Stig Asmussen, game director of the Star Wars Jedi series (and of original trilogy God of War fame), reportedly almost walked away from the project entirely after Lucasfilm pushed back on the idea of protagonist Cal Kestis being a Jedi.
In an interview with The Guardian, Asmussen recalled the difficult task of prising anything away from the unflinching sentinels of the Star Wars IP, stating: "We wanted to have a Jedi with lightsabers. At that point, to Lucasfilm, the Jedi are like the holy grail. I mean, it’s something that they’re probably the most protective of, except for maybe Baby Yoda. So we had to kind of earn that. We had to go through a whole process of, why do you want it to be a Jedi? What do you want to do with the Jedi? They were really uncomfortable with Jedi, and they said, ‘Let’s reset this. Let’s call this character a force user.’”
The idea of playing as some kind of "force user" and not a Jedi does sound pretty rough. Apparently, Lucasfilm went so far as to suggest the protagonist be some kind of smuggler or bounty hunter instead. While of course that sounds awesome too, it wouldn't have been a great fit, as Asmussen explains: "“That’s not my background. My background came from God of War … I’ve never worked on a shooter, and you need a different team to do that. You might as well be asking me to make a racing game. And eventually over time, we built that trust to the point where we ended up calling [the franchise] Jedi.”
We're glad Asmussen stuck to his guns, or his lightsaber, rather. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is out on 28th April, and is looking like a worthy successor to 2019's Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. What do you think of Lucasfilm's guardianship over the very concept of Jedi? Meditate on this, the Force, and the fact we live in a reality in which Amy Hennig actually gets to do a Star Wars game in the comments section below.
[source theguardian.com, via gamespot.com]
Comments 18
To be fair, it seems as if the only Jedi that actually died during Order 66 were the younglings that Anakin chopped up. We’re kinda stretching the realms of silliness now with the sheer number of random Jedi that survived. Cal was an engaging slab of concrete to play as in the first one though.
@nessisonett there were tens of thousands of Jedi scattered around the galaxy. Its not hard to believe that at least 1% survived
Fallen Order is the best thing to happen to Star Wars since Disney took over. So protective of something they're destroying themselves.
No doubt idiots will come in the comments section and tell us Disney has “ruined” Star Wars 🤣
If you think that you really haven’t been watching.
It’s not all been perfect but some of it has been exceptional.
I think it’s good they don’t just have jedis everywhere and want to trust those telling the stories.
The way order 66 works/worked and they way the force works it’s possible to both have survivors and self taught jedis moving forward.
You don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. You can learn the way of the Jedi yourself. That will be explored for sure.
This game looks superb. So was the first. Whilst some moan about all things Star Wars. - the video games have mainly been good. We’ve in all honesty had very few duds when judging them on solo player stories/modes especially
Jedi is cool, but have you considered remaking Star Wars Bounty Hunter? For those with the higher tiers of Plus, it's in the Game Collection, give it a try.
@Stocksy What an impressive bullet-list. You're hired!
Side note: Damn. I thought that guy left the site. Guess he just blocked me. Idk why… never talked to him. Did enjoy reading his comments tho.
@TheRealPaperKut This was literally a conversation me and buddy was having the other day. For the longest time it was thought that Luke was the only Jedi left or alive. Every Jedi that pop up in the EU could just be written out as simply not canon, and Luke continued to be sole remaining Jedi.
Then the Clone Wars tv show happened, and the thought of clones just simply turning on the Jedi became absurd. There was some fantastic relationships between the clones and Jedi especially when you saw Rex and Anakin or Cody and Obi Wan. There would have definitely been a couple thousands of clones that would refuse to kill the Jedi.
But the show course corrected and used the idea of inhibitor chips.
Now we have major jedi like Cal Kestis and Ahsoka Tano popping up in canon. Ahsoka Tano could have easily stepped in and put an end to the empire before Luke even said his first words. Hopefully her show goes more in depth about why she didn’t do more than what we see in rebels.
But now, with all these Jedi in canon after order 66. It kinda undermines Luke, and really does make it seem like Anakin only killed bunch of younglings and weak Jedi.
God of war 3 is my favorite ps3 games ever next to grand theft auto 5 and the last of us.stigg asmussen is a amazing game director.and im glad that he sticks with his plan.star wars fallen order is a really good game.and star wars jedi survivor looks really good as well.word up son
@TheRealPaperKut Thank you. Every time someone mentions this, I just truly do not understand this criticism when you truly think about the scale of the Jedi Order. 1% of 10,000 would be 100 jedi - have we had 100 jedi stories? Not even close
@AverageGamer @nessisonett Given the aim accuracy of Storm trooper's rifles and training, against Jedi that can transfigure objects and obscure minds, I find nothing strange about that at all.
@henbirdler Silliness aside, I think if the empire is so incompetent it can't hunt down a group of 10,000 known entities that stick out like sore thumbs, or keep their giant planet sized space cannons from being blown up, I really don't get the supposed appeal of the "dark side", doesn't seem very powerful lol.
@Stocksy well said. While some of the newer stuff is well out of my preferred wheelhouse, that doesn’t automatically make it terrible. You can not like Tarantino films but to act like he’s a no talent hack is ignorant.
@Stocksy Starwars has never been better than it is right now but people just like to moan and complain even tough they didn't even watched the shows like andor, mandalorian, bobba, obi-wan or the upcoming Asohka
@AverageGamer do have any idea how big a galaxy is??? and you think its silly that 2 or 3 Jedi's are running around in this humongous galaxy???? c'mon dude silly would be to expect for all Jedi to have died during order 66.
@LordBakemono Who said I found it silly that 2 or 3 Jedi are running around? I’ve never said that it was silly. You shouldn’t put words in people mouths.
It the fact that it has always implied that Luke was the last remaining Jedi. How does Disney move forward and not undermine Luke further with all these skilled and powerful jedi showing up in canon. He failed at training Grogu, he failed at bring the Jedi order back, and basically dies at 53 years old x-x.
Luke basically went from an amazingly skilled and powerful Jedi; massively important to the future of the entire galaxy. That many of us Star Wars nuts grow up with to basically he not all that important. Ashoka and Rey are now basically the EU Luke equivalents.
Haven't cared about Star Wars since they released the super underappreciated fighting game, "Star Wars: Masters Of Teräs Käsi.". But if Stiggy is a producer on this, awesome. He and his ex-team really hit the nail on the 3rd "God Of War" game before it went of the rails and Kratos started playing dress up with his son.
Still want that wokiee starwars game they were talking about.
@Stocksy Disney is great at flooding the market with stuff. I have not watched a Super hero movie for ages because of that. It's not special anymore its something that happens. The same goes for Starwars to much push and a lot of it in the wrong way.
Happy he did fight back, otherwise I prob wouldn't have enjoyed Fallen order. Also wouldn't be HYPED for Jedi Survior.
Tap here to load 18 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...