Last week NME got its hands on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, a third-person action-adventure that puts you back into the stormtrooper-bashing booties of Jedi Cal Kestis, as he continues his battle against the Galactic Empire.
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Kestis is a bit scowlier this time around and the narrative is flecked with darkness, but that’s kind of what you should expect from the second installment of a Star Wars franchise. During our preview NME was able to chat to Dori Arazi, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s cinematic director and Joanna Rob, the narrative technical director on the game, to shed some light on how the storytelling in Jedi: Survivor has changed since Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
“I don’t want to spoil anything,” says Arazi when asked what was different in the game’s narrative. “We’ve redesigned the visual language of our cinematic storytelling from the ground up. We made it a lot more gritty and visceral and grounded, which kind of fits the narrative that we’re exploring, which is a darker time. Cal is more rough. He’s a fully-fledged Jedi fighting a full-blown Empire.”
I don’t want to spoil anything becomes a refrain throughout our interview, but Arazi needn’t have worried because after ten minutes of chatting with the pair, I’m no closer to cracking the mystery of Jedi: Survivor’s story, but I do understand more about the universe they want to build, which is, well, pretty bleak.
“Cal is in, like, the worst situation ever,” says Rob. “He spent five years fighting the Empire actively and that’s taken a toll on him. And even as he’s grown into being a Jedi Knight, he’s also become sort of weary of the battle. He doesn’t want to give it up. Too many people have died for him to give up the fight. Which makes him a really interesting Jedi.”
Arazi points out that while many Jedi go through the traditional trials, Kestis’s ascension to being a Jedi Knight has come about through “the crucible of combat” and this has led to Kestis being a “battle-weary individual that is stuck in a very dark place.”
Kestis, then, seems to be having a real bad time. However it’s all in service of something that Arazi and Rob claim the narrative team is aligned on, that Star Wars is a franchise all about telling epics. For fans of Star Wars, in its variety of different forms, Arazi mentions a specific aesthetic style that makes the world “taste” like Star Wars, and that by bringing it to life here in Survivor, Star Wars fans are “getting to live in a world that before they might have only seen before.”
Not that anyone has seen the world of Kobah before. The planet is a new addition to the universe that the team at Respawn Entertainment has built in collaboration with LucasFilm, although battle droids, stormtroopers and even a Rancor all shown up during our preview, so long-term fans should feel fairly familiar.
“When we created Kobah we thought it has to be a place with a history for real people, you have to see places that people exist in, see dirt and dust and grime on things, that’s just one of the definitive elements of Star Wars as a setting.” adds Rob. “We have such great reference with other Star Wars media that we love, so we were more than happy to follow that attitude towards storytelling and towards world-building.”
Rob also adds that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is set during a “nexus” of Star Wars eras, mentioning that it’s fun to play with a story set during the dark times, at the height of the empire. “Kestis is one of the only Jedi left after the purge, but we also get to weave in the battle drones from the Clone Wars era, and then we’re going to be a lot of people’s first introduction into the high Republic era of Star Wars, which is so exciting.” she adds.
To try and fit everything in, Rob adds that LucasFilm was a “really great collaborator” for “allowing the team to bring all these different parts of Star Wars together into this game.”
Most importantly, even for fans that haven’t played Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, they’ll be able to dive straight into Survivor. Arazi says that fans coming to Survivor can still enjoy most of the story beats that have been set up and revel in the presentation and narrative, admitting that players who have played Fallen Order will likely find a few easter eggs for them, in addition to some stories and narrative nods that play with threads from that game.
You definitely should just play Fallen Order because it’s a really great game.” adds Rob. “But we do have tools to catch you up to speed through things like the databanks, for example, as you meet characters. This will explain their relationship to Cal and highlight what you might have missed, so hopefully new players can come in and have just as great an experience as people who already have an affinity for this series specifically.”
It seems like the narrative is in good hands, and with game director Stig Asmussen keen to make the Star Wars Jedi story into a trilogy, the team at Respawn isn’t afraid to play around with the setting to keep things fresh. The force could be strong with this one.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor launches 28 April 2023 on Playstation 5, PC and Xbox Series X|S.