Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order is the latest Star Wars game from EA, and the first to be purely story-focused and single-player, at least as far as we’re aware. The game was properly revealed at the Star Wars Celebration event in Chicago, giving us our first real details of Respawn’s latest title, but the only thing that was shown was a CGI story trailer. When will we see some Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order gameplay?
There’s been a lot of rumors floating around about Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and what the game will play like, but despite the story trailer answering many of our questions, none of them are about gameplay. When will we get a gameplay trailer? Will we see more at E3, and if so, how? Do we have any details about gameplay now? And why didn’t we see any of the actual game at the Celebration show? Let’s answer those questions.
When will we see a Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order gameplay trailer?
The story trailer was fantastic, don’t get us wrong, but Jedi Fallen Order is a game, so we want to know what that game will actually play like. Will it be a first-person shooter, like Respawn’s other games? Will it play like God of War, or Dark Souls? We need some gameplay footage to sort this out, or at least some details. While we’re not getting a gameplay trailer just yet, thanks to EA community specialist Jay Ingram, we at least know when we should expect to see Jedi Fallen Order in action: June. Not un-coincidentally, that’s the same time as E3. Ingram doesn’t specifically confirm that gameplay will drop at E3, but he gets very close.
Now that #StarWarsJediFallenOrder has been revealed, we’ll start answering some more questions on it. However, please know that we’re not sharing core story or gameplay details right now. We’ll be talking more about gameplay in June. pic.twitter.com/yG7v7rzgci
— Jay Ingram (@JayKingIngram) April 15, 2019
How will EA show off Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order gameplay at E3?
It seems very likely, then, that E3 2019 will be the venue for, at the very least, a gameplay trailer of Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. The big question therefore is, how will players get to see it? Will there be any big flashy EA Play conference at E3, with the Jedi Fallen Order gameplay reveal at the end, just like EA did with the last two Star Wars Battlefront games? Unfortunately not, as EA has confirmed that it will be skipping an appearance at E3 this year, so there will not be an EA Play conference to show it off at.
So where can we expect to see Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order gameplay then, if not at EA’s conference? Instead, EA will be opting for a Nintendo Direct-style approach, with “multiple live streams” dedicated to showing off the publisher’s latest games. These will take place over the first two days of the E3 show, June 7 and 8. It’s worth betting that one of these streams will finally show off some gameplay from Jedi Fallen Order.
Why didn’t we see any gameplay at Star Wars Celebration?
While it’s good to hear that we’ll finally be getting to see some gameplay for Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order in June at last, that begs the question: why haven’t we seen it already? A story trailer is all well and good (it was great, in our opinion), Jedi Fallen Order is a videogame. We need to see gameplay so we know what the game will actually be like. So why wasn’t there any gameplay shown off at the Star Wars Celebration reveal? According to Jay Ingram, it was partly EA wanting to tease the game for longer, but mostly knowing the audience at Celebration would be more interested in story, not game.
One question that comes up a lot is, "Why didn't you show gameplay at SWCC?"
Aside from wanting to give the game as much time as possible before we show it, the SWC audience is much more of a story-based audience than a gaming one (SW fans rather over gamers). That's really it.
— Jay Ingram (@JayKingIngram) April 16, 2019
What will the gameplay be like?
We know a few bits and pieces of what the game will play like. Despite Respawn being a first-person studio usually, Jedi Fallen Order will be third-person. In terms of combat, it will apparently draw inspiration from Nintendo’s titles The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Metroid Prime, according to an interview with the game director at Press Start. While the game will have “thoughtful combat,” where players have to watch for weaknesses and attack at key moments, the game will not be as hardcore as Dark Souls or Sekiro.
There will be boss battles however, which should at least pose a challenge. It’s possible we may have got a glimpse of one of these encounters in the CGI story trailer, where main character Cal Kestis (played by Gotham‘s Jerome/Jeremiah Valeska/Joker Cameron Monaghan) is attacked by a Purge Trooper. These Purge Troopers are special versions of Stormtroopers who have been trained to hunt Jedi, and this particular one is armed with a lightsaber-repelling Electrostaff, as seen wielded by General Grievous’ guards in Revenge of the Sith. This trooper almost gets the better of Cal, forcing him into some fan blades, but we’re assuming he gets out of it, perhaps in the form of a boss battle. The Inquisitors will presumably play a role as tough bosses too, and we don’t know if a fight against Darth Vader himself is too much to hope for.
As for the rest of the gameplay, we just don’t know, but Respawn notes that “players will also use traversal and other platforming abilities to strategically overcome opponents and solve puzzles in their path,” and there may be Metroid-like elements, where players return to an old location and can access a new area thanks to their new skills. Either way, we’ll find out more in June.
