STAR WARS: ZERO COMPANY announced

Lucasfilm, Respawn and BitReactor have confirmed development of Star Wars: Zero Company, a turn-based tactics game set during the Clone Wars. The game is currently targeting a 2026 release window.

The game is basically "XCOM, but in Star Wars." The game sees players taking control of a Republic special forces group fighting the Separatists. Your initial squad of named characters (who will drive story decisions and appear in cutscenes) can be augmented by fresh recruits, who can level up as they do missions. The game will feature an ironman mode and also permadeath, which on the highest difficulty can be applied even to your named characters. On the named characters is a Jedi, one is a droid and there are at least two Clone Troopers. You lead character, Hawks, can be customised in appearance and ability.

The game is being developed by new studio BitReactor (who have veterans of the XCOM, Civilization, Gears of War and Elder Scrolls series on board) but are receiving support from Respawn, who made the recent Jedi Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor games. The game will be published by Electronic Arts.

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

Five years after the end of the Clone Wars and the collapse of the Galactic Republic, with the Empire rising to replace it, fugitive Padawan Cal Kestis is flushed out of hiding on the planet Bracca. Rescued by former Jedi Knight Cere Junda and starship captain Greez Dritus, Kestis discovers that the Empire and its Inquisitors are hunting for a Jedi holocron filled with the location of Force-potential children scattered across the galaxy. Kestis revolves to find the information first before the Empire can wipe out a potential new generation of Jedi.

There's a saying that if you're going to steal, steal from the best. Respawn Entertainment took that to heart when they were given the keys to make a new Star Wars action game. As well as the movies and expanded setting, they tapped games like Dark Souls, Metroid, Arkham Asylum and Castlevania for inspiration. The shadow of the Dark Forces (aka Jedi Knight) series, with its definitive first and third-person Star Wars action and unbeaten lightsabre combat, also looms large over Fallen Order.

Against such comparisons Fallen Order buckles but does not fail, and sometimes impresses. The game sees the player take control of Cal Kestis, former Jedi Padawan who has gone into hiding from the Empire. Flushed out by the Inquisitors, he is rescued by former Jedi loyalists and learns that he has to follow a trail of breadcrumbs across the galaxy in search of a Jedi holocron containing vital data. The Empire is also, of course, after that data and a race against time develops. The trail takes Kestis to several different planets, some new to the franchise, some well-known (thankfully, Tatooine is notable by its absence after its recent, massive overexposure). On these plants Kestis finds roadblocks to progress, but also learns new skills and gains new equipment which unlocks new routes on other planets. Hence he - slightly comically - is stymied by a slightly too high cave opening and has to travel five thousand light-years to get some special climbing gloves and then come back to climb to the opening.

It's daft but it works. As you to and fro across the galaxy, the story evolves and each world's levels evolve, giving you more new areas to explore, new enemies to fight and new skills to learn. It's fun, but drawbacks soon start appearing.

The first is how the game treats enemies. Fighting stormtroopers is fun and Fallen Order cleverly repurposes some of the types we've seen before: Return of the Jedi scout bike troopers are now reclassed as advance recon troops with special melee combat training; whilst flame and rocket troopers are much more lethal with those weapons than previously. Stormtroopers are less disposable goons here and have to be treated with some respect in how you fight them. Inquisitors, who are trained to fight Jedi one-on-one, are even more formidable, and their officers (and the main villains) are devastatingly effective bosses whom you have to learn Dark Souls-style attack patterns and blocking formations to defeat effectively. This is all excellent. Less excellent is the fact that you spend maybe around 25% of the time fighting any of this type of enemy. The rest of the time you are fighting deadly birds, angry plants, giant slugs, gianter insects and a quite bewilderingly huge variety of spiders. Why on Earth they spent so much time making the lightsabre combat so solid only to have you spend more than half the game fighting off wildlife with your laser sword is mystifying.

The game's trump card is its amazing level design, with levels that fold back on themselves quite ingeniously, fantastic use of vertical space and are also at least vaguely believable as actual spaces someone would live in or use. Less amazing is the game's tendency to overuse certain tricks like slippery slides. You will spend a quite astonishing amount of time in this game judging how to fall down a slide and making sure you hit turns correctly so you don't shoot off the side to an insta-death. These slides are absolutely everywhere, regardless of it it makes any sense or not. There's also a truly staggering amount of wall-running and double-jump puzzles (some inherited from the same developers' Titanfall series), some intricate and fun, others tiresomely frustrating.

For a game so rooted in precision jumping and controls, it also does have a fair bit of jankiness and iffy collision detection. There's a lot of clipping, allowing you to sometimes kill enemies through solid walls, and during boss fights it's not uncommon to see an enemy weapon go right through you without causing damage one second, and in the next hit thin air three feet away and cripple you. The jank never gets too bad, but it does feel like this is one area that needs to be worked on for the in-development sequel.

