Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is an action-adventure game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 15, 2019. The game is set in the Star Wars universe, 5 years after the film Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and 14 years before Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, and follows a young Jedi Padawan named Cal Kestis as he is hunted through the galaxy by the Galactic Empire, while trying to complete his Jedi training and restore the now wiped out Jedi Order. The game was announced during E3 2018, with a more detailed reveal during the Star Wars Celebration in April 2019. The game received positive reviews from critics and has sold more than 8 million copies upon release, exceeding EA’s expectations.
Contents
1Gameplay
2Synopsis
2.1Setting and characters
2.2Plot
3Development
4Marketing and release
5Reception
5.1Sales
5.2Awards
6Notes
7See also
8References
9External links
Gameplay
Fallen Order was inspired heavily by Batman: Arkham Asylum with the combat system and the “Metroidvania” style of exploration and progression.
Players take control of Cal Kestis as he attempts to survive while being chased by the Imperial Inquisitors, including the Inquisitors, the Second and Ninth Sisters. Throughout his journey, Cal visits two new worlds which are Bogano and Zeffo, and ones from existing Star Wars lore, such as Kashyyyk, Dathomir and Ilum, as well as making new friends and allies, including Rebel extremist Saw Gerrera and former Jedi Knight Cere Junda, who becomes his new mentor.
The gameplay is that of an action-adventure game, designed for players to “jump into a situation” and deal with it through “having a lightsaber and Force powers”, not to utilize stealth elements to avoid combat. There is not an option to play a Dark Side path through the game. In combat, Force usage consists of three different abilities; Force push, Force pull, and Force slow.
Synopsis
Setting and characters
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order takes place five years after Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and fourteen years before Star Wars Rebels, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. The game follows young Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) as he is being hunted by the Second Sister (Elizabeth Grullon) and her partner, the Ninth Sister (Misty Lee), both trained by Darth Vader (Scott Lawrence) as part of his Imperial Inquisitors. Supporting characters include: Cal’s friend and scrapping partner Prauf (JB Blanc); former Jedi Knight-turned-mercenary Cere Junda (Debra Wilson); Greez Dritus (Daniel Roebuck), owner and pilot of the Stinger Mantis and Cere’s ally; a small droid which befriends and assists Cal named BD-1 (Ben Burtt); Jedi Master Eno Cordova (Tony Amendola); Partisan leader Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker); one of the few surviving Nightsisters, Merrin (Tina Ivlev); and Dark Jedi Taron Malicos (Liam McIntyre). Cal’s former Jedi Master, Jaro Tapal (Travis Willingham), and numerous Clone troopers (Dee Bradley Baker) also appear in flashbacks.
Plot
Five years after the execution of Order 66 and the beginning of the Great Jedi Purge, former Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis is in hiding from the newly risen Galactic Empire. On the planet Bracca, where he works as a scrapper salvaging ships from the Clone Wars, Cal uses the Force to save his friend Prauf from falling to his death. The incident is recorded by an Imperial Probe Droid who relays the information to the Empire. The Empire sends two Inquisitors known as the Second Sister and the Ninth Sister to pursue Cal. After they kill Prauf, Cal makes his escape, briefly engaging the Second Sister before being rescued by a former Jedi Knight named Cere Junda and her partner pilot Greez Dritus in their ship, the Stinger Mantis.
Cere takes Cal to the planet Bogano, hoping that Cal may be able to access an ancient vault. On the way to the vault, Cal befriends a small droid named BD-1, who shows him a message from a former Jedi Master named Eno Cordova. The message reveals that the vault was built by an ancient civilization called the Zeffo and that a Jedi Holocron containing a list of Force-sensitive children has been hidden inside by Cordova. Cere believes the list could help rebuild the Jedi Order, but the only way to access the vault is to follow Cordova’s path. Cal heads to the Zeffo homeworld and explores an ancient temple. There, he finds a clue pointing to Cordova’s friend, the Wookiee chieftain Tarfful, on the planet Kashyyyk.
On Kashyyyk, Cal hijacks an Imperial AT-AT and heads towards the forests, on the way encountering notorious insurgent Saw Gerrera. Cal teams up with the Rebels to defeat the Imperial forces and free their Wookiee slave laborers. Unable to find Tarfful, Cal returns to Zeffo to find more clues regarding the Holocron vault. There, he is ambushed by the Second Sister, who reveals herself to be Cere’s former Padawan, Trilla Suduri. She was captured by the Empire after Cere revealed her whereabouts under torture. Before he departs, Trilla warns Cal of Cere’s inevitable betrayal.
Cal learns that he needs to find a Zeffo artifact called an Astrium to unlock the vault, but is then captured by a Haxion Brood bounty hunter and forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena owned by Sorc Tormo, the Haxion boss. Cal is rescued by Cere and Greez, and receives a communication that Tarfful is willing to meet. Back on Kashyyyk, Tarfful instructs Cal to seek answers at the top of the Origin Tree. On the way up, he is attacked by the Ninth Sister, whose ship is taken down by a large winged creature. Cal finds the creature wounded from the attack and heals it, granting him access to the top of the Origin tree via a flight on its back. He finds a recording of Cordova telling him that an Astrium can be found in a Zeffo tomb on Dathomir. Cal is attacked once again by the Ninth Sister and defeats her.
On Dathomir, Cal’s progress is impeded by Nightsister Merrin, who blames the Jedi for the massacre of her people during the Clone Wars, and attempts to keep him away by creating an army of revenants. Cal experiences a flashback of his former master, Jaro Tapal, sacrificing himself to protect him during Order 66, and is then attacked by Jaro’s spirit, leading to his lightsaber’s kyber crystal being destroyed. Cal meets former Jedi Taron Malicos, who crash-landed on Dathomir during the Purge and has been seeking to learn the magick of the Nightsisters. Malicos offers to teach Cal how to handle this dark power, but he refuses and flees after Merrin attacks them both. Aboard the Mantis, Cere admits that when she learned Trilla became an Inquisitor, she briefly fell to the dark side, which is why she chose to cut herself off from the Force. After traveling to Ilum to rebuild his lightsaber, Cal returns to Dathomir, where he retrieves the Astrium and overcomes his guilt for his part in Jaro’s death. Malicos again tries to tempt Cal to the dark side, but Cal fights him and is able to defeat him with the help of Merrin, who then agrees to join the Mantis crew.
The crew returns to Bogano, where Cal uses the Astrium to unlock the vault and reveal the Holocron, but he is once again attacked by Trilla, who steals it and escapes after Cal defeats her. Back on the Mantis, Cere reassumes her status as a Jedi and grants Cal the rank of Jedi Knight. Together they assault the Inquisitor headquarters, a station based in the waters of the planet Nur. Cal reaches the Interrogation Chamber where he defeats Trilla and recovers the Holocron. Cere attempts to make amends with Trilla, but Darth Vader appears and kills Trilla for her failure. Unable to defeat Vader, Cal and Cere barely escape from his grasp with the help of BD-1 and Merrin. Back on the Mantis, Cal, having realized that gathering the children would make it easier for the Empire to target them, destroys the Holocron, believing it to be better for those children to discover their own destinies, without interference. Their mission complete, Cal then asks his crew where they should head next.
Development
Following his exit from SIE Santa Monica Studio, Stig Asmussen joined Respawn Entertainment in 2014 as the studio’s game director, leading the studio’s second development team. The project was later revealed to be a third-person action-adventure game set in the Star Wars universe in May 2016. Aaron Contreras, a narrative designer on Mafia III, led the game’s narrative team, which included Chris Avellone and four other writers. The studio also collaborated with Lucasfilm to create new characters and locations.
The game was created with Unreal Engine 4. Drawing inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and the Dark Souls series, Asmussen has said the team’s goals for the game design include creating a deep combat system and incorporating aspects of Metroidvania map design. Lightsaber combat does not feature dismemberment of human enemies; this was attributed to guidelines imposed by Disney/Lucasfilm.
On June 8, 2019, it was announced that Gordy Haab and Stephen Barton would be composing the score for the game. The former had previously composed the scores to Star Wars: The Old Republic and Star Wars: Battlefront while the latter had collaborated with the studio on the Titanfall series and Apex Legends. The score was recorded at Abbey Road Studios with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Bach Choir of London.
Marketing and release
Publisher Electronic Arts announced the game at E3 2018. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 15, 2019, a month before the theatrical release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. At E3 2019, Electronic Arts showcased a 15-minute demo of the game. Around two weeks after this on June 25, 2019, the studio showed an extended 25-minute version of the original demo.
A tie-in comic series, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – Dark Temple, was announced on June 11, 2019 for release in September 2019.
Reception
Reception
Aggregate score
Aggregator Score
Metacritic PC: 81/100
PS4: 80/100
XONE: 81/100
Review scores
Publication Score
Easy Allies 9.0/10
Game Informer 8.75/10
GameSpot 10-Aug
GamesRadar+ 4/5 stars
Giant Bomb 3/5 stars
IGN 10-Sep
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order received “generally favorable reviews”, according to review aggregator Metacritic. IGN’s Dan Stapleton gave the game 9/10, saying “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order makes up for a lot of lost time with a fantastic single-player action-adventure that marks the return of the playable Jedi.”
Sales
The PlayStation 4 version of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order sold 26,761 copies within its first week on sale in Japan, which made it the fifth bestselling retail game of the week. In the UK, it was the second bestselling retail game during its first week on sale, with 66% of sales being for the PlayStation 4 version and the remaining 34% for the Xbox One version. It was also the fourth biggest physical release of 2019.
Publisher Electronic Arts confirmed that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order had the fastest-selling digital launch for any Star Wars game within its first two weeks on sale. The game sold more than 8 million copies upon release, exceeding EA’s expectations.