Star Wars Outlaws will finally let us turn off that annoying yellow paint on every climbing surface

Of all the cyclical videogame debates that crop up on social media, few get me as riled up as whether or not developers should be painting objects yellow. Making interactable objects more noticeable by painting them a distinct color isn't a new thing for games, but the specific trend of choosing bright yellow streaks to signpost anything and everything—doorways, breakable boxes, levers, ledges, rocks—has awakened a backlash from some who believe this level of handholding works against games by stealing opportunities for players to discover things on their own.

While developers are often quick to counter this feedback by reminding players that yellow paint is the result of testers getting lost in early playtests, Ubisoft Massive has come up with an interesting workaround for its upcoming Star Wars Outlaws that just might make both camps happy: an «Explorer Mode» that turns off the «guiding color on core navigational elements» in the world. In other words: a yellow paint toggle.

I tried to give the mode a spin during an extended Outlaws preview session in July, but I didn't notice a difference after turning it on. An Ubi rep eventually told me that the mode wasn't active in the early build I was playing. Bummer.

I'll surely be flipping Explorer Mode on in the final version, because by default, Star Wars Outlaws has more paint than a yellow brick road. The «guiding color» was most prevalent during Uncharted-like climbing sequences and puzzles. Yellow paint was lathered on walls of climbable steel, critical path ledges that were already obvious before their paint job, and streaked above ventilation shafts to ensure I couldn't miss them. Of course, one of the joys of non-linear stealth games is finding stuff that you genuinely could have missed—a well-hidden sewer grate, trap door, revolving bookshelf—so all this really did was make Outlaws' stealth bits less fun.

Ditching yellow paint might have some annoying consequences. Once I turn off signposting, I fully I expect