Still, negating the levels, fending off enemies and successfully deducing and executing the solution to an environmental puzzle never gets too old. The story is basic, but told with aplomb and some great voice acting, and the characters are great, especially Dathomir witch frenemy Merrin, who really should be the star (or co-star) of the next game, along with her ridiculously dry sense of humour. Kestis himself is a bit of a blank slate, though the utterly predictable mid-game struggles with the Dark Side do at least liven him up a bit.

Graphically, the game looks phenomenal, although as a PlayStation 4/Xbox One game it does have that slight problem of needing to slow down progress to load the next environment in the background, leading to rather a lot of crawlingly agonisingly slowly through narrow passageways. The built-in 3D map is excellent (if occasionally confusing, especially regarding vertical travel) and the controls are mostly responsive and fluid (if occasionally requiring a bit too much ambidexterity on the keyboard).

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (****) overcomes a fair bit of jank to emerge as the most satisfying Star Wars action game since Republic Commando in 2005. In terms of its mix of combat and action, it can't match the venerable Jedi Knight series - and Cal Kestis is no Kyle Katarn - and its occasional arbitrary limitations feel random. But the lightsabre duels are great fun, the level design is very solid and at 20 hours or so, it doesn't outstay its welcome. Fallen Order is available now on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Google Stadia and PC.

Three new STAR WARS video games announced, including what sounds like STAR WARS: XCOM

Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment have confirmed they are working on three brand-new Star Wars video games.

First up is Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2, a sequel to the 2019 "Metroidvania"-alike which saw a young Padawan survive the Jedi Purge and attempt to lay the groundwork for the rebirth of the Jedi Order in the years between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. The game was extremely well-received, so a sequel is a no-brainer, and indeed, its existence was an open secret in the industry. It's believed that Respawn have already been working on the game for more than two years, so hopefully it won't be too long before it appears.

Second up is a new first-person shooter in the Star Wars universe. A lot of fans of the old Dark Forces/Jedi Knight FPS series were disappointed that Fallen Order did not lean more into that game's mix-and-match approach of allowing you to use blasters and lightsabres as you wished. It sounds like this new game will take care of the less Force-using side of the Star Wars universe. Respawn are masters of the FPS genre, having previously worked on the Titanfall series (and its popular spinoff, Apex Legends). Many of their developers were previously at Infinity Ward, where they made some of the better Call of Duty games. So this sounds like a particularly well-made match.

Third, and most intriguingly, is a strategy game that will be developed between Respawn and new studio Bit Reactor. Bit Reactor were founded just a few days ago by ex-Firaxis developers, including numerous veterans of both the XCOM and Civilization franchises, with a mission statement that they would be focusing on turn-based, cinematic experiences. That very much sounds to me like their game will be XCOM: Star Wars (or a close analogue of), which is a mouthwatering prospect, especially if they implement a proper strategy layer. This game sounds like it only literally just got off the ground, so don't expect it in the near future.

Alongside the Knights of the Old Republic Remake game currently in development at EA's Aspyr Studios, that brings the total number of Star Wars titles known to be in development to four.

The news has taken some in the gaming press by surprise, since Lucasfilm terminated their exclusivity deal with EA last year in favour of collaborating with a wider variety of studios. Ubisoft and Massive Games are making an open-world action game set in the Star Wars universe, whilst Quantic Dream is developing Star Wars: Eclipse, a story-focused game in the new High Republic time-period. A new Star Wars Lego game is also in development. The feeling was that maybe EA would focus less on Star Wars going forwards. However, their two Battlefront games and Fallen Order had sold almost 40 million copies between them, making them among EA's biggest recent successes.

Sadly missing from the announcements is any sequel or expansion for the splendid Star Wars: Squadrons. The game apparently did well (especially for a lower-budgeted game) but developers EA Motive had been put to work on a non-Star Wars project.

Yet another STAR WARS video game cancelled

The Star Wars franchise is in a really weird place right now. The movies are on hiatus (again), but the franchise is taking off on television. The pen-and-paper roleplaying game from Fantasy Flight has been canned despite good sales, but the current books and comics seem to be doing okay. Most puzzling has been the way that Electronic Arts has mishandled the video games licence since acquiring it seven years ago, with the news that an open-world spin-off from the Star Wars: Battlefront series has now been cancelled as well.

In May 2013, Electronic Arts announced that it had joined forces with Lucasfilm to develop a new generation of Star Wars video games. Previous games had been developed either by LucasArts (Lucasfilm's video games division) or in partnership between LucasArts and a host of talented third-party studios, including Totally Games, BioWare, Obsidian Entertainment, Pandemic Studios and Raven Software. These had included well-received titles including TIE Fighter, Knights of the Old Republic, Dark Forces, Jedi Academy and Republic Commando.

EA had worked closely with Lucasfilm and LucasArts on The Old Republic, a massively multiplayer game developed by EA's subsidiary BioWare and released in 2011. EA confidently believed their roster of talented subsidiary studios could release a plethora of high-quality Star Wars video games over the succeeding years. At first EA considered continuing the two Star Wars games in development at Lucasfilm, namely First Assault and 1313. The former was an online multiplayer shooter, whilst the latter was a story-focused action game set in Coruscant's criminal underworld. The former was feature-complete and beta-ready, whilst 1313 was starting to come together in a satisfying manner after several years of false starts.

