The Force is strong with this one.
Outside of a rather unceremonious title reveal at last year’s EA press conference at E3, not much was known about Jedi: Fallen Order until this year’s Star Wars Celebration convention in Chicago, where developer Respawn Games blew the lid off the game with an hour-long live panel in front of a packed Star Wars loving crowd. At the panel, Respawn debuted a new cinematic trailer, discussed some big story, setting, and character details, and even unveiled the game’s new droid, an adorable little robot named BD-1 who looks like a sentient version of Luke Skywalker’s Macrobinoculars from A New Hope. We learned that the story features new Star Wars hero Cal Kestis, a Jedi padawan trying his best to lay low after the Empire’s Order 66 was enacted to (almost successfully) wipe out all Jedi from the galaxy.
Cal will use lightsaber and hand to hand combat skills (on top of new skills he’ll learn throughout the campaign) to survive and take down waves of troopers, assassins, and evil Empire thugs while putting together the pieces of his own past. This is decidedly a single-player action game with a focus on combat and traversal over stealth, and most importantly for anyone recently burned by EA published Star Wars games, a game with no microtransactions and no multiplayer.
While the recent Star Wars Battlefront games have been rock solid and immensely popular, they’ve all been primarily multiplayer focused. Sure, 2015’s Battlefront had some single-player arcade modes and 2017’s Battlefront 2 included a full-on story campaign - albeit a fairly short one - EA hasn’t really serviced single player Star Wars fans since acquiring the Star Wars license years ago. To throw salt in the wound, that’s been aggravated by the fact that several high profile single-player Star Wars games have been canceled over the last few years. That means there hasn’t truly been a game to fit this description since the last Star Wars: Force Unleashed game was released nearly a decade ago. Suffice to say, a brand new story-driven Star Wars game that doesn’t feel like a side mode to a multiplayer game is fantastic news.
Then there’s the pedigree of the studio behind it. Respawn Games - hot off the surprise success of their recently launched Apex Legends, a first-person Battle Royale game, has a strong history of making great games. The studios’ 2016 sleeper hit Titanfall 2 featured one of the best story campaigns ever featured in a first-person shooter, and it’s also proof that they’re capable of bringing together lush alien worlds, cool heroes, and giant mechanical weaponry, all of which are featured strongly in Star Wars lore. All of this potential has a very strong chance in materializing into an excellent story driven Star Wars game, and one that fans have been asking for repeatedly over the last ten years.
So what do we want to see? Story details, character art, and cinematic trailers are all well and good, but video games are meant to be played, so EA’s E3 showcase is the perfect place to debut our first look at Jedi: Fallen Order gameplay. The game is getting a devoted section of EA’s E3 live stream so we have no doubt that this is when we’ll first get to see it being played. The things we’re most excited to see are the scale and scope of the environments and worlds, and of course, how combat will evolve and improve as your hero gets stronger.
Will you be able to upgrade your lightsaber? Use your droid to scout hidden Jedi temples, read ancient texts, and learn new Force skills? What about controlling Titanfall-sized vehicles, just with a Star Wars twist? The idea of riding an AT-ST, AT-DP, or even a Rancor into battle would be absolutely amazing. As for the world itself, we know it’s not an open world game, but will it be sized like a recent Tomb Raider or God of War game, meaning it will have plenty of areas to explore? Or will it be narrow and tightly focused but still take us to a ton of different environments and settings? All of these things remain to be seen and hopefully E3 brings the answers we’re looking for.
So what do you want to see at E3 for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order? Let us know in the comments.
Brian Altano is a host and producer at IGN. Follow him on Twitter.
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