One of the most exciting announcements coming out of this year’s Electronic Arts E3 press conference was that Respawn Entertainment is developing a new Star Wars game called Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
CEO Vince Zampella dropped the Jedi: Fallen Order news during EA Play at E3 2018. It was a relatively low-key announcement, with no screenshots or gameplay video available.
Here’s what we do know.
Where Jedi: Fallen Order Falls on the Timeline
In Jedi: Fallen Order, players assume the identity of a Jedi Padawan who survived the onslaught of Order 66. That was the order Chancellor Palpatine gave to the Republic’s clone troopers to destroy their Jedi commanders and bring an end to the Jedi Order, allowing Palpatine to usher in the Galactic Empire. The game itself is set shortly after Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, in the earliest days of the Empire’s reign over the galaxy.
The Setting of the Game
A lot of current Star Wars storytelling is set in the Dark Times between Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope, but most of those stories are set closer to the days of Luke Skywalker and the Rebel Alliance. Our best clues for what the setting of Jedi: Fallen Order will be like comes from Star Wars comics like Kanan: The Last Padawan, which ran in 2015, and the ongoing Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith. Both of those titles start during and after the events of Revenge of the Sith.
In The Last Padawan, we see a Padawan survivor named Caleb Dume — who eventually takes on the name Kanan Jarrus, of Star Wars Rebels fame — on the run from the clone army. They chase him across the galaxy from planet to planet, intent on carrying out Order 66. But through the help of new friends in the criminal underworld, Caleb is able to escape and change his identity. The price? Completely shedding his identity as a Jedi, and giving up the life he once knew. Perhaps that too is the fate of the Padawan in Jedi: Fallen Order.
Dark Lord of the Sith shows us the early days of the Jedi Purge from the Imperial point of view. The newly-crowned Darth Vader continues to hunt down Jedi survivors and quell early anti-Imperial uprisings, and he does so with the help of a new band of dark siders: the Inquisitors. These are former Jedi who the Emperor corrupted and trained to be agents of the Empire. Odds are the new Padawan hero will run into one of these deadly Jedi hunters.
The Gameplay
We know very little about the game’s mechanics, beyond the fact that it’s a single-player third person action adventure game. E3 2016 gave us a slight tease as to what some of the gameplay might look like, where EA showed off motion capture footage depicting a battle between a Jedi character and a red lightsaber-wielding foe.
Aaron Contreras, Narrative Lead on Jedi: Fallen Order, also tweeted out that Respawn is hiring for the game.
Release Date
Zampella tweeted that the game will ship during Holiday 2019, likely across all consoles and PC.
So how was the announcement at #EAPlay2018?
For Tammy one that overslept: SP story Star Wars game called Jedi Fallen Order. Shipping holiday 2019. Set in the dark times! Congrats to the team @Respawn
— Vince Zampella (@VinceZampella) June 9, 2018
That syncs it with the release of the yet untitled Star Wars: Episode IX which is due December 20, 2019.
What do you think about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order so far? Join the discussion on Wookieepedia!