There was a time, not so long ago, where Star Wars was the height of pop culture for me. I read the comics, watched the shows and, most relevantly, I played the heck out of the games. And in that time there was no shortage of middling to great Star Wars video games for me to play. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Empire at War and Pandemic's Battlefront; all allowed us to visit the galaxy not so far away and live the life of a Star Wars hero.
Back then there was a Star Wars game out every year, like a genre unto itself, and Lucasarts managed to get some of the most talented companies in the industry working on their property. This was due, of course, to the lure of Star Wars brand the the availability of the licence. Anyone with the funding and the skills could try their hand at bringing everyone's favourite characters to life in pixelated glory. It's how we got such gems like the Lego Star Wars series, The Star Wars Galaxies MMO and, my third favourite game of all time, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. So it's safe to say that I am a fan. Or rather was.
As with all things good in the world, the golden age of Star Wars would come to an end. Now, I'm not going to attribute that all to the 2012 acquisition by Disney, 'cause this ain't no movie blog, but I won't put my head in the sand and pretend that the purchase had no affect. At the time that Disney took control of the Star Wars license they, as a company, were on their way out of the Video Game market. As developers Disney had never seen huge success in gaming outside of their Disney Infinity hybrid project that was already beginning to lose steam. Therefore it wasn't a huge surprise when, not long after Disney bought out Lucas, the Lucasarts team was essentially shut down and now exists only as a licenser.
Of course, Disney would be insane to just abandon the video game market entirely; they'd be turning their backs on a billion dollar industry. Disney needed to take advantage of their newly acquired licensee company, but they were no longer making big games themselves and Disney's famously oppressive quality assurance would mean many of the companies that used to make use of the Star Wars brand would now be ineligible. Disney needed a company big enough to handle the production of Star Wars games and with enough resources to ensure they are made to exacting standards. Disney needed EA.
Now, I'm not going to rag on Electronic Arts for the rest of this blog. I look at the founding of this blog as a new start in my relationship with that company; I will now approach them as though nothing they have done previously has had any affect on me. With an exception made to what they did to Star Wars. Remember when I said how there used to be a Star Wars game every year? Not any more. Remember how I mentioned Pandemic's Battlefront as an example of a great Star Wars game? Well now we have DICE's Battlefront with it's undercooked first entry and morally corrupt sequel. And I don't use the label 'Morally corrupt' lightly. Heck, I don't think I've ever used it before.
That being said, it's all water under the bridge. EA have made dozen of platitudes about having learnt from their mistakes and moved on and whilst I don't believe them in the slightest I believe everybody deserves at least one second chance. So I approach Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order with a blank state and a fresh mind.
Straight away we have an palatable prospect; A single player, linear, Star Wars adventure that will follow the story of a Jedi surviving the aftermath of Order 66. It's no 'Star Wars: 1313' (the bounty hunter origin story that was scuppered by Disney when they downsized Lucasarts) or 'Project Ragtag' (The Amy Hennig lead Acton adventure that was killed by EA in favour of an Open World title... that was then killed by EA) but what the heck, I'll eat up your scraps, EA; not like us Star Wars fans have any choice at this point.
Cal Kestis is of the Padiwans who managed to survive the, increasingly ineffectual, Order 66. (Seriously we got Yoda, Obiwan, Kanan, Kota, Paradus, Ashoka, Shaak Ti, Luminara and now Cal? I know what they say about Stormtrooper aim but this is bloody egregious!) Now Kestis, carrying the likeness of voice actor Cameron Monaghan, must struggle to persist in a galaxy ruled by the Empire. It's hardly the most inspired story to come out of the Star Wars lore but in this new cannon I suppose it still has some room to explore.The game itself will center around Cal's journey, allowing you to play as him through his adventure to becoming a true Jedi and likely dying at the end. Hey, there's got to be some excuse why this guy wasn't in the rebellion.
EA opened up it's conference, and indeed all of E3, with an extended gameplay look at Jedi: Fallen Order and after watching the footage ten or twenty times I can conclude that the game looks... fine. Visually it looks pretty, I guess. The gameplay sort of reminds me of the Batman Arkham franchise only leagues easier and the world we got to explore in the E3 demo was Kashyyyk. (Whoopee.) You know, for such a rare and secluded species the Wookies and their homeworld tends to be at the centre of so many different plots. The Sith went there to enslave the population; the separatists tried to invade there for... some reason; two Jedi masters, completely independently from each other, hid there after Order 66 and now the Empire have moved in with the goal of... enslaving the population. Are the bad guys starting to copy each other's notes?
Overall, Respawn's Star Wars looks very safe. They chose the safe option of setting the game during the free-for-all period of Star Wars lore. They made the safe decision to make it about a Jedi, banking off of peoples lust to satiate their power fantasies. They based the story about a young man discovering his Jedi destiny, with friends to help him along the way. They had the protagonist look like he just escaped a cloning facility for stock white guys. Okay, that's a little mean. He's based around Cameron Monaghan; but I can't shake the feeling that somehow, somewhere down the line the design artists made a conscious effort to make him look particularly generic.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a peace offering from EA. They let Respawn go to town with, what appears to be, very stringent confines to make a Star Wars game that will be as appealing to as many people as possible. This is what you Star Wars fans who miss the golden age get. An action game with a vaguely interesting premise and the honour of being the first video game to feature the Sith inquisitors. (An aspect of the new lore that I am coolly agnostic towards.) All those tactics fans, flight simulator fans and RPG fans that made up the old Star Wars gaming community will have to make do with this compromise of a game.
I know I'm being harsh. I know it's unfair. I'm certain Respawn, creators of the underrated Titanfall franchise, are trying as hard as the can to create the best possible product that they possibly can. But this game has inspired little more than mild interest for my part, as a game that I may pick up two years down the line for a heavy discount. Maybe I'm still just stuck in my nostalgic memories of the age when Star Wars games were plentiful and diverse. Maybe I'm still too darn stubborn to move on and accept that the gaming landscape has moved past the days of high-budget projects that don't reek of corporate conformism. But then I look toward Rockstar or CD Projekt Red and remember you just have to look in the right places, at the right companies.
Darn it, I said I wouldn't rag on EA. I don't want to. I really do want EA and Respawn to prove me wrong about this game. I want it to be something special that will really reverberate with fans of the Star Wars mythos and invite in a whole slate of new fans. Uhh, I'm getting cynical in my old age. Make a good Jedi, I would not. Faith inspires optimism and I haven't had faith in the Star Wars franchise since 2012. Please change my mind EA, I want to love my favourite franchise again.
No comments:
Post a Comment