Stig Asmussen, the director of the Star Wars Jedi series, recently revealed in an interview with The Guardian that he almost walked away from the project after facing initial pushback from Lucasfilm regarding Respawn’s idea to create a game featuring Jedi. Asmussen explained that Lucasfilm was extremely protective of Jedi as a part of the Star Wars canon and suggested renaming the characters in Respawn’s game as “Force users” instead. He stated that they had to earn the right to use the term Jedi and to do so, they had to explain their reasoning for wanting to include Jedi and what they wanted to do with them. This would have resulted in a very different game when compared to the upcoming Star Wars Jedi Survivor.
Asmussen further elaborated that Lucasfilm proposed changing Respawn’s game to focus on a bounty hunter or a smuggler. At this point, Asmussen, who had previously worked on the God of War series, felt that he was not the right fit for the job and considered stepping away from the project. “That’s not my background. My background came from God of War… I’ve never worked on a shooter, and you need a different team to do that. You might as well be asking me to make a racing game,” he said.
Lucasfilm Didn’t Want ‘Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’ to Be A Jedi Game
Despite the challenges, Respawn was able to persuade Lucasfilm to continue with their vision and ultimately created a series centered around a Jedi named Cal Kestis. The series offered a new perspective on the Galaxy far, far away, that almost everyone enjoyed. Cal starts off as a padawan and, through the course of the game, is given the opportunity to go up against one of the strongest force users in the galaxy.
Fans of the game can look forward to the upcoming release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on April 28 for console and PC. It follows the continuation of Kestis’ journey as a Jedi. The game expands upon everything the sequel did well and will hopefully be a better experience overall.