Cameron Monaghan Says ‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’ Is an “Emotional Rollercoaster”
With the Star Wars Jedi: Survivor gameplay trailer just released at The Game Awards, Cameron Monaghan — the voice of protagonist Cal Kestis — spoke to StarWars.com about the game and its story, as well as Cal’s relationship with mentor Cere Junda.
In fact, he goes as far as to call it an “emotional rollercoaster”:
This is going to be an emotional rollercoaster for people. I think that you’d have to be made of stone for it to not hit you in the heart.
As Cameron elaborates, he points out that the crew of the Mantis are really starting to feel the pressure now, five years on from the events of Fallen Order (and following the events of the upcoming novel Battle Scars):
We have a really dire situation that we find Cal in at the beginning of the game, where he is searching for ways to rebel that are becoming increasingly difficult and perhaps even hopeless. But we have a character that was given meaning and a goal by this resistance, and he was given this hope, and that hope is very hard to extinguish.
But what happens when you have hope in a situation that becomes increasingly hopeless? Different people have different ideas about what is the best way to resist.
Interestingly, it sounds like there will be some division between Cal and Cere in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Perhaps the game will go the same route as The Empire Strikes Back in separating the characters from each other to have them reunite later in the story.
Cere and Cal have this interesting dynamic, where she’s not his formal master, but she is his mentor. And, frankly, they have different ideas of how to deal with imperialism and the Empire. In the first game, it was about finding family and what it means to create a family. With this story, a lot of it is to do with ‘What happens when there’s stress on a family?’”
What we end up finding in the story is a really complicated and exciting development to how we want to approach the character, and I think it is not only exciting, but it’s also emotional and beautiful and treats its audience with a level of respect that I think a lot of people are going to really appreciate.
He also spoke about the gameplay trailer itself. While it didn’t give too much away in terms of the overall story, Cameron believes it is emblematic of the rest of the game when it comes to gameplay and the scope of the project.
I think it’s a great introduction into the scope and the size of this new game. This game is really ambitious in how much it is furthering and progressing not only the gameplay elements from Jedi: Fallen Order, but also furthering the story and the characters as well.
We’re starting to see hints as to where that’s going to branch off and what options you’re going to be given as a player.
As much as the trailer does reveal some really cool and exciting things, it doesn’t give away the whole gist of what we’re going for with this one. I think people are going to be really pleasantly surprised by just how this game progresses and where it goes as you get deeper into it.
Cameron also seems to understand the significance of getting new Star Wars video games in the modern era of gaming:
It’s an honor to be a part of a title releasing now in this generation of consoles with the Jedi series. I think that people have been looking for the titles that really excite them to make the leap on to the next generation. Speaking personally, having seen how this game looks and how it runs on the next generation [of consoles], I think it’s going to have people very excited.
Thinking back to how Fallen Order struggled to run on the basic PS4 and Xbox One models when it first released, this is good to hear. It’s not long now until gamers can actually get their hands on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor — it’s launching on March 17, 2023.
Josh is a huge Star Wars fan, who has spent far too much time wondering if any Star Wars character could defeat Thanos with all the Infinity Stones.
