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Interview - Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is Batman: Arkham with lightsabers
Game Director Stig Asmussen Force pushes the point on the stellar influences of what players can expect from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
The last time Star Wars fans had a canonised single-player Star Wars game, it was The Force Unleashed 2. It wasn’t so great. Before that, though, the preceding The Force Unleashed game weaved a fantastic story about Darth Vader’s secret apprentice and the unexpected origins of the Rebel Alliance.
The Force Ubnleashed, like many other once-canon, non-movies before it and alongside it, is no longer part of the official Star Wars story. While Battlefront II had a canonised campaign, it was a short-lived experience that proved divisive with fans, which means there isn’t currently a canonised campaign for Star Wars fans to rally behind. That’s set to change with Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about Fallen Order outside of the prospect of a dedicated single-player Star Wars story is that it's leaning on some big names of the industry.
Starkiller would be proud
© EA/Respawn
The Force Awakens may have been a $250 million audition to show that Disney got what made a great Star Wars movie, but Respawn has built a team of industry legends for Fallen Order who aren’t afraid to lean into the clear influences. At the top of this particular alliance is Game Director Stig Asmussen: a veteran of the original God of War trilogy who understands the importance of tightly tuned combat, cinematic presentation and jaw-dropping spectacle.
Our team is comprised of a lot of people from God of War. A lot of people from Batman. Uncharted. We’ve got BioShock...
It’s no surprise, then, that when I talked to him about the Batman: Arkham influence evident in Fallen Order, it was there for a very good reason. “We have a pretty heavy influence of Arkham people on our team,” admits Asmussen. “Our team is comprised of a lot of people from God of War. A lot of people from Batman. Uncharted. We’ve got BioShock...
"Look, I can see the Forest for the Whitakers..."
© EA/Respawn
“I was the first person on the team. We built up from there and we were getting people from all over the place. The fact that you say there’s Arkham influence, the guy that actually designed that full sequence [in Fallen Order] worked on the Arkham series,” he adds.
It’s not just the iconic Arkham-style combat that’s influenced Fallen Order, either. “We look at the original Arkham Asylum as one of the games that influenced that leap because it has this map that you explore and re-traverse (also known as "Metroidvania game-design"). We’re doing that across planet-hopping and stuff like that. But we felt like that was a good example of very different games, but in a lot of ways it’s pretty similar.”
While all Arkham games were relegated to a single (admittedly expansive) setting, Fallen Order is set in a galaxy far, far away, which means players will be shifting between multiple planets. “It’s a Metroidvania design,” says Asmussen. “You get new abilities on one planet. Like, for example, in the demonstration you saw that overcharged ability.”
This particular ability is just one example of how companion droid BD-1 can be upgraded over the course of the game. In this particular instance, the overcharged ability found on Kashyyyk (Chewie’s home world) allows the player to operate a device that opens up a wall-running pathway to the next objective.
Serious Jedi face is Jedi serious...
© EA/Respawn
“If the player wanted to, at that point they could go back to the ship and select one of the other worlds they’ve already been to that had one of the [overcharged] consoles that BD-1 can interact with and they can progress in that world,” says Asmussen. “But they can also keep on going on Kashyyyk.
Your abilities and things that you’re doing – every time you get one of those, it’s like classic Metroid design...
“So every single one of these – what I would call agility keys, which are basically your abilities and things that you’re doing – every time you get one of those, it’s like classic Metroid design. All these locations start firing off in your brain. ‘Where did I see those before?’ It really becomes an empowering moment because you realise, potentially, there’s a whole bunch of new stuff to look at.”
The pledge is that Fallen Order will incentivise you to revisit these older planets, too, in a way that’s targeted at more than just rewarding completionists. “There’s a layer of it that’s definitely completionist,” says Asmussen. “You don’t need 100 percent to complete the game. People are going to hit 100 percent anyway, but sometimes the path can lead you to something that is mission-critical that you have to get.
Dinotrux on Steroids
© EA/Respawn
“An example of that would be like an energy tank in Metroid. You don’t need all the energy tanks that you have at the end, but they’re incredibly meaningful. And the game can be easier to beat. It’s going to be easier to take out the last boss once you have that. Then there’s going to be the level of something that doesn’t have as much perceived value, but you are getting to experience the whole game.”
Fallen Order isn’t just an Arkham devotee or Metroidvania subscriber, it’s also an RPG, with teases of an upgradeable lightsaber and a robust skill-tree. “We’ve had the skills locked down for a while,” confirms Asmussen. “We had to because part of the relationship with Lucasfilm is that basically we’ve got a plan early on that states what all these moves are going to be.
“They’re very sensitive, all these upgrades: it’s sensitive that we get them right. The plan was always to have a skill-tree in the game. What you saw was very, very much still work in flow. We looked at other games and we, like with everything else, figured out what we wanted to do from a gameplay standpoint and mechanically, then we figured out how to give it a Star Wars life.”
Some of the skills showcased so far include expected seen-before powers like Force Push and Pull, lightsaber blaster bolt deflections and even a Kylo Ren-like stasis ability. This last power can be used to hilarious effect, wherein players freeze an incoming blaster bolt, then Force Pull an enemy towards them to use as a stormtrooper shield.
"Hello, I'm IG-88's cousin. You owe him some motor oil... NOW!"
© EA/Respawn
The average stormtrooper might not be able to hit the broad side of a Super Star Destroyer, but in Fallen Order you’ll be able to make them shoot themselves with that particular Force trick. Combo this ‘playing with your food’ mentality with the idea that the average buckethead goes down in a single ’saber slice (as they should), and it starts to paint the picture of a Force-wielding power fantasy.
We asked Asmussen how that ease of trooper felling gels with the earlier pitch that Fallen Order has deep combat. “It’s both,” he recalls. “Early on, actually, we didn’t figure out that it had to be one hit for it to feel right. And I think [the purge troopers] at one point were getting three open shots and then they go down.
So opening them up becomes more about breaking through their block meter or parrying them out...
“But they didn’t block as much then. That’s what we figured out that they have to be much better at blocking. So opening them up becomes more about breaking through their block meter or parrying them out. If you parry at the right time, there’s a window where you’re going to do flourish kills.”
Did you steal that patent off Nikola Tesla?
© EA/Respawn
This logic of perfect timing carries over to defensive manoeuvres, too. “If you’re not holding down on the stick and you evade at the right time, you get a perfect evade, and you get a devastating blow after that,” explains Asmussen. “It became more about blocking. Still, since they’re blocking, you have to think they’re not complete fodder.
“You can get in trouble if there’s a few of them, especially if there’s ranged rifleman: typical bucketheads picking at you from a distance. It can get pretty tricky and what it really comes down to is arrangements. If you have a couple of the melee guys and a couple of ranged guys and one of those purge troopers, it’s suddenly now a very hard fight.
“Those guys that seemed like they were just there for the power fantasy, they become even more than a nuisance, because when you might be trying to get in a hit on the purge trooper, they can come in from offscreen and start causing trouble.”
The reaction to the 15-minute EA Play gameplay reveal of Fallen Order was mixed. The extended cut of the demo had a better reception because it combined lightsaber combat with good ol’ fashioned “Star Wars spectacle”. With Asmussen at the helm and a handpicked team of Arkham veterans and Metroidvania devotees, Fallen Order has the Force-powered potential to show that games can reliably tell engaging official Star Wars stories alongside movies, TV shows, comics and books.
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