Star Wars: Outlaws’Nix, like many belovedStar Warscharacters before him,was brought to life through puppetry. While Ubisoft’s new open-world adventure game was in development, a Nix puppet was created for the motion capture process, and it definitely helped add a life-like quality to the martial character.Nix’s puppet origins follow in the footsteps of many other iconicStar Warscharacterslike Yoda, Grogu, and even Babu Frik.
While Nix is unique among the ranks of other puppets used for the purpose of creating a video game,the use of a tangible object for Nix has truly elevated the character in-game. His reactions in-game, and the reactions of the characters around him, are much more grounded and believable because Nix really did have a real presence for the actors around him.
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A Rich History Of Star Wars Puppets
Puppets With A Long History
Star Warsbegan with puppets, and thankfully, they have been making a comeback in recent years. While the original Yoda inThe Empire Strikes BackandReturn of the Jediwas a puppet with Frank Oz behind the little green swamp alien, the prequel era ofStar Warseschewed puppets in favor of entirely CGI characters.Fortunately, puppets are back in stylein theStar Warsuniverse, and that has even extended to characters inStar Warsvideo games.
Grogu is the best example of puppets successfully making a return toStar Wars.His massive success as a dominant pop culture cutie is because of his realness on screen, which is, of course, because he is a puppet aided by minimal CGI. While Nix — alongside every other character inStar Wars: Outlaws— is animated,his puppet origins give a real-life presence and personality that would not exist otherwise.
The characters interact with Nix in a grounded way that prevents him from being a forgettable companion and instead cements Nix as one of the best characters in the game in both cuteness and personality (as long as you keep Nix happy).
How Nix Was Puppeteered For Star Wars: Outlaws
A Little Blue Puppet With A Lot Of Personality
Video game companions, like Nix and BD-1 fromJedi: Fallen OrderandJedi: Survivor, are motion-captured right alongside their human – or alien – counterparts during game development. While BD-1 was represented during that process as a simple cardboard puppet,Nix’s puppet was created with detail by Camille Loiselle-D’Aragon. D’Aragon also played Nixalongside the other actors, creating the motion capture to enhance their performances for actions ranging from sharing food todistracting guards.
According to an interview withMobileSyrup, Kay Vess’s actress (Humberly González) said “I was really grateful to know that Nix actually came to life with a real puppeteer on set”, as she was nervous at first that she would have to act against a piece of tape or a tennis ball representing Nix. Instead,Nix was a life-sized puppet that would do everything a live actor would, like react to other characters, look around, and follow González around during scenes forStar Wars: Outlaws.
Eventually, Nix became so animated thatthe other actors would continue to interact with him in-between scenes by petting and speaking to him. This was helped by the fact that his puppeteer, Camille Loiselle-D’Aragon, stayed in character and continued to add more detail to Nix over time, like giving him a mouth, googly eyes, and even a tongue. This more life-like approach certainly paid off for Nix’s portrayal inStar Wars: Outlaws, as his charming personality, has already made him a fan-favoriteStar Warscharacter.
