Tatooine, and then there are even specific characters like Qi’ra and Jabba the Hutt. Did you want to borrow direct thematic material from any of the movies, or were you feeling like it was more appropriate to do your own thing?

Wilbert Roget: For the needs of the game, it made sense to do our own themes, just because the way themes work in this game is a little bit more overt than they are in the prequels and sequels. [Even] the Imperial themes weren't even that appropriate for what we're dealing with because, again, we're not really dealing with the Sith or the Jedi, and our relationships with any of these characters are very different. We're trying to work for Jabba the Hutt—we're not working against him or running away from him. Same with Qi’ra, because we're a part of the criminal underworld rather than it being this side thing.

The only theme that I carried over from the original films was the stormtroopers’ theme from Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. That was crucial to all of our Imperial music, because we didn't necessarily have the concept of the Darth Vader Empire. This was more about the local governors, and the stormtroopers, and our relationship with them. I carried that over and tried to expand on it as much as I could throughout all the Imperial music. Otherwise, I have a theme for the Hutt cartel, which is greatly influenced by Jabba the Hutt’s theme. It uses tuba in a certain melodic way, but it's its own separate thing.

Do you have a new theme that you’re happiest about?

Wilbert Roget: “The Trailblazer” theme is very important because as the game goes along, it sort of becomes a second main theme to the game. It's not just a theme for the ship. That’s what initially I was asked to do, but it became a theme for the ship, its crew, and the sense of adventure—this idea of found family as Kay is finally assembling a crew and trusting them, and they become her real family as the game goes along. It's very important to the themes of the game itself.

I do have to say that it's very rare that I get to write character themes for games, so it was such a pleasure to be able to write character themes. Not just for Kay, but also for ND-5 and Nix and Riko, who is Kay Vess’ mom. I loved writing Riko's theme because I was given a character bio outlining a bunch of stuff that's not even in the game, but was talking about her history. It resonated with me so much that when I wrote her theme, it was almost like a timeline of her history. I won't spoil it, but the idea is that she starts in a certain place. It shows that she is a slicer, but she's also kind of nomadic, and she's never really able to settle in any one space. It goes through different moments in her life, moments of, “Maybe she can settle. Maybe she can have a family or a lover,” but then it moves on in certain ways, and then Kay Vess happens.

ND-5’s theme was another favorite of mine. I love the idea that we just put a duster on a robot and called it a day. It's such a unique character design. Then, once I read up on his history, I thought, “Man, what a film noir, tortured character.” I can almost see him as a private detective in black and white, and he’s got a bottle of whiskey on his desk or something. So, I wrote a piece that calls forth that sort of vibe. I played guitar on it ,and I really enjoyed working with that style of harmony.

It was the same for Nix’s theme. In Nix’s case, the audio director actually had the idea of, “Maybe we can start it off with a timeline of Nix being born into captivity, but then Kay discovers and frees Nix, and then they’re on an adventure together.” So, it has this three-part thing where it starts off with this almost prison-like lugubrious sound, but then it has this melodic section of the love between Kay and her pet. Then, it goes into this very adventurous, very Irish and African music-influenced upbeat section.

Why Roget Invited Other Composers To Him On Star Wars Outlaws

Roget’s Response To Being Asked To Score The Full Game: “Absolutely Not”

There were other composers involved as well. How did you all divvy up the work and decide what you were going to take on?

Wilbert Roget: [Ubisoft and Massive] came to me at first and said, “We would like you to do all of it,” and I was like, “Absolutely not. No way I can do all that within any amount of time.” So, the first thing I did was say, “We need to find a cantina music composer with enough diversity in their stylistic output and resources that they can just handle it.” That’s why I recommended Cody Matthew Johnson to the Ubisoft team, and they did a phenomenal job. I mean, it just sounds like reality. The greatest thing about this game, in my opinion, is the immersion. For me, there's nothing cooler than when I’m just walking around the city and in the distance, I can hear some cantina music blasting and I'm like, “Oh, what's that?”. Then, you go in, and it's completely immersed you.

On top of that, I hired Jon Everest and Kazuma Jinnouchi. I wanted this to feel like a true adventure, and I felt like if I were doing the music for every single planet and every single faction, it would kind of lose that because you wouldn't get the diversity you need for selling the illusion that we're going off into different cultures and different planets. It was kind of a back-and-forth between the three of us as to who did what, but eventually we decided that Kazuma wanted to do the planet Kijimi and the Ashiga Clan, who are very closely associated with Kijimi. He had experience writing with that Japanese cultural influence and traditional style. I loved his music to Metal Gear and to Ghost in the Shell in particular, so I wanted him to draw from that for the stealth music. In addition to that, he also wrote for Star Wars Visions, so he had some Star Wars experience.

Jon wrote for the Crimson Dawn faction and the Planet Akiva. Rights before Outlaws, Jon did a score for a game called Disintegration, which I thought had brilliant use of synthesis. He married the synths with very carefully thought-out orchestration, and I loved that sound. It just made so much sense to bring him in here. He didn't have as much Star Wars or traditional orchestra experience, but I knew he had [great] production chops and could sort of a different vibe to it, which worked beautifully. He wrote such gorgeous music for Akiva, and he has all of this hard-hitting synthesis for the Crimson Dawn faction.

About Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws is the first-ever open-world Star Wars game, set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. This narratively driven, single-player game features Kay Vess, a scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix. Players will fight, steal, and outwit their way through the galaxy’s crime syndicates and the galaxy’s most wanted.

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Star Wars Outlaws

Open-World

Action-Adventure

Systems

8/10

7.5/10

OpenCritic Reviews

Top Critic Avg: 75/100 Critics Rec: 67%

Released

August 30, 2024

ESRB

T For Teen // Violence, Simulated Gambling, Mild Language

Developer(s)

Massive Entertainment

Publisher(s)

Ubisoft, Lucasfilm Games

Engine

Snowdrop

Franchise

Star Wars

Set between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Outlaws is an open-world action-adventure game where players hop into the scoundrel boots of Kay Vess, a woman who travels the galaxy Looking for a better life. Together with her furry partner Nix and new allies she meets along the way, Kay will navigate the various landscapes, towns, and planets across the galaxy while outsmarting both Crime Syndicates and the Empire.

Platform(s)

PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S

PS Plus Availability

N/A

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