ND-5 from Star Wars Outlaws has risen through the ranks as one of my favourite Star Wars characters, and the game isn’t even out yet.
After learning more about the character from Jay Rincon, the actor tasked with bringing the character to life for the players, I couldn’t be more excited to see more of the brooding battle droid, and what appearances he could make outside of Ubisoft’s open-world Star Wars game…
Check out our video preview for Star Wars Outlaws below
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Star Wars Outlaws is Ubisoft’s first game in the beloved sci-fi franchise, and has already added several characters and locations that have quickly become valued parts of the canon, like Kay Vess, ND-5 and the adorable little critter Nix.
Speaking about what it's like to be a part of that vast sci-fi universe, and joining a long line of iconic droid characters in the process, Jay described it as “incredible.”
“It was something that was obviously on my mind, when I found out I had the job and found out what it actually was, the droids like you said, they are iconic and they all kind of have a similar melody and cadence.
“There's a lot of humour in there. But the goal is to, you know, stand up to the reputation, and the stories that have already been told with droids and put our own little spin on it. Hopefully people enjoy it. I'm so excited to see what people make of him. (ND-5)”
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While Jay lent his voice to the character he also joined the rest of the cast during the mocap, which sounded like quite the challenge since ND-5 doesn’t have a face capable of expression.
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When asked if it was a challenge to bring such a stoic character to life through voice and movement alone, Jay said “It was a challenge and I welcomed it from day one.
He went on to say “You don't have a face in the mocap so it really is all through the voice, but then we limited it a little bit more You are a BX Commando droid from the Clone Wars, but at this point in our story, He's much older so you're moving with even less energy, if you will.
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“You've limited your range of expression and emotion but I don't think it stopped us … I think we found a really sweet spot.”
Now I simply couldn’t talk about ND-5 without bringing up the surprising reaction from fans when he was first unveiled as part of the cast. I don’t know whether it was just a joke turned real or whether people are genuinely that down bad but for whatever reason the thirst for ND-5 was non-stop after that first reveal. I can totally see why too, as he’s got that space cowboy vibe whilst also being a badass droid, but what I really wanted to know was whether that was an intentional decision by Ubisoft to make him attractive.
When I asked Jay about his thoughts on all the ND-5 thirst traps, and whether “kinda sexy” was on the character notes he said “I love it. I love it. And no, we were not expecting it at all. You always want a positive response but no … we didn't show up like ‘hey, man let's make this guy sexy.’ No, just wasn't on any of our thoughts. And I kind of wish we did so we could take credit for it haha”
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Jay went on to say he wasn’t even aware of the reaction at first, saying “I wasn't dialled into social media but was asked ‘have you seen what's happening?’ When I first did you're always like, ‘Oh, what is it? Oh, oh, my god.’"
Apparently everyone on the team welcomed the response though, as Jay described it as “wonderful” and “a testament to the work that we did put in and maybe we should have not been too surprised when we created this brooding, surly, you know, kind of cowboy-ish, droid. And then we gave him the duster. I never thought like, oh, wow, this guy, this droid’s got stuff going on. I do hope that we at least live up to the expectations in some way so that we don't lose any kind of fire or passion.”
Now as ND-5 is joining an ever-expanding cast of compelling Star Wars droids, I had to know if he had a favourite, or any that he’d like to see ND-5 hang out with one day.
“Okay, so I've actually thought about it … I kind of feel like R2-D2 and ND-5 would be alright. You know those two have got lots of attitude, they’re super resourceful, don’t really care what anyone thinks. I think those two could get into some trouble, and ND-5 doesn't talk that much. So I think R2 would appreciate that”
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Jay also added that he’d have loved to see HK-47 from Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic and ND-5 link up, saying “I think if you got those two together that's gonna be a bad time in the bar for everybody else!”
For the final question I wanted to know if he could envision ND-5 becoming a more prominent figure in the Star Wars galaxy, and maybe expanding his appearances to a Star Wars movie or TV series.
As you might expect, he said “that is absolutely what I want to see out of this … of course. I hope that, you know, everyone falls in love with ND-5 as much as I have and appreciates all of the work that not just myself, obviously, the hundreds and thousands of artists and creatives that worked so hard to build this. And if you all enjoy it as much as we hope you do, and as much as I do. Yeah. it'd be great to see if there was a calling for that to happen.”
ND-5 will join Kay Vess’ crew on 30 August later this year, when Star Wars Outlaws launches for Xbox, PlayStation and PC platforms.
Topics: Interview, Star Wars, Ubisoft, Star Wars Outlaws , Xbox, PlayStation, PC