Ultimately EA decided to bin both games and set their own studios to work. BioWare would continue to work on developing The Old Republic, with an eye to developing a new single-player game further down the line, possibly Knights of the Old Republic III. However, that idea never made it very far as BioWare's next several projects (Dragon Age: Inquisition, Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem) all hit hugely troubled development periods themselves.

Next up was Visceral Games, where a story-focused Star Wars heist game entered development under Uncharted producer Amy Hennig. Simultaneously, Respawn Entertainment was set to work on a story-focused Star Wars shooter/action game and DICE was to work on resurrecting the classic Star Wars Battlefront multiplayer series.

Visceral and Respawn developed their projects in tandem until late 2017, when Visceral was shut down and its Star Wars game abruptly cancelled. The assets from the game were moved to EA Vancouver to develop a brand new "open world" Star Wars game, possibly a reaction to the success of open world games like Skyrim, The Witcher III and Grand Theft Auto V. What exactly a Star Wars "open world" game would look like was rather unclear, but it sounds like it would have involved bounty hunters and space travel between several regions on several different planets. This new game was cancelled in turn in late 2018.

Respawn's project pivoted away from being a straight shooter to being a more general action game, which may have been the reason for Visceral's game being dropped (the two projects sounded more distinct at the start but then became more similar). Respawn's buy-out deal with EA was apparently very generous towards Respawn and granted the company a degree of self-autonomy which EA's other subsidiaries do not enjoy, explaining why the company got priority in this race. Respawn eventually released their game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order last autumn to reasonably strong reviews.

EA Vancouver meanwhile set to work on a derivation of the Star Wars Battlefront series, potentially an open-world title which would have used the engine and systems of Battlefront but with a different focus, potentially similar to the relationship between the multiplayer Battlefield games and the single-player/coop-focused Bad Company and Hardline side-games. However, EA wanted the project for the release of the next-gen consoles in late 2020. When it became clear the game would miss that window, they cancelled it last year.

The result is that after seven years, five studios and untold hundreds of millions of dollars, precisely three games have actually been released: Battlefront (2015), Battlefront II (2017) and Fallen Order (2019). Avoiding total embarrassment, these games have sold very well: the Battlefront games have totalled over 24 million sales and Fallen Order has sold over 8 million copies in just two months on sale. But questions need to be asked about why so many promising games from talented developers have been canned and wrecked along the way.

Particularly interesting is the news that a Knights of the Old Republic reboot is in development at EA (but not with BioWare), along with a Fallen Order sequel at Respawn. The future roster of video games beyond that is doubtful at the moment, especially given that the EA deal reportedly expires in 2023, meaning that any game that started development right now is unlikely to be released before it expires.

Respawn and EA lift the lid on STAR WARS: FALLEN ORDER

Developers Respawn Entertainment and publishers Electronic Arts have lifted the lid on their new Star Wars game, Fallen Order, with a trailer and confirmation of a release date.

Fallen Order is set a few years after the events of Revenge of the Sith and sees the player controlling a Jedi Padawan named Cal Kestis (played by Cameron Monaghan, the Joker in Gotham), who escapes the chaos of the Republic's fall to go into hiding as a mechanic. Exposed as a Force-user when he uses his powers to save a fellow worker from certain death, he goes on the run, hunted by Imperial agents.

The game is an action title with a focus on movement, speed and combat, both with blasters and a lightsabre. Most promisingly, the game is confirmed to be a single-player-focused experience with no multiplayer element. The game was apparently strongly inspired by the classic Jedi Knight series of action games released between 1995 and 2003 (Dark Forces, Jedi Knight, Mysteries of the Sith, Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy).

"Human stretch goal" Chris Avellone is one of the writers on the game. Avellone previously wrote for Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (2004) and other titles including Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Neverwinter Nights II, Planescape: Torment, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin II and the forthcoming Dying Light 2.

The game is part of a package negotiated between EA and Lucasfilm to release a series of new Star Wars video games. However, the only releases from this deal to date have been multiplayer titles Battlefront (2015) and Battlefront II (2017) (although the latter had a brief story campaign as well). A story-focused game from Visceral Games, inspired by Uncharted, was cancelled in 2017, whilst a possible new game from BioWare, a remake or sequel to the Knights of the Old Republic series, never got off the ground. Reportedly, EA had strong issues with both projects due to their single-player focus, with them preferring "games as service" models with a heavy multiplayer focus with incremental updates and the potential for players spending more money through microtransactions.

That Fallen Order is therefore a single-player title is surprising, given that Respawn's previous single-player-focused game, Titanfall 2, sold modestly and their biggest recent success was multiplayer shooter Apex Legends. It's possible that Fallen Order survived this purge due to fast work by Respawn, superior negotiating team by the company's management (especially since Apex Legends went stratospheric) and EA's own desire for damage control to its own reputation.

Whatever the case, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the most promising Star Wars video game in many years, and it will be out on X-Box One, PlayStation 4 and PC on 15 November 2019.