Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order launches in just under a month, and a new round of preview gameplay has hit the Internet. The footage is culled from a larger chunk of the game than the single mission we saw at E3 2019, showing dark caves, the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyk, and battles against a variety of enemies, including AT-ST walkers and elite Empire soldiers. You can check out about 10 minutes of new footage courtesy of YouTube channel Game Clips and Tips, below.
Eurogamer got to sit down with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order director Stig Asmussen, and he provided a few new details about the game. Interestingly, Respawn has done a lot of rebalancing since E3 in order to make the game easier and more accessible (although a harder setting has also been added).
We did playtesting before E3, but we've done a lot since. And probably the biggest change that we've made is difficulty in the game. Most of us at work like a challenge, but we recognise this is Star Wars, [which has] a huge audience, we don't want anybody to feel left out. So we made some adjustments, we added a new story difficulty mode, overall we kind of tweaked things down a little bit for our default mode. And then we made an even harder mode. And all that was influenced by what we were finding in the playtesting, and iteration.
In terms of story, Respawn is aiming for something more in line with George Lucas’ original trilogy, rather than the prequels or Disney sequels.
With the writing I think there's a style that we wanted to capture, that feels more like something you would find in the original trilogy. But that's just stylistically what we chose, we wanted it to feel like these characters would belong if you were painting with that brush. Within that though I think we did take some risks... I don't want to get into any of those right now, hopefully when you're playing the game you'll be like "oh maybe that's what Stig was talking about", but I don't think we've played it safe.
Asmussen also addressed those somewhat controversial statement he made about Fallen Order’s protagonist being male in order to provide a contrast to Rey in the Disney films. Unsurprisingly, Asmussen claims he was taken somewhat out of context, saying the decision to go with a male hero was mainly driven by casting…
I think through casting we arrived on [lead actor Cameron Monaghan], because we felt like he basically filled the role we wanted for the game. It wasn't something that was [done] consciously...I think [that statement] was taken out of context and worded wrong. It wasn't like "You have to work on a male protagonist,” it was through the discovery of the story and what the games could be, Cameron just became the protagonist.
If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, I suggest you check out the full Eurogamer interview, as they cover a number of intriguing subjects.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order hits PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on November 15.
