For almost a decade, my husband and I have had an annual tradition of setting aside a full day to watch all of the Star Wars films, back-to-back. When we first met, this was a six-film undertaking, or occasionally four, if we swapped the prequels for the fan-made Neon Noir edit. Now, a Star Wars marathon means making it through 11 films – sorry, Clone Wars fans – which is less a cosy day with snack breaks, and far more like a real marathon, complete with precisely timed bathroom breaks and energy gels for sustenance.
And, of course, this year’s traditional viewing came after we’d also devoured the first season of Andor, binged The Book of Boba Fett, been re-introduced to Obi-Wan Kenobi, and caught up on season three of The Mandalorian. Plus, we played through Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, and visited Galaxy’s Edge, the Star Wars themed world at Disneyland. Twice.
It’s safe to say that Star Wars fans have never had it so good – provided they have a Disney+ subscription, and a lot of free time. But with an ever-expanding universe, how does a Star Wars spin-off develop its own identity while still keeping a notoriously vocal fanbase happy?
“Trying to find something that can speak to all of the Star Wars fans is really, really difficult,”, admits Stig Asmussen, game director of forthcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, sequel to 2019’s acclaimed action adventure, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. “There’s literally millions and millions and millions of rabid fans out there that all have different opinions. Everybody’s point of view of what Star Wars is is slightly different.”
It’s a daunting prospect, but the hugely collaborative nature of making a video game gives Asmussen one big advantage over the TV shows and films: “I’ve got a couple hundred people I’m working directly with every day, and we’re all Star Wars fans,” he explains. “And if we can all agree on it, that’s a pretty big test right there.”
However, there’s one opinion it’s hard to argue with: that of Lucasfilm, the exacting guardians of the Star Wars empire. For the team at Respawn, the veteran developers also responsible for Titanfall and Apex Legends, having to pitch every element of a game was vastly different to how they’d worked before. “It’s a big process,“ says Asmussen. “[with Jedi: Fallen Order] we wanted to do third-person action adventure, and we wanted to have a Jedi with lightsabers. And then they’re like – wait,” he laughs. “At that point, to Lucasfilm, the Jedi are like the holy grail. I mean, it’s something that they’re probably the most protective of, except for maybe Baby Yoda. So we had to kind of earn that. We had to go through a whole process of, why do you want it to be a Jedi? What do you want to do with the Jedi? They were really uncomfortable with Jedi, and they said, ‘Let’s reset this. Let’s call this character a force user.’”
In fact, Lucasfilm went so far as to suggest the game feature a bounty hunter, or a smuggler, instead. But after my hands-on session with Jedi: Survivor, it’s hard to imagine playing as anyone other than a Jedi; balletic lightsaber combat and force manipulation are a heady combo, turning the entire universe into a playground to shape and explore. For Asmussen, it’s a testament to the way Star Wars made him feel as a fan.
“There’s just this canvas that Star Wars brings; the palette and the tools that you have to create these worlds is something that’s been ingrained in me since I was a little kid. And it’s defined a lot of the work that I’ve done – most of the work that I’ve done – not even related to Star Wars.”
Little surprise then, that the game director would have walked away when Lucasfilm proposed such a drastic change. “I’m like, well I think you have the wrong person for the job,” Asmussen explains. “That’s not my background. My background came from God of War … I’ve never worked on a shooter, and you need a different team to do that. You might as well be asking me to make a racing game. And eventually over time, we built that trust to the point where we ended up calling [the franchise] Jedi.”
The much contested Jedi eventually became Cal Kestis, first introduced in Jedi: Fallen Order. His original reveal saw a slew of criticism for being, well, a little bland, but four years on, it’s hard to deny that Cal has won over both gamers and Star Wars fans alike. Case in point: in a recent Disney poll, asking fans to vote on which lightsaber from the Star Wars universe they’d like produced for retail, Cal beat out legendary characters such as Anakin Skywalker and Qui-Gon Jinn.
Of course, making the main character a Jedi isn’t just a play to Star Wars fans – it’s also a clever game design move, given that the well-documented journey of a Jedi developing their skills perfectly mirrors that of a player progressing through a video game, something Asmussen describes as “one-to-one storytelling”.
“I was hoping that we could come up with a character that the player could go along on the ride with,” he expands. “So, he starts off kind of raw. He’s not even basically a complete Padawan. It’s been years since he’s had training. He’s been hiding. And the player starts the game off raw, and you’re learning along the way. And as we hit these major plot points, we’re giving the player new skills, new tools. So the player’s remapping their perspective of the world, as Cal’s growing and learning about the universe around him as well.”
But if Cal’s original appeal lay in being, as Asmussen puts it, “a scrappy underdog” partly inspired by Rocky, this time around Cal is more recognisably a Star Wars hero. Not only has he got to grips with his newly acquired Jedi skills – which you retain from the previous game – he’s also a little world-worn, more street smart, and a lot more rugged, if the selection of new facial hair I unlocked is anything to go by.
Cal’s transformation is just one sign that, having proven themselves to Lucasfilm and fans alike, the team felt more confident this time around. They’ve allowed themselves to have some fun with the Star Wars series, to inject more of the genre-defining design that Respawn made its name with.
You can clearly feel Respawn’s legacy in the fast, intuitive combat and dynamic traversal, both far more refined than we saw in Jedi: Fallen Order. The world, too, feels bigger and bolder, more fleshed out than the series of confined, carefully approved spaces that populated Cal’s first outing. And I haven’t even mentioned the new stance that sees Cal dual-wielding a saber and a blaster – a frankly glorious spectacle that speaks to the trust between Respawn and Lucasfilm, and the process of getting there.
“More than anything, it’s about building relationships,” says Asmussen. “It’s about making connections and understanding each other. You know, I mentioned that we had to earn their trust, and the buy-in of ‘this is what we want to do’, and show that we’re going to be completely respectful to it. But they also had to earn our trust too, because we consider ourselves expert game developers. So there’s this feeling each other out period, to where we are now, where it’s like we’re one team; it’s not us versus them.”
Jedi: Survivor certainly has that undeniable, if indefinable, Star Wars feel. Whether it’s an enemy droid cheerily discussing what a great day it’s having seconds before being blown up, or the light perfectly illuminating an otherworldly vista, it’s clear the team have figured out the formula for what Asmussen calls “Star Wars magic”.
“Maybe it’s the force, I don’t know, but there’s a spirit, there’s emotional drama,” he says. “It can be very weighty and have impact to it, but at the same time, there’s moments of hope and levity that could be just a joke, or something like that, in a very desperate moment. Those ebbs and flows, in those crescendos, is something that’s very unique. And the other thing I think of is Star Wars speed. It’s always pushing forward, and there’s always something that you’re directed towards – there’s a ticking clock.”
There are, of course, other shortcuts to Star Wars success, like an adorable droid companion – something Jedi: Fallen Order pulled off with the introduction of BD-1. Asmussen beams when talking about BD-1 becoming a Lego figure, and after viewers spotted another BD unit in The Book of Boba Fett, the Star Wars Jedi legacy was cemented in the wider universe.
But aside from cute droids, witty quips, or a relatable lead, Asmussen believes it’s Star Wars itself that makes a great game. “A Jedi is a game character,” he says simply. “It’s a character fighting against evil, that has beyond human power. It’s wielding an iconic weapon. There’s a constant force that you have to fight back against. As a game designer, that’s an incredible toy box to dig into.”
