Ubisoft’s upcoming Star Wars Outlaws game has been accused of assassinating the game’s main female protagonist, Kay Vess, and turning her into a “chestless Karen”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
The accusation comes from X user MangaLawyer, who shared two side by side photos of Kay Vess alongside actress Humberly González.
MangaLawyer wrote, “Total Videogame character assassination by feminist developers: Star Wars Outlaws 2024.”
He added, “They are taking all the beautiful models and turning them into chestless Karens.”
Total Videogame character assassination by feminist developers: Star Wars Outlaws 2024
They are taking all the beautiful models and turning them into chestless Karens 💀 pic.twitter.com/OSPMstsaMh
— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) March 5, 2024
In a follow-up post, he also criticized how Ubisoft changed her chin writing, “And always the chin.
And always the chin 😆 pic.twitter.com/K52gXToUeo
— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) March 5, 2024
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Back in June 2023, Ubisoft released a spotlight on Kay Vess and showed behind-the-scenes work where Humberly González confirmed she plays the character saying, “Hi, my name is Humberly González and I play Kay Vess in Star Wars Outlaws.
She went on to describe the character, “Kay Vess is a thief. She’s a scoundrel. She’s really good at sneaking around. She’s charming and she’ll like talk to you, but she’s already taking all your things. She isn’t perfect at it, but she always seems to get away with it.”
In the video, the game’s Narrative Director Navid Khavari also stated, “We worked with Lucasfilm every step of the way in crafting the story. And they were an invaluable partner in helping us create and craft this thing. They were really embracing us with open arms in terms of, ‘Hey, we want to focus on the underworld. We want to focus on an outlaw navigating through that space.’ But were sort of there to help guide and point out like, ‘Hey, here’s an opportunity you might have not looked at, or there’s a character you might want to consider.'”
He added, “So really it was a partnership through and through.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
Later in the video Khavari added, “Humberly’s energy, her humor, her wit, all of that really has kind of helped inform the character. She has a way of jumping between that matinee action, high stakes tone to shifting to really intimate, really personal performance that make you connect to Kay.”
He later added, “It kind of feels like she was always meant to be Kay. She informs it in every way.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
As for the character’s inspiration, the game’s Creative Director Julian Gerighty explained to Edge Magazine via Games Radar, “When you think of a scoundrel, your mind goes to Han Solo, it goes to Lando, it goes to Indiana Jones, to James Bond, to Captain Jack Sparrow.”
He added, “It was super selfish. It was the fantasy I connected with the most in the original [Star Wars] trilogy – as a kid, I was a much, much bigger fan of Han Solo and Chewbacca than any of the others.”
He then explained that the team wanted her to be “a little bit more relatable.” So they made her “more of a rookie, a petty thief, who ends up in a situation that’s much bigger than they ever expected.”
Gerighty concluded, “This little fish in a *colossal* pond, dealing with sharks and barracudas.”
A screenshot from Star Wars Outlaws (2024), Ubisoft
What do you make of MangaLawyer’s accusations regarding Kay Vess and Star Wars Outlaws?
