The release of Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order last November helped turned the tide for Star Wars games, taking elements from popular franchises like Uncharted and Dark Souls and creating something new and unique that instantly won the hearts of fans. However, the game wasn’t without its fair share of problems from a lack of meaningful customization options to game-breaking performance issues that still plague it to this day. While a full-blown sequel is likely still years from release, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2 needs to address these major issues.
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Where Does it Fit in the Canon?
Warning: MAJOR STORY SPOILERS ahead for the ending of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (skip to the next point to avoid). The untold story of a Jedi that survived Order 66 is a fascinating one but not the most original or exciting idea when the fan base already knows the future of the series. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order set up a new Jedi hero in the form of Cal Kestis, promoted to Jedi Knight by the end of the game’s story. And over the course of the story, the end goal was always to locate a Holocron that held the location of force-sensitive children so that Cal and the Mantis’ crew could rebuild the Jedi Order - an immediate problem considering that Luke Skywalker would be the only Jedi alive in the original trilogy.
In the final cut-scene, Cal destroys to Holocron and leaves the future of force-sensitive children like Luke Skywalker up to fate - a move that we know turned out pretty well. But what does that mean for the future of the Star Wars Jedi series? At some point, the series is going to need to make some clear cut decisions that lay the foundations for why Cal wasn’t around to help in the films and its best to lay that foundation early on. Ahsoka Tano’s voice actress has already expressed interest in the sequel, so maybe a run-in with Anakin’s old apprentice could help set Cal on a path that’s pivotal to the Empire’s downfall and explains his absence.
Quality of Life Improvements
One of the most disappointing things about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s launch is that most of the issues come down to polish, leading many to believe that EA rushed to release for the holiday season rather than allow Respawn Entertainment the additional six to twelve months needed. For Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2, the overall quality of life could be greatly improved by making a number of small tweaks across the board including smoother controls, rope and ledge detection with a wider error margin (jumps have to be almost perfect until players unlock the ‘Pull’ force ability), auto-grip to ropes and ledges so that players don’t need to hold down LR/L2 to grip a wall (it doesn’t add challenge, it’s just frustrating), clearer markings for climbable ledges, and icons or symbols above new item unlocks in the menus (lightsabers can’t be customized on the fly so it’s difficult to know what’s new).
Character Customization
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order allowed players to customize a handful of different character aspects such as Cal’s Outfit, BD-1 and the Mantis ships appearance, and the entire lightsaber build from the color to the switch and emitter. On the surface, there’s a lot of cool stuff for players to customize, particularly lightsaber customization which felt extensive and exciting. Unfortunately, when it comes to character customization - the only things players could unlock were different colored ponchos and a handful of vests. In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2, there needs to be far more customization when it comes to outfits. Players don’t need to change the appearance of Cal Kestis but we want to look and feel like a Jedi Knight in a game called Star Wars Jedi.
Performance Issues and Bug Fixes
To this day, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is plagued by performance issues and bugs, at least on a base PS4 Slim. Constant frame rate drops that can lead to 4-5 seconds of absolutely no movement, frustratingly long load-times after death in combat, character pop-in when entering any new location or room, and game freezes that require a full reset. For a AAA game released in 2019, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s performance issues are unacceptable and would’ve heavily affected the sales and reviews of any other game or IP. Respawn Entertainment is a brilliant and capable developer, one of the best in the industry, however, there’s no way the sequel can release in the same state as Fallen Order. Take the additional time to polish the sequel and release it once it’s ready to be released.
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According to recent reports, Respawn Entertainment has already begun work on a sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, likely to be released on next-gen consoles sometime in the next few years. Given the critical and commercial success of the first game, it should come as no surprise that both Respawn and EA would be eager to jump back in for another round. And the fanbase is just as eager to get a new entry in the Star Wars Jedi series, as long as Respawn puts in the work to fix the foundations before moving on to something new.
To tide players over while we wait for the release of Star Wars: Squadrons in October and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2 down the line, right now is the perfect time to return to Star Wars: Battlefront 2. Despite a lackluster and controversial launch, EA and DICE have continuously updated the game with brand new content new heroes, game modes, PvE content, single-player content, and more. If EA can fix all of the major issues with Battlefront 2, then we have faith Fallen Order 2 will be a worthy successor.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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