Lucasfilm Initially Wanted Respawn's Star Wars Game To Avoid Jedi and Lightsabers

Lucasfilm originally wanted Respawn to stick to blasters and make a first-person shooter, according to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Director Stig Asmussen. In the latest episode of IGN Unfiltered, Ryan McCaffrey sat down with Asmussen to talk about Respawn's pitch for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and, according to Asmussen, he was very clear about what he and his team wanted to do when he first met with Lucasfