The road to Respawn Entertainment’s upcoming Star Wars title, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, does not seem to have been so smoothly paved. In fact, according to Respawn CEO Vince Zampella, the studio pitched Star Wars more than one time. Interestingly enough, the first of such pitches didn’t involve Electronic Arts.
In a video interview with Game Informer, Zampella cursorily walked through how Respawn became attached to the Star Wars brand. Apparently, the pitch process “started and stopped a few times,” as Respawn initially spoke with Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams’ production company that produced Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Because the teams at Bad Robot were fans of the studio’s past work, there were discussions about the two companies working together. However, these plans “never materialized.”
When Fallen Order’s Director, Stig Asmussen, joined Respawn, he and Zampella began pitching Star Wars ideas to EA. Similar to dealings with Bad Robot, nothing worked in the studio’s favor. Later, the publisher changed course, telling Respawn a Star Wars game was exactly what the team should develop. Thankfully, this decision was backed by a unanimous popular vote at Respawn.
Though the studio didn’t initially know which direction it would take its Star Wars project, Zampella revealed it was always envisioned as a third-person action game. When asked if fears loomed about abandoning the team’s first-person roots, Zampella said “no.” Moving to a third-person POV was the intention all along. It’s one of the reasons he wanted to work with Asmussen. Zampella explained, “God of War 3 is one of my favorite games of all time, so getting [Asmussen] here was super exciting for me… I wanted to expand what we as Respawn have done.”
Evidently, Fallen Order has more than just expanded Respawn’s capabilities with regards to third-person action. Though it initially looked pretty linear in the EA Play demo, a lengthier gameplay demo indicate the titles will have a lot in common with Metroid experiences.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will come to the PlayStation 4, PC, and Xbox One later this year on November 15th.
[Source: Game Informer]
