The Star Wars Jedi series, which is about to get expanded with its second entry later this month, almost didn't feature Jedi, as Lucasfilm is very protective of them and didn't originally want to give Respawn permission to have one of them star in their franchise.
Speaking with The Guardian, Survivor game director Stig Asmussen talked about how the series came to be and how they managed to develop a game that could speak to all sorts of Star Wars fans worldwide. In the beginning, things weren't exactly smooth sailing, as they had to get approval for almost every element from Lucasfilm, and the company was initially not very keen on letting Respawn star a Jedi in their game, as, according to Asmussen, they are incredibly protective of the iconic order, and wanted Respawn to have a Force using smuggler or bounty hunter as the main character of the game.
As such a change would have drastically altered the game he wanted to make, Stig Asmussen was close to quitting, as a shooter was not a game he wanted to make. Eventually, the development team managed to build enough trust with Lucasfilm, earning the right to call their series Star Wars Jedi. Building trust, however, was a two-way thing, as Lucasfilm had to earn the trust of Respawn as well, and things have gotten to the point where it's no longer the two teams one against the other. This level of trust seems apparent in the gameplay footage we have seen so far, as Cal is capable of so much more than in the original game, but in ways that seem to respect the canon of the franchise.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is setting out to be a much bigger game than its predecessor, not just in terms of story and gameplay but also in file size, as it was confirmed last week that the game will require 155GB of free storage space on PC. Hopefully, performance issues will not be as huge as the game's file size.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor launches on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S on April 28th worldwide. You can learn more about the game by checking out Kai's preview as well as this page which details all of the game's editions, gameplay features, and more.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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