Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Hands-on Preview

Taking the first steps to becoming a Jedi isn't so easy when you're being hunted by the Empire.

Recently Gamers' Temple had the chance to get some hands-on time with Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order and even better than that is that I got to be the one to go to Anaheim, California! Being a big Star Wars fan for the past few decades I jumped at the chance to see what Respawn could do. Read on to see what I thought of my hours with the game.

Fallen Order creates new worlds and stories within the Star Wars universe. The biggest story is, of course, Cal becoming a Jedi - after all what is more Star Warsy than that? There is a lot of story and plot that I can not cover here so as not to ruin any surprises. What I can say is that one point made me think “yeah, that makes sense” and another made me say “Awesome!” There are new ships to see and planets to explore. And it’s all canon, so that’s cool.

The game is a single player game. I’ll state that again. It’s a single player Star Wars game. I really wasn’t too sure if I would ever see those words together again, but I’m very happy I have. It’s published by EA, but I was promised by several Respawn developers that there would not be anything like loot boxes or micro-transactions to worry about. Woo! That’s worth some extra points right there!

In Fallen Order you play as Cal Kestis who was a Padawan when the infamous Order 66 was unleashed. Cal survived but is now hiding from basically everyone, but especially the empire. Our demo starts in an area near the beginning of the story, which means that the Cal is not totally in control of his Force powers. So the story is about Cal’s journey to become a Jedi...and some other things I can’t talk about, but mostly it’s about becoming a Jedi.

Fallen Order has a third-person point of view and it fits the gameplay well. Respawn might not be the first name when you think of third-person games, but they are not playing around and have brought a pretty strong game. There were a couple of hiccups that have me slightly concerned, though. For example, I was able to waltz right up to a Stormtrooper with my lightsaber engaged, without trying to be very sneaky at all, and got no reaction from the Trooper until I sliced him in two. There were examples of NPCs just standing still until you get a certain distance then they start to move...but obviously that system might not be perfect as that poor Stormtrooper found out.

It’s not the most original game and that’s fine. I saw influences from such games as Witcher 3, Uncharted, Mass Effect, and others. I don’t need a game to be totally original, just do whatever it is you’re doing well. The lightsaber combat is spot-on and is a blast to use. I didn’t get to try out much in the way of Force powers, but we did see a demo that shows Cal near full strength and I can say that he does get some interesting Force powers as he progresses.

Being a Star Wars game you have to have a driod, and Fallen Order brings us BD-1. I had doubts about BD, but I was won over the first time BD-1 leaped off my shoulder to go and point out something interesting. Besides being a source of information BD, also is able to toss Cal a few health packs when things get tough.

From the couple of hours that I got to test drive Fallen Order I am certainly looking forward to the full deal next month. May the Force be with you.