This 12 months has been jam-packed with new Star Wars, with three new seasons of TV in Dangerous Batch, The Mandalorian, and Ahsoka, and oodles of books and comics that noticed us revisit legends or the Excessive Republic. At the same time as we await its return to the large display, Star Wars stays ever-present—however one new story particularly fulfilled the promise of connecting factors throughout this huge galaxy this 12 months greater than the rest: Jedi Survivor.
‘I Began a Yoda Fan Membership’
As a standalone piece of Star Wars, Jedi Survivor proudly stands by itself two toes. In a compelling exploration of what 5 extra years beneath the grip of the Empire might do to the characters we first met in Respawn’s preliminary title within the collection, Jedi: Fallen Order weaved collectively a superb character piece analyzing the other ways survival and resistance spoke to the likes of Cal, Merrin, Greez, and Cere. It added a fancy and attention-grabbing new foil to Cal in Bode Akuna, the charming smuggler hiding a darkish path paralleling Cal’s personal rising up from the fires of the Clone Warfare to the lifetime of a Jedi on the run.
Screenshot: James Whitbrook/Respawn
It took, and ran with, all the good mechanical parts Fallen Order established in providing a brand new type of tackle a lightsaber fight sport—just a little little bit of Darkish Souls-ian affect right here, just a little Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy there—and a collection of worlds to discover to create a sport that constructed on the promise of its predecessor and gave us an even bigger, extra expansive, and sophisticated expertise. It additionally, and this can’t be emphasised sufficient, is the very best Star Wars dolly dress-up sport we’ve gotten in years.
All this stuff are good, however what makes Jedi Survivor shine so brightly is that it’s the largest piece of latest Star Wars we’ve gotten on this age of the brand new, all-connected, all-canonical period of Star Wars storytelling that actually feels prefer it’s in dialog with, and constructing on, all these connections throughout generations of Star Wars tales—and tying them collectively in a method that looks like they’re actually all a part of the identical universe we’ve seen over a timeframe of not simply many years, however tons of of years.
The “Rise of the Empire” period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope is essentially the most well-trod floor in continuity for good purpose. It affords a strategy to bridge collectively these unique movies and prequels extra cohesively, and just a little past that within the timeline; not often are you able to watch an episode of The Mandalorian with out a character who first seem in an animated collection launched a pair many years prior exhibiting up. However what Survivor did was not simply merely cameos and Easter egg references to the Star Wars past its quick story and timeframe, however delicately weave elements of that historical past, and nods to the tales that got here after it, in such a method that it felt precisely like that: partaking with historical past, as an alternative of there being in any other case largely remoted pockets of Star Wars that ostensibly co-exist, however not often deeply intertwine.
It was as maybe a shock to many when Survivor first launched to see simply how vital the period of the Excessive Republic was going to be to this chapter of Cal Kestis’ story. In spite of everything, it was by no means touched on in Fallen Order, just because, effectively, the Excessive Republic publishing initiative didn’t truly exist publicly when it was launched. It’s a testomony to Survivor’s writing and concepts, then, that its main presence each within the worldbuilding and on to Cal’s personal journey feels so effortlessly pure, like, in fact, these characters and this universe have at all times been in a position to reckon with a establishment that existed tons of of years previous to their very own. Past giving Cal new locales to discover, and parallels to his personal historical past as a Jedi—as he seeks to attempt to re-examine and evolve what meaning outdoors of the context of the Jedi Order as he knew it present—it additionally gave us a captivating additional foil for him within the fallen Jedi Dagan Gera, a time-strewn survivor of this supposed golden age for the Order.
Screenshot: James Whitbrook/Respawn
Star Wars tells a whole lot of tales about Jedi, however Gera’s is certainly one of its most fascinating. Having survived the 200-plus-year hole between the eras of the Excessive Republic and the rise of the Empire by way of bacta stasis, he has a singular perspective on the second in time he finds himself awoken in—and what it means once we as gamers, and Cal alike, uncover that Gera was already effectively on the way in which to falling to the Darkish Facet even earlier than the Jedi Order’s hubris laid it low towards Palpatine’s machinations. Once more, a fallen Jedi pushed by the trauma and influence of experiencing the horrors that remodeled their whole worldview throughout a grand battle is nothing new to Star Wars, however Gera affords a mirror to an archetype we’ve seen lots sufficient of within the wake of the Clone Warfare.
A lot of Jedi Survivor’s broader story is a couple of race to search out the planet Tanalorr, a hidden world largely remoted from the galaxy by an expansive, difficult-to-navigate area of house referred to as the Koboh Abyss (sure, like a whole lot of Star Wars, it’s a factor a couple of map). It’s a spot Gera had first discovered and fought to attempt to defend, each from raiders and even ultimately the Jedi themselves, when the Order withdrew their assist for his exploration of the world as a viable secure haven. It makes the planet greater than some handy plot gadget that Survivor can use to drop off characters who it doesn’t wish to kill off however likewise doesn’t need ultimately co-existing with the time-frame of the unique Star Wars motion pictures. What Tanalorr means to each Gera and Cal has parallels—this final secure harbor for these focused by the good evils of the galaxy—however the context for that which means, of their locations in two very completely different eras of Star Wars, makes them such a captivating match for one another.
Screenshot: James Whitbrook/Respawn
To Gera, from a time when the Jedi have been ostensibly at their highest, most intellectually and spiritually wealthy, Tanalorr is a mirrored image of that functionality, a house within the galaxy solely they may craft. When the Jedi abandon it and its protection, shaken as they’re by the ferocity of the Nihil throughout the nascent expansions of the Republic, it utterly breaks him—and that’s why, when he awakens to see the Order gone and an Empire rather than the Republic, he lacks little compassion for what stays. Cal, in the meantime, nonetheless grasps with what a Jedi identification truly encapsulates to him, having grown into a person largely outdoors of the tutelage and steering of the Order. For Cal, Tanalorr is a mirrored image of the Jedi superb in an altogether completely different method: a selfless act, a secure harbor solely individuals like him can information others to, to allow them to flee the persecution that upended his life because the Clone Wars got here to an finish. In merging these shared traumas the 2 have round their need to search out the world, Survivor carves out a few of its most bittersweet reflections on what it means to be a Jedi, on what the galaxy it enables you to play about in has truly been like over cycles of battle and decay, and the way that sweeps up and transforms individuals.
And it really works. Few different elements of Star Wars past the Excessive Republic tales themselves have had an opportunity to play with its setting and its potential because it got here out, however Survivor finds a connection to it that makes it really feel prefer it’s been a part of this galaxy for for much longer than since 2021. That, in and of itself, is supposed to be the perfect of what Star Wars has been attempting to vow since continuity was reset years earlier than that: a galaxy the place tales are instructed throughout eons of time, throughout completely different views, and with completely different characters and worlds and conflicts, however nonetheless a part of this singular, linked universe that feels as wealthy and as lived-in as we’ve at all times imagined it to be. That so few main explorations of Star Wars have used that potential to its fullest within the years since could be a disappointment, however at the very least now it has an indicator in a narrative like Jedi Survivor to maintain reaching for that superb.
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