Jedi: Fallen Order is a Star Wars game, but — unlike the recent Star Wars Battlefronts — it isn’t a slot machine fronting as a game. Nope, it’s actually a first-person action game instead of a live service or micro-transaction fest.
Cal Kestis
When the Emperor overthrew the Galactic Republic and founded the Empire, he started the great Jedi Purge. The movie just shows Darth Vader killing some children, because the movie is utter freaking crap on a stick, but the lore says that Darth Vader led a group of inquisitors to purge the Jedi.
Cal Kestis is such a young jedi. He managed to survive the initial purge because his master Jaro Tapal sacrificed himself for Cal. Cal hides on the planet Bracca where he spends a few years scavenging the remains of republic capital ships brought there for disassembly.
Then, one day, he uses his powers to save a friend, and is discovered by inquisitors of the Empire. He manages to escape with the help of an ex-Jedi named Cere and a starship captain called Greez. Cere has a plan to find a holocube containing a list of remaining Jedi, and revive the order. Cal has to help.
Adventures ensue.
The Game
Jedi: Fallen Order is what you call an action-adventure game. You play as Cal and you have force powers and a light saber. The planets you visit feature large levels, that you can partially navigate. As the game progresses Cal gains new powers, allowing you to reach other places. So the game features not just light-saber fighting, but also climbing and puzzling through levels (like Tomb Raider or Uncharted) and also Metroidvania elements.
It isn’t the longest game I’ve played, but thankfully it isn’t an endless grindy open-world game either. A not-too-long single player game is good enough for me. And the more linear progression means the game has better pacing than open-world games.
The thing about Star Wars games is that they have to be cool. Making a Star Wars game cool can apparently be hard. If you look at a game like The Force Unleashed, that game somehow made pushing a Star Destroyer into the ground with force powers a slog. The Battlefront game, as mentioned, are no more than glorified slot machines, designed as small grindy multi-player games, where you are invited to spend a lot of money on top of the cost of the game. Oh, and it peddles gambling to children. Great one, that.
Jedi: Fallen Order, though, got it right. Which is somewhat of a feat, given a lot of Star Wars games over the last decade have been crap.
Conclusion
So, in short, if you like action-adventure games, go play Jedi: Fallen Order. You get to swing a light saber and everything.
