Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will kick off “an entirely new franchise”

During an earnings call, Electronic Arts boss Andrew Wilson confirmed that the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order would not be a one-and-done, but rather the “first title in an entirely new franchise.”

The game is official Star Wars canon, takes place five years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, and follows Cal Kestis (voiced by Cameron Monaghan, Shameless), a former Jedi padawan who escaped being slaughtered when Emperor Palpatine commanded the clone army to execute Order 66, destroying the Jedi Order.

Cal keeps his connection to the Force a secret, choosing the hard life of a scrapper, breaking down old ships and harvesting them for necessary parts to build Star Destroyers and the like for the Empire. But when he has to use the Force to save a friend, Darth Vader’s Sith Inquisitors learn of his presence, and Cal has to go on the run. Ultimately, he decides he wants to rebuild the Jedi Order, but because he never finished his Jedi training, he’s got a lot of learning to do before he can accomplish his goal.

Star Wars video games have had a rough go of it in recent years, with 2017’s Star Wars Battlefront II inspiring an especial amount of anger among fans. A big part of the reason that game went over so poorly at launch was because of the loot boxes and pay-to-win mechanics, so the straightforward, single-player Fallen Order was a breath of fresh air. The Force powers Cal can control are fun and unique, and his backstory is interesting.

So it doesn’t come as a surprise that EA is making Fallen Order the face of a new franchise, especially since the game is expected to sell 10 million copies. It’s a success. For comparison, Battlefront II only sold nine million copies, although odds are that the in-game transactions more than made up for that. “Sales of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order significantly beat our expectations,” said EA CFO Blake Jorgensen.

I’m not sure where EA will go with future games, but I hope they’re set in the same storyline as Fallen Order. I haven’t enjoyed a Star Wars game this much since Knights of the Old Republic or Force Unleashed.

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h/t IGN