‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’ Game Director Talks Cal Kestis, Bode Akuna, and Crossguard Lightsaber
Stig Asmussen, director of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, has spoken a bit more about Cal Kestis and his new weapons, and provided a bit more insight on Bode Akuna, one of the new characters in the Fallen Order sequel.
As part of an interview with Games Radar‘s Play magazine, Asmussen spoke about where Cal is emotionally by the time of Survivor.
A lot’s happened in the past five years, y’know? Cal’s been on the run. He’s matured as a Jedi Knight but he’s also experienced some things that have left their mark on him. He’s feeling that weight of being one of the last Jedi and being hunted, and I think his physical appearance showcases that.
Hopefully, that’s not just a reference to Cal’s new facial hair in Survivor, but to his general demeanor as well. If it’s the latter, then Asmussen claims that Cameron Monaghan, the actor behind the Jedi, had a big influence in shaping that. His experience as a gamer impacted his performances, affecting the decisions he made in the moment on set.
[Cameron Monaghan] has helped shape this game in many ways. Obviously he has been critical in how Cal has evolved as a character, emotionally, dramatically, and how he perceives what he is up against and the galaxy — but also his connection with the Force. What is written in the script, and how Cam is able to collaborate with our writers and directors on set and transform it in real time, is a thing of beauty.
Cam is a gamer, and loves our game, and the genre we live in.
Asmussen also shed some more light on Bode Akuna, the new character we see offering a helping hand to Cal in the latest trailer. He makes it clear that Bode will act as a companion character during combat, unlike in Fallen Order, where the crew of the Mantis would stay aboard the ship while Cal risked his life.
These are the worst periods of the Dark Times, and Cal is constantly looking over his shoulder, being hunted by the worst of the worst.
Bode is truly one of the good guys. The moment when he teams up with Cal in our trailer is just one example of the bond the two have, and how it translates to real gameplay. They look out for each other, which is critical for both of their survival.
Hopefully this means we’ll also see Merrin and Cere Junda fighting alongside Cal at some point too, though the article does seem to imply that Cal is split from the Mantis crew after a disagreement with Cere on the future of the Jedi (Asmussen does not comment on this).
The magazine also addresses a shot from the trailer showing a figure wearing High Republic Jedi robes and holding a device of some kind, claiming that it will “apparently neutralize the Jedi’s threat to the Empire.” Once again, this came from the writer and not from Asmussen himself.
When it comes to gameplay, Asmussen also talked about how the crossguard saber will act as a heavy duty weapon, while the blaster pistol will encourage long range combat for players.
Specifically, he said that the crossguard blade, famously wielded by Kylo Ren in the sequel trilogy films, will be useful when players need to fight in a “heavy yet measured and purposeful approach… for when you really need to bring a measured, hard-hitting approach to a fight.” Perhaps the crossguard stance will be useful for a high-damage approach for particularly dangerous enemies.
Not much is said about how the blaster pistol will change combat beyond that its inclusion is “to encourage ranged attacks.” It’s easy to imagine how that might be the case, seeing as the combat in Fallen Order was almost entirely melee-based (the one technique where you throw your lightsaber like a boomerang being the sole exception). Having a blaster might help with crowd control when outnumbered by enemies. Supposedly, Cal will even be able to use both saber and pistol together, which is not a tactic often utilized by Jedi Knights.
Sadly, we didn’t get to see the crossguard stance nor the blaster pistol in the nine-minute gameplay video that was released earlier this week, which saw Cal and BD-1 fight new enemies while exploring a brand-new planet early in the game. Another extract from the Play magazine interview also confirmed that fast travel and rideable creatures will be added to the game in order to make exploration easier.
Asmussen also touched on the fact that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is only available on current-gen consoles, leaving the PS4 and Xbox One behind. Apparently, working on Fallen Order‘s PS5 version helped make this transition easier. Gamers will pleased to hear that Survivor really takes advantage of leaving the older consoles behind.
[That version] was a real proving ground while we were considering how to enhance Survivor. We actually considered ray tracing for the new-gen Fallen Order because we were already building it into Survivor, but ultimately we scrapped it, because the environment art authoring between the generations was pretty different. But the process did help us define how we wanted to approach ray tracing on our modified version of the Unreal 4 engine.
Bottom line, we learned quickly that we could take advantage of the faster processors, larger/faster memory, better loading times etc, to create much larger maps, with more detail, greater density, broader enemy/NPC variety, and overall fidelity. These features aligned perfectly with how we wanted to push the game.
We didn’t want to break what we did in the first game because it was well received, but we wanted to evolve/enhance the experience. This new generation allowed us to do exactly that, and I believe it translates to a true new-gen experience in the Star Wars universe.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will arrive on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on April 28, 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.
