

Asmussen said that the team wanted this change reflected in Cal not just in the story, but through his combat as well. One of the big focuses throughout the development of Jedi: Survivor has been this concept of “Jedi 2.0,” and how to take Cal from where he was in Jedi: Fallen Order, a young and relatively inexperienced padawan trying to find his place and identity, to where he is now in Jedi: Survivor: a much more confident and capable Jedi Knight who’s also five years wiser. To find out more about each of these stances, I talked with Senior Design Director Jason de Heras and Director Stig Asmussen, who walked me through the design philosophy behind each stance and their unique approaches to combat. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order found a solution to this problem by giving Cal two different lightsaber stances, each with their own combat focus and moveset, and with the sequel, Jedi: Survivor, Respawn is looking to up the ante with a total of five different stances that Cal can use over the course of his journey. That presents a bit of an issue, as most good action game heroes have multiple weapons to help keep combat fresh over the course of the game.

But one challenge about having a Jedi main character is that they’re only really known to use lightsabers. All great innate attributes for an action game set in the Star Wars universe. They’ve got a lightsaber, force powers, they’re quick, and can jump really high. I don’t think anyone would argue the idea that a Jedi makes for a pretty badass playable video game protagonist.
