On Tuesday, EA announced that Respawn entertainment would continue to stake its claim in the Star Wars universe with a whopping three games in development for the license. At first blush, this may seem like a surprisingly heavy commitment with a studio that only has so much development bandwith. However, this move fits right in line with how Disney is shepherding Star Wars and the rest of its brands. Having spent the Disney era flipping between excitement and exhaustion, one truth is clear to me, a truth the executives also know: Star Wars is all about momentum. A good piece of Star Wars content makes the brain crave even more of the iconic sights and sounds of that universe. Inversely, a lousy piece of Star Wars media can sour the brand in the future.
At this current moment, I’ve achieved 100% LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga again, to no one’s benefit. I’ve been keeping up with The Book of Boba Fett, despite having no interest in the show before release. I even put Solo on my watchlist, because surely it can’t be all that bad? The start to this current Star Wars kick is a video game, one that is very relevant to this moment. It’s none other than Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Taken on its own merits, Jedi doesn’t quite warrant one of my writeups. There’s nothing I could say about playing the game moment-to-moment that isn’t apparent from looking at footage. But in the game’s context within the development of the Star Wars brand, we can appreciate what the game did. Fallen Order is a franchise flashpoint that helped herald an unambiguous trade of prestige away from Star Wars feature films and towards traditionally “lesser” storytelling media.
The Disney era of Star Wars is full of tumult. At certain times, it’s practically a period of civil war. We live in a nostalgia-driven culture, and no company has a greater breadth of nostalgic IP than Disney. Walt himself practically invented selling that feeling to the masses. But while the ultra-safe The Force Awakens began Disney’s stewardship with a complete commercial success, future movies saw diminishing returns. The initial high of Star Wars being back wore off. That paired with two filmmakers vehemently attempting to undo each other’s work caused the sequel trilogy to end with a thud. The Rise of Skywalker climaxes the hastily-branded Skywalker Saga by calling the bluff of everyone saying, “They can’t do worse than the prequels!” To disclose, I never saw the movie myself, but when my brother described people walking out of theaters in the last ten minutes, I decided that I didn’t need to make it happen. (If you are a defender of the Rise of Skywalker, by all means let me know. You would simply be the first person I’ve ever seen hold that position.)
But if the state of movies under Disney’s Star Wars was rocky in those years, video games were a black hole. The voices of LucasArts fans cried out in terror the day the exclusive rights to Star Wars games were contracted to Electronic Arts. At the start of 2019, what fruit bore from that deal? Multiple canceled projects, an underwhelming reboot of Star Wars Battlefront, a sequel to that reboot which sparked an industry-wide revolt against loot boxes, some mobile games, and Darth Vader in The Sims. Even LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which EA was not involved in, is much worse than the other LEGO Star Wars games. And I would know, I have a degree in LEGO games. As far as game enthusiasts were concerned, the EA deal was a horrible decision.
First impressions of Respawn’s contribution to the portfolio were not promising, either. It began with Vince Zampella awkwardly dropping the title from an audience seat at E3. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a name ravaged by focus groups. It’s a very bad name. The premise for the game, a Jedi on the run between prequel and original trilogies, was one already worn thin in the extended universe. Then, the project went dark. Respawn was well-liked then – seriously, Titanfall 2’s campaign is a 10/10 – but EA, as usual, projected a desire to undermine its own studios at every turn. Ah, hell, why not use another hackneyed Star Wars reference here? As Respawn soared down the Death Star trench, watching all its friends go down in flames, it launched that one-in-a-million shot and saved the universe. Not only is Jedi: Fallen Order a good game, it singlehandedly rekindled EA’s interest in narrative single-player titles. Now THAT is a feat.
Fallen Order largely keeps that dangerous balance between familiar and different that is tantamount to selling fans on current Star Wars. Sure, you go to Kashyyyk for about the millionth time in a video game. But you also explore brand-new planets that meaningfully add to the Star Wars mythos. Cal Kestis starts his journey on Bracca, breaking down wrecked remnants of the Clone Wars for scrap. We’ve seen Rey do this in The Force Awakens, but here Respawn shows us the organized effort that would be necessary for the Empire to totally bury history 20 years after it formed. On Zeffo, Cal encounters the ruins of an alien race that leads to yet another perspective on the Force. Their massive puzzle tombs are unlike anything seen in the universe so far. The climax takes place in an imperial base beneath the seas. Not only is it visually striking, but it also fits right in with the Empire’s penchant for installations that look cool, safety be damned. Respawn even blends the old and new by taking Cal to planets first seen in The Clone Wars animated series. The only time Fallen Order feels pandering is with its few extended cameos of movie characters. These were of course spoiled by marketing, and it feels like the writers blew their load too early by not trusting their story to have a fulfilling arc without franchise icons.
