EA/ActivisionStar Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is closing in on its November release date, and developer Respawn has started to discuss the game’s combat mechanics in greater detail, with the studio revealing it’s drawn information from an unexpected source.
After a number of gameplay demos started to come out of E3 2019, both behind closed doors and public, many who went hands-on with the latest Star Wars title made comparisons to FromSoftware hits Dark Souls and the recently-released Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, at least as far the combat was concerned.
EAThose familiar with FromSoftware games will know that Sekiro was a big departure from Dark Souls and Bloodborne, implementing entirely new combat mechanics. While a stamina bar limited your dodges and attacks in the previous titles, Sekiro did away with this and replaced it with a posture gauge for both players and AI enemies.
This meant that instead of worrying about how agile you could be or how often you could attack, you instead had to worry about staying on the move, knowing when to keep at an enemy in an attempt to break their posture and go in for the kill, or else hang back and defend. It was a smart system that allowed for a much more intense and involved style of combat.
In a new interview with Edge magazine (via WCCFTech), Jedi: Fallen Order’s Lead Combat Designer Jason de Heras spoke about the comparisons to Sekiro, stating that the freedom players got in the samurai adventure from the lack of a stamina bar and focus on rhythmic combat was a key inspiration.
He explained:
They let you attack, they let you roll, they do all this for free – and then the AI will tell you if you’re doing the correct thing. It just confirmed to us that you don’t have to limit everything the player does; let them have a little more agency, and then let the AI give them a slap on the wrist or a punch in the face.
De Heras went on to describe Sekiro’s system as “very similar” to the one Respawn Entertainment had designed for Jedi: Fallen Order, while the game’s director Stig Asmussen said in the same interview that he’s always had an appreciation for FromSoftware titles, even going back to before the days of Demon’s Souls.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Developer Interview
"It's a good sized game; I'm not worried about it as a gamer, it's a really good size."We spoke to the developers of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order about making a single player game, how good the combat feels and wether or not you should be able to cut people apart with a lightsaber 👀
Posted by UNILAD Gaming on Monday, June 10, 2019
Obviously, this doesn’t mean that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be an intensely challenging game, but any studio – especially one of Respawn’s calibre – that approaches game design with FromSoftware in mind tend to come up with genuinely interesting new spins on combat and exploration, both of which Jedi: Fallen Order will apparently deliver in spades.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.