Respawn seems to be making the most of its place in the Star Wars timeline.
The last few years have been interesting for Star Wars as an IP. While the theatrical films more than made their money back (for the most part), and the franchise has seen a recent surge in the TV and books space, its gaming presence has been a bit messier. Both DICE and EA’s multiplayer-focused Star Wars Battlefront titles have earned solid fanbases and sold well, but Battlefront II 2017 in particular was plagued by bad press in relation to loot boxes and gambling addictions, and the LEGO Star Wars games simply existed. If the ‘90s and early 2000s were home to some great games from the franchise, the mid-to-late 2010s left much to be desired by comparison. All of that is to say that no one was expecting Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order to take off the way it did in 2019. Developed by Apex Legends/Titanfall developer Respawn, it originally seemed like a decent-ish character action game cribbing from the beloved Souls games and starring the average-looking Cal Kestis. But the game became a critical and commercial success, praised for being an old school, no-frills single player game that was well put together, and for being a well-told exploration of a Jedi traumatized by Order 66. The success of Fallen Order was so massive that not only was a sequel in the form of 2023’s upcoming Jedi Survivor guaranteed, it allowed EA a chance to work on Star Wars again after Battlefront II nearly scuttled it all.
