Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order director Stig Asmussen recently revealed on the AIAS Game Maker’s podcast that Lucasfilm pushed for Respawn to make a Star Wars game that didn’t focus on Jedi.
“I pitched, ‘Hey what if we do a game about Jedi and Force powers,'” said Asmussen. “They were not super comfortable with that. They threw it back, ‘What about blasters or bounty hunters?'”
That’s certainly odd to hear. There have been so many Star Wars games, movies, and other related works over the years that have focused on Jedis and force powers that we just naturally assumed that Lucasfilm, Disney, and others who hold the purse strings were the ones pushing for these elements to be included. After all, it was suggested that part of the reason why canceled games like Ragtag and Star Wars 1313 fell apart is that they were trying to do things a little differently.
Regardless, Asmussen insisted that the team be allowed to make the game they wanted to make or that they might as well “start building a racing game at this point.”
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“The Jedi is the Holy Grail,” said Asmussen. “There was a little bit of back and forth, but they could see where I was coming from and said, ‘All right, we can start having a conversation about making a game about Force users, but not Jedi.’ And then the game comes out and its name is Jedi.”
It’s nice to know that everything (kind of) worked out, but we’re still fascinated by the idea of Lucasfilm wanting someone to make a Star Wars game that doesn’t focus on Jedi. Considering the success of projects like The Mandalorian, we’d love to see a game developer tackle the Star Wars universe from a slightly more grounded perspective. Between that potential project and Fallen Order, we might even slowly begin to enter a new golden age for Star Wars games.
Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days trying to pitch deep-dive analytical pieces about Killer Klowns From Outer Space to an increasingly perturbed series of editors. You can read more of his work here or find him on Twitter at @SilverTuna014.
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