This yr has been jam-packed with new Star Wars, with three new seasons of TV in Bad Batch, The Mandalorian, and Ahsoka, and oodles of books and comics that noticed us revisit legends or the High Republic. At the same time as we await its return to the massive display screen, Star Wars stays ever-present—however one new story particularly fulfilled the promise of connecting factors throughout this huge galaxy this yr greater than the rest: Jedi Survivor.
As a standalone piece of Star Wars, Jedi Survivor proudly stands by itself two toes. In a compelling exploration of what 5 extra years below the grip of the Empire may 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 War to the lifetime of a Jedi on the run.
It took, and ran with, all the nice mechanical parts Fallen Order established in providing a brand new type of tackle a lightsaber fight recreation—somewhat little bit of Darkish Souls-ian affect right here, somewhat Jedi Knight and Jedi Academy there—and a collection of worlds to discover to create a recreation that constructed on the promise of its predecessor and gave us a much bigger, extra expansive, and complicated expertise. It additionally, and this can’t be emphasised sufficient, is one of the best Star Wars dolly dress-up game we’ve gotten in years.
All these items are good, however what makes Jedi Survivor shine so brightly is that it’s the most important 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 basically 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 approach that seems like they’re actually all a part of the identical universe we’ve seen over a timeframe of not simply many years, however lots 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 cause. It affords a option to bridge collectively these unique movies and prequels extra cohesively, and somewhat past that within the timeline; hardly ever are you able to watch an episode of The Mandalorian and not using a character who first seem in an animated collection launched a pair many years prior displaying up. However what Survivor did was not simply merely cameos and Easter egg references to the Star Wars past its instant story and timeframe, however delicately weave elements of that historical past, and nods to the tales that got here after it, in such a approach that it felt precisely like that: participating with historical past, as a substitute of there being in any other case largely remoted pockets of Star Wars that ostensibly co-exist, however hardly ever deeply intertwine.
It was as maybe a shock to many when Survivor first launched to see simply how essential the period of the Excessive Republic was going to be to this chapter of Cal Kestis’ story. In any case, it was by no means touched on in Fallen Order, just because, properly, the Excessive Republic publishing initiative didn’t actually 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 all the time been in a position to reckon with a establishment that existed lots 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 try to re-examine and evolve what meaning exterior of the context of the Jedi Order as he knew it current—it additionally gave us an interesting additional foil for him within the fallen Jedi Dagan Gera, a time-strewn survivor of this supposed golden age for the Order.
Star Wars tells quite a lot of tales about Jedi, however Gera’s is considered 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 after we as gamers, and Cal alike, uncover that Gera was already properly 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 impression of experiencing the horrors that reworked their total worldview throughout a grand battle is nothing new to Star Wars, however Gera affords a mirror to an archetype we’ve seen loads sufficient of within the wake of the Clone Conflict.
A lot of Jedi Survivor’s broader story is a few race to seek out the planet Tanalorr, a hidden world largely remoted from the galaxy by an expansive, difficult-to-navigate area of house often known as the Koboh Abyss (sure, like quite a lot of Star Wars, it’s a thing about a map). It’s a spot Gera had first discovered and fought to try to defend, each from raiders and even finally the Jedi themselves, when the Order withdrew their assist for his exploration of the world as a viable protected haven. It makes the planet greater than some handy plot system that Survivor can use to drop off characters who it doesn’t wish to kill off however likewise doesn’t need finally co-existing with the timeframe of the unique Star Wars films. What Tanalorr means to each Gera and Cal has parallels—this final protected harbor for these focused by the nice evils of the galaxy—however the context for that which means, of their locations in two very totally different eras of Star Wars, makes them such an interesting match for one another.
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 fully 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 exterior of the tutelage and steerage of the Order. For Cal, Tanalorr is a mirrored image of the Jedi preferrred in an altogether totally different approach: a selfless act, a protected harbor solely folks 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 seek 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 helps you to play about in has truly been like over cycles of battle and decay, and the way that sweeps up and transforms folks.
And it 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 best of what Star Wars has been making an attempt to vow since continuity was reset years earlier than that: a galaxy the place tales are informed throughout eons of time, throughout totally different views, and with totally different characters and worlds and conflicts, however nonetheless a part of this singular, related universe that feels as wealthy and as lived-in as we’ve all the time imagined it to be. That so few main explorations of Star Wars have used that potential to its fullest within the years since is likely to be a disappointment, however not less than now it has a trademark in a narrative like Jedi Survivor to maintain reaching for that preferrred.
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