The thing is, the characters introduced in Fallen Order are strong enough. The student/mentor/funny alien dynamic isn’t exactly revolutionary, but there’s enough spin to invest players. Cal and Cere share a self-hatred over their perceived failures during the Jedi purge. They’ve both regressed and lost touch with the Force. How can a teacher guide a student on a path she herself has given up on? The answer here is a lot less muddled than whatever Luke Skywalker ended up with. Compared to most funny aliens, Greez has a surprising number of dimensions. He’s a pilot, cook, gambler, gardener, germaphobe, and in love with Yaddle of all beings. This elevates him from being a simple chauffeur, and while his arc isn’t dramatically played out on screen, his dialogue always has a humorous heart. Merrin is a character I’m desperate to see more of in the sequel. Despite being the apparent sole survivor of a genocide, she has a sly prankish streak, and her interactions are adorable. Sadly, she joins just as the game is ending. Finally, like any Star Wars thing worth its salt, Fallen Order knows which villains to give pathos to and which to make hand-wringingly evil.
Fallen Order’s story leaves plenty of loose ends for a sequel, but it was in the act of play that I was most anticipating a follow-up. As I said, it’s a good game, well-designed and engaging. I didn’t say it was polished. Weird animations happen with just a little prodding. Dialogue can sometimes play in the wrong context. Physics behave uncontrollably during supposedly automated set pieces. Debra Wilson’s powerful performance as Cere is slightly undercut by her character model’s bulging frog eyes. On a macro level, Fallen Order’s design is cobbled from other popular third-person games, which can lead to incongruity. I have yet to play a game where I enjoy the corpse run mechanic, and Fallen Order didn’t convince me. Thankfully, it’s not annoying in this game, but it’s not meaningfully additive. You temporarily lose your experience until you land a hit on the enemy that did you in. Fallen Order is a linear game, so you would almost certainly be going back that way anyway. That and the whole bonfire mechanic feel like they were only included because From games are in vogue. As far as combat goes, I’m honestly too bad at this type of game to give meaningful critique. I enjoy the lightsaber styles, and the only thing I ask for is the ability to cut more things in the sequel.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is not quite its best self, but it still proved everyone wrong. So, where are we now? Fallen Order on its own would not have been enough to counteract The Rise of Skywalker, but fortunately, another lauded piece of the Star Wars puzzle released in 2019. It’s a little show called The Mandalorian. Their combined success was able to capture that momentum and refocus Disney’s attention towards their until-then neglected markets. Remember when they said Rian Johnson would be directing his own trilogy of Star Wars movies? Meaning he would have directed as many as George Lucas? Everyone seems to have forgotten about that. If I were Johnson, I would not want to look at a spaceship ever again, nor would I need to. According to Wikipedia, while Star Wars films are in some measure of preproduction, the earliest is scheduled for 2025. That’s quite a shock considering the yearly releases Disney was aiming for.
No, television and games are where the new money is, and can you blame them? There are many compelling reasons to go that route. They’re cheaper than movies, and they come out more often, meaning Star Wars is on consumers’ brains more frequently. By magnitudes, they are easier to create during a pandemic. Story-wise, they fill in aspects of the Star Wars universe that were unsatisfied by the main saga. Turns out, people like both doing side quests themselves and watching someone do them on TV. There are at least seven Disney Plus series being worked on, which means none of them have the weight of the entire brand on their shoulders.
And shall we count the upcoming games? Ubisoft’s open world title, Quantic Dream’s Eclipse, the Knights of the Old Republic Remake, Zynga’s free-to-play Hunters, LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and now these three newly announced games from the ever-expanding Respawn umbrella. This is Disney acknowledging what everyone else already knew: It was stupid to ink that EA exclusivity in the first place. How many of these games will actually be good? It’s impossible to say right now, obviously. But if nothing else, they show that Star Wars is a franchise that supports diverse interpretations. None of these will play like the others, and that variety is how you keep as many people as possible invested in the brand. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a good game, but while playing it you can’t help feeling like the sequel will be a great one. We’re stuck with this franchise, so we might as well get the best content we can out of it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to my LEGO bricks.
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