EA Finally Succeeds at Star Wars With Surprisingly Good ‘Jedi: Fallen Order’
Electronics Arts' is stepping in the right direction with its single-player adventure game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. | Source: EA/Respawn
- Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order released last week.
- The game is unlike anything EA has released of late.
- EA has finally done the Star Wars IP justice.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is an excellent video game and one that, against all expectations, comes from EA, of all publishers.
Far from being perfect, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has its failings (notably a serviceable, if a tad bland narrative), but while it’s easy to slate EA for its innumerable blunders, it’s essential to direct an approving nod when it gets it right.
While critics are quick to assign hyperbolic proclamations in reviews that often veer from the reality of the game, it feels like Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is worthy of these accolades. The most pertinent of which is the best Star Wars game in recent times , which it wholly deserves.
A Welcome Challenge
To call the gameplay, notably the combat, in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order revolutionary does the game it disservice. There’s nothing innately unique about what Respawn has conjured up, but what it does, it does well.
Comparisons to Souls games are a useful, if a bit lazy, way of framing Fallen Order’s action-based combat. There are similarities it has to be said. From the bonfire-like meditate checkpoints and the loss of XP upon death to the action trifecta of parrying, dodging, and attacking.
It’s by no means as punishing as Dark Souls or Bloodborne. But, it has a level of difficulty that few mainstream titles would even consider flirting with for fear of alienating a huge portion of the player base.
Nevertheless, the package is enough to add a sense of importance to each encounter rather than the ‘fun, fun, fun’ motto and hand-holding ease of play of title’s aiming at a mainstream demographic beyond the versed gamer base.
And while the combat borders on the excellent most of the time, it’s propped up by puzzle-solving and traversal segments that make exploring a visually thrilling world and labyrinth-like levels a genuine treat.
An EA Game Free of Monetization
Load up Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, and there’s not a micro-transaction or a loot box in sight. Progressing through the story grants access to items, as it should do. It’s pretty unfathomable for an EA title in 2019 with the likes of FIFA 2020 pumping out monetization schemes like there’s no tomorrow. But, it’s true, and the game is all the better for it.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is a departure from EA’s voracious monetization and games as a service model. The publisher has given Respawn the time, space, and creative freedom to craft a game that stands out as an oddity.
Respawn’s latest effort comes into sharper focus when compared to EA’s last foray into the Star Wars universe, Battlefront II. It’s almost as if the publisher has learned from the mistakes of the past and shipped a game that people want to play.
EA has finally done the Star Wars IP justice.
