After the Revenge and Well Before the Rise — Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

EA has made it tough to anticipate their Star Wars video game initiatives thanks to their uses of it thus far. Both Star Wars Battlefront titles were disappointing thanks to launching with a lack of, and especially thanks to the second game’s infamous microtransaction and loot box schemes. Worse, other promising titles have been cancelled, including the Ragtag Star Wars title that was in development at the also now-defunct Visceral Games and the replacement game from EA Motive. Why would anyone set themselves up for disappointment by looking forward to their further efforts?

That’s why it’s difficult to anticipate Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, despite the encouraging signs provided ahead of the reveal. It’s being developed by Respawn Entertainment, the newest studio acquired by EA, which has made a name for itself with the Titanfall titles and battle royale spinoff Apex Legends. It also presumably won’t fall victim to the issues that plagued the other EA games thanks to how it was mostly handled outside the company’s jurisdiction.

Fallen Order will be a single-player action-adventure title, the kind of game unheard of from a company that appears to be trying its best to add live service elements to all their upcoming titles. Just before the reveal, EA highlighted how this game won’t have microtransactions or loot boxes, a hell of a way to throw several of their other games under the bus — one of which just received microtransactions last week.

The first trailer is described as a “reveal trailer,” which likely pertained to the reveal of the concept considering no gameplay was shown. It featured an introduction to the story and protagonist, with visuals rendered within the game’s engine (it’s using Unreal Engine 4). This doesn’t explicitly mean the game will actually resemble the visuals in the trailer, but it doesn’t look too out of reach for current-generation consoles.

The story will be set during the dark time for the Jedi that existed between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, somewhere around the same time as other works like Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels. The main character will be Cal Kestis, a young Padawan who survived Order 66 who’s on the run from the Empire’s Purge Troopers. The biggest threat among them is the Second Sister, the elite Inquisitor seen closely pursuing him in the trailer, who’s tasked with finding and eliminating all the younglings unaccounted for during RotS’ massacre. Cal’s adventure will start on a newly-introduced planet of Bracca, and he’ll meet other new potential accomplices and familiar faces along the way. Like other Star Wars characters, he’ll also be accompanied by a droid by the name of BD-1 at all times.

This is a Star Wars game, so it’s no surprise that EA and Respawn have hired big-name talent for the acting. Cameron Monaghan (Shameless, Gotham) will be playing Cal, providing his voice and likeness. His partner, Cere, hasn’t been properly introduced, but she’s a dead ringer for Debra Wilson. She most notably played Grace Walker in Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, so she’s familiar with this process for video games.

It’s a pity they’re making us wait in order to see how this game looks in motion, and are leaving us with light details at the moment. Respawn’s developers say the combat will be easy to pick up and play but tough to master, reminiscent of, well, nearly every other ostensibly good combat system in recent memory. Cal is a Jedi in training, and will use a mixture of lightsaber combat and Force techniques. The game will also have platforming and puzzle solving, so it won’t be all about fighting. This isn’t much to go on, but it hints at what kind of action game this will be.

We’ll likely have to wait until EA’s definitely-not-E3 EA Play event to see the actual game. Given current details, though, it should be in good hands. Fallen Order is being directed by Stig Asmussen, who worked on several God of War games during his time at Sony Santa Monica, and previously directed God of War III. The gameplay details mentioned above bring the God of War games made prior to the 2018 soft reboot to mind, but this won’t be confirmed until the gameplay reveal.

EA has done a terrible job with the Star Wars license since obtaining it, regardless of the difficulties involved with game development these days. If it turns out as well as promised, Fallen Order will be the start of turning their reputation around. Note that this will happen in spite of their efforts and not because of them if that’s the case, since EA doesn’t have as much control over Respawn (yet) as they do with other companies they own.

Fallen Order will release on November 15th of this year for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC via Origin. The release date means they can’t hide it for long, so look forward to the gameplay reveal in about two months.