Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is an action-adventure video game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. It was released for Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2019, for Stadia in November 2020, and for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and Series S in June 2021. The story, set in the "Star Wars" universe five years after "", follows Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis, who becomes a target of the Galactic Empire and is hunted throughout the galaxy by the Imperial Inquisition while attempting to complete his training, reconcile with  his troubled past, and rebuild the fallen 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 generally favorable reviews from critics and was a commercial success, selling more than ten million copies by 2020. A sequel is currently in development. Gameplay. The game is played from a third-person perspective. It adopts the "Metroidvania" style of exploration and progression. Players control former Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis and have access to a lightsaber as well the Force, which are used in both combat and puzzle  scenarios. Enemy types range from Imperial stormtroopers, droids, and Purge Troopers, who have been trained specifically to battle Jedi, to wild beasts and skilled Zabrak warriors that are native to each planet Cal explores. The game's bosses include Inquisitors, who also wield lightsabers and the Force, bounty hunters hired to hunt down Cal, large vehicles such as AT-STs, and wild beasts like the Oggdo Bogdo and the Gorgara. Cal acquires abilities at certain points in the story; each ability allows access to previously inaccessible areas. Once these abilities are unlocked, the player can upgrade them through a skill  tree. The game can only be saved manually at checkpoints, which appear as "meditation circles". At these meditation circles, the player can "rest", which replenishes Cal's health, Force energy, and healing items, but causes all enemies to respawn. The game includes cosmetic collectibles that include different outfits for Cal to wear, pieces that can be used to customize Cal's lightsaber, and alternate color schemes for Cal's mode of transport, the "Stinger Mantis" (which is used to travel between planets), and droid companion BD-1 (who is used to access these collectibles, as well as complete certain puzzles). With  the addition of a Star Wars Day update released in 2020, players can access the Meditation Arena through the meditation circles. This allows them to complete combat challenges, involving fighting multiple waves of enemies in arenas based on certain locations from the story mode; completing these challenges awards the player with one to three stars, depending on whether the player abided by restrictions on the character's health (i.e. never recovered health or took any damage), which can be used to unlock additional skins for BD-1. The Meditation Arena also includes a battle grid, where the player can face off  against their own custom enemy wave, while being able to grant themselves invincibility, unlimited Force, and other cheats. Synopsis. Setting and characters. "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" takes place five years after the events of "". The game follows Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) as he is being hunted by the Second Sister (Elizabeth Grullón) and her partner, the Ninth Sister (Misty Lee), both trained by the Sith Lord Darth Vader (Scott Lawrence) as part of the Imperial Inquisitors program. 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 friend; BD-1 (Ben Burtt), a small droid which befriends and accompanies Cal; Jedi Master Eno Cordova (Tony Amendola), who appears in hologram messages; Partisan leader Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker); Merrin (Tina Ivlev), one of the last surviving members of the Nightsister clan of Dathomir; and Dark Jedi Taron Malicos (Liam McIntyre). Wookiee chieftain Tarfful briefly appears on Kashyyyk, while Cal's former Jedi Master, Jaro Tapal (Travis Willingham), and numerous clone troopers (Dee Bradley Baker) appear in flashbacks. The Grand Inquisitor is featured as an  unseen character often contacted by the Second and Ninth Sister, Cal only hearing the former two Inquisitors' sides of their correspondence. Plot. Five years after the Great Jedi Purge and the Galactic Republic's conversion into the Galactic Empire, former Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis is hiding on the planet Bracca, where he works as a scrapper salvaging ships from the Clone Wars. After Cal is recorded by an Imperial Probe droid using the Force to save his friend Prauf, two Inquisitors known as the Second Sister and the Ninth Sister are sent to investigate. After the Second Sister kills Prauf  for speaking up against the Empire, Cal makes his escape, briefly engaging in a duel with the Second Sister before he is rescued by former Jedi Knight Cere Junda and her partner pilot Greez Dritus in their ship, the "Stinger Mantis". Cere takes Cal to the planet Bogano in the hopes he can access an ancient vault. En route to the vault, Cal befriends a small droid named BD-1, who shows him a message from former Jedi Master Eno Cordova, revealing 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 by following Cordova's path. Cal heads to the Zeffo homeworld and explores an ancient temple, finding a clue pointing to Cordova's friend, the Wookiee chieftain Tarfful. On the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, Cal encounters notorious insurgent Saw Gerrera, whom he helps free several Wookiees enslaved by the Empire. Unable to find Tarfful, Cal returns to Zeffo to find more clues regarding the vault but is ambushed by the  Second Sister, who reveals herself as Trilla Suduri, Cere's former Padawan. She explains that she was captured by the Empire after Cere betrayed her hidden location under torture, and warns Cal that Cere will inevitably betray him once they find the Holocron. Eventually, Cal learns he requires a Zeffo artifact called an Astrium to unlock the vault, before being captured by a Haxion Brood bounty hunter and forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena owned by Haxion boss Sorc Tormo. After Cere and Greez rescue him, Cal returns to Kashyyyk to meet with Tarfful, who instructs him to investigate  the top of the Origin Tree. At the top of the tree, he finds another recording of Cordova saying that an Astrium can be found in a Zeffo tomb on Dathomir before being attacked by the Ninth Sister, whom he defeats. On Dathomir, Cal's progress is impeded by Nightsister Merrin, who blames the Jedi for during the Clone Wars, and attempts to keep him away using an army of revenants. After experiencing a flashback of his former master, Jaro Tapal, sacrificing himself to protect him during Order 66, the kyber crystal of Cal's lightsaber is destroyed. He meets  former Jedi Taron Malicos, who crash-landed on Dathomir during the Purge and has been seeking to learn the magic of the Nightsisters, over time growing insane and succumbing to the dark side of the Force. Cal refuses Malicos's offer to teach him this dark power and flees after Merrin attacks them both. Aboard the "Stinger Mantis", Cere admits she cut her connection to the Force after briefly falling to the dark side upon learning Trilla became an Inquisitor. 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. He defeats Malicos with the unexpected aid of Merrin, who agrees to join the "Stinger Mantis" crew. Back on Bogano, Cal unlocks the vault, but Trilla attacks him and steals the Holocron. After returning to the "Stinger Mantis", Cere reassumes her role as a Jedi and knights Cal before revealing she knows where Trilla is going. The pair infiltrate the Fortress Inquisitorius on Mustafar's oceanic moon Nur, battling their way through legions of stormtroopers before finally reaching Trilla. Cal defeats Trilla and retrieves the Holocron. Cere then reconciles with Trilla, with  the latter rejoining the Light Side for a brief moment before Darth Vader appears and kills her for her failure, as well as nearly killing Cere and BD-1. Unable to defeat Vader, the three barely escape from his grasp and are saved from drowning by Merrin. Back on the "Stinger Mantis", the crew celebrates having accomplished their mission before simultaneously coming to the realization that the children listed on the Holocron may well be in more danger of becoming Jedi than being left to decide their own destinies. Cal unceremoniously destroys the Holocron with his lightsaber and asks where they  will go next. Development. Following his exit from 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 collaborated with Lucasfilm to create new characters and locations. The game was created with Unreal Engine 4. Drawing inspiration from "" 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 "" and "" 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. Mongolian folk metal band The Hu wrote and recorded a song, "Sugaan Essena", which featured prominently in the game. The song lyrics were written in Mongolian, then translated into a fictional "Star Wars" language. Release. Publisher Electronic Arts announced the game at E3 2018. 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. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on November 15 , 2019, a month before the theatrical release of "". A Stadia version was released November 24, 2020 to positive reception in regards to performance over cloud gaming. The game was released in two editions; a Standard Edition, and a Deluxe Edition. The latter of which featured exclusive skins for BD-1 and the Mantis, a Digital Artbook and a "Director's Cut" behind the scenes videos. Exclusive cosmetics were also available by pre-ordering the game, and by having an active EA Access membership. One of these cosmetics that were available through pre-ordering the game, the orange lightsaber crystal, was later  made available through an update to all players. A free update was released on May 4, 2020, to coincide with "Star Wars" Day. It introduces combat challenges named "meditation training", New Game Plus, and new cosmetics for BD-1 and Cal. On January 12, 2021, a free update was released that improved performance when running the game with backwards compatibility on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Native versions for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, developed in collaboration with Panic Button, were released on June 11, 2021. The new versions improved stability of the 60 frames per  second ("performance") mode, added support for higher resolutions, and vastly improved loading times. The update was free to those who owned either the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One versions of the game. Tie-in media and merchandise. A tie-in comic series published by Marvel Comics, "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order – Dark Temple", was announced on June 11, 2019, for release that September. It features substantial flashbacks to the era of the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy. Dark Horse Comics also published a reference book, "The Art of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" on November 20, 2019. Hasbro also produced three  figures in the range for Cal Kestis (and BD-1), the Second Sister and the Purge Stormtrooper, with this selection of designs also being adapted by Funko into Funko Pop! figures. In an interview conducted by the LEGO enthusiast group, "Brickset", LEGO designers Jens Kronovold Frederiksen and Micheal Lee Stockwell stated that the Lego Star Wars group had discussed sets for the game, but they were ultimately scrapped because the team was wary about the game's content ratings, despite LEGO sets being made based on T-rated video game properties such as "" and "Overwatch". The Second Sister, the game's  main antagonist, was introduced as a playable character for the free-to-play mobile role-playing game "" in late January 2022, and is intended to be the first of several Inquisitors being added to the game. The Ninth Sister was later added in the following month. Reception. Critical response. "Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order" received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic. "IGN" Dan Stapleton gave the game 9/10, praising the gameplay that felt influenced by "Dark Souls" and "Uncharted" as "a great fit". He summarized by 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 by the end of January 2020, exceeding EA's expectations. More than 10 million units were sold by March 31, 2020. Sequel. In January 2022, it was confirmed that Respawn was developing a sequel to "Jedi: Fallen Order", with Stig Asmussen returning as director.