As someone who fell out of love with everything Star Wars a while back, this game reminded me what a compelling story and great gameplay can do to breathe life back into a franchise that has been struggling as of late.

In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, you play as Cal Kestis, a padawan survivor from the infamous order 66. In your journey as Cal, you will travel to many different places many Star Wars fans are familiar with and meet a wide cast of different characters. Watching Cal’s journey unfold was one of the highlights of the game for myself. He starts off as a young padawan not sure in his abilities, and towards the end of his journey his demeanor shifts, becoming more confident in himself and the others around him. Respawn took the Star Wars IP and did with it something very few studios have been able to do. They made a Star Wars game that is faithful to the lore, but still unique enough to not rely on the movies as a crutch.


Fallen Order is an acton adventure game that borrows elements from titles like Dark Souls and the Metroid Prime games. The game is set around a few planets that you are free to explore once you have unlocked their flight path. Every planet is unique and has different enemies and hazards unique to their level. Where this game truly succeeds is in its exploration. Often throughout the game you will be confronted with an obstacle that you are unable to pass until you progress further into the main story. This keeps the player back tracking though parts of the game they might have originally skipped over, looking for chest and secrets they might have missed on their initial passthrough. The chests in the game only carry cosmetic items to change the appearance of Cal, BD-8 and your ship, and sometimes it does not feel like it’s worth investing the time to find them all when in return, all you receive is a yellow poncho.

The combat in Fallen Order is fun, but not perfect. It plays similarly to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, where every enemy has a stamina bar, and when drained you can dish out your full amount damage. Unlike Sekiro, the combat never feels as precise. There will be points in the game where the combat feels choppy and all over the place, and other moments when your parries connect at the correct moment and the game plays as its intended to. Once you progress far enough into the game the player begins to unlock more force abilities, and this is the point where the game begins to shine on its own. Unlocking these abilities allows the player to approach situations differently than they would have in the beginning of the game and put their own unique style on how they want Cal to fight off his enemies.

Overall, Fallen Order is a breath of fresh air in a market saturated with shooters and half-assed triple A titles. While it doesn’t do anything better than the titles it borrows from, it does enough on its own to separate its self from would be titles. This is a step in the right direction for EA. In the future I hope that EA puts more faith in Respawn and allows them to continually create great games (Titanfall 3 plz).

9/10