Star War Jedi: Fallen Order Combat Wants To Make You Feel Like A Young Jedi | E3 2019

It’s not all about Lightsabers and the Force, but a lot of it is.

After dropping a tiny teaser on Twitter yesterday, EA used their EA Play showcase to give us a much better look at the gameplay and combat from Star War Jedi: Fallen Order. The game puts you in the shoes of a young Jedi after the events of Order 66, the Empire’s plan to eliminate the last of the Jedi.

Combat looks crisp and fluid but is also designed to be accessible for anybody who wants to pick up the game. You start the game knowing a couple of Jedi skills, but build up your abilities over time. You will be able to deflect lasers with your Lightsaber and kill enemies with their own shots. You can also slow time, and throw your Lightsaber at people. There is also a parry and dodge system, leading to fluid exchanges and repositioning.

The gameplay showed a miniboss fight, against a black-clad Inquisitor armed with a weapon that could negate the Lightsaber. There was a very nice sequence where Cal used the Force to drag his opponent out of stance, giving him the chance to inflict damage.

Combat seemed to center around the idea of trying to make a Jedi’s abilities practical. Interrupting enemies, using your slow time to negate area-of-effect damage, it seems like a system that will reward thought over button bashing. There are also a lot of creatures on display, that seem to attack both you and the Stormtroopers you are fighting against. Some of them appear to lead to cinematic instant kills, although it was a little hard to tell if that was some form of QTE or something that happens more organically in the game.

There was one really nice sequence where Cal slowed time, pulled an enemy towards him, then threw him into his own laser beam. Stig Asmussen, director of the project, gave the following statement about the game’s combat system yesterday.

But, I still think there’s a layer of depth within the combat, and how you use the Force powers to take down enemies more efficiently. As you grow, those that are keen will recognize that there are different things, maybe tells that enemies give, that allow you to open them up, and take them down a little bit faster.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the first Star Wars game since EA took over development of the universe that has a singleplayer focus, and it Respawn’s first game that doesn’t fall into the Titanfall lore they have spent three games developing.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is due to release on PS4, Xbox One, and PC on November 15.

This story is developing.