It’s Saturday at Star Wars Celebration in Chicago and the biggest news in the galaxy continues to drop in the Wintrust Arena at McCormick Place. At today’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order panel on the Celebration Stage, we learned a ton of new information about the upcoming video game, which its creators referred to as a “Jedi fantasy story game.”
Respawn Entertainment, a studio of Electronic Arts, is collaborating with Lucasfilm on the game, which will be released on November 19 on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. Set after the events of Order 66 in Revenge of the Sith, the game follows surviving padawan Cal Kestis (played by Gotham‘s Cameron Monaghan in motion capture), who is on the run from the Empire after his Force powers are revealed. He is joined by his droid, BD-1 (which stands for “buddy droid 1”), his mysterious Cere (Deborah Wilson), and others, whom Monaghan described as a “family.”
The villains of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order are the Second Sister, an elite inquisitor for the Empire who was teased in the recent Darth Vader #19 comic, and the Purge Troopers, who are tasked with hunting down the remaining Jedi. The Respawn creatives brought real-life costumed Purge Troopers to the stage during the panel, and those things are terrifying in person. We can only imagine they’ll be brutal forces in the game.
The panel audience also got a first look at the trailer, which left us with even more tantalizing teases. Chief among them is the lightsaber we see Cal holding, which game director Stig Asmussen teased might not be Cal’s at all. He said the saber is “intimately tied to the story,” that it evolves throughout the course of the game, and that to say anything more would spoil too much. Who’s could it be and what purpose does it serve? That’s just one of the many exciting things we’ll find out on November 19, 2019.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is set to introduce us to many new characters and planets, including Bracca, where we first meet Cal in hiding. It will also emphasize training and fight combinations, specifically melee with innovative lightsaber combat and Force abilities.
“When Respawn approached us with the idea for this game, we were immediately supportive,” said Steven Blank, director of franchise content and strategy for the Lucasfilm Story Group. “A single player, story-driven title in the Star Wars universe was exactly what we were looking for, and we know the fans have been eager for one, as well. Focusing on Cal stepping back into the shoes of a Jedi post Order 66 opens up a lot of gameplay opportunities and rich story threads to develop for this new character and his backstory.”
We can’t wait to step into Cal’s shoes, roam the galaxy with BD-1, and see what else Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has in store when it hits shelves later this year.
Images: Disney, Lucasfilm, EA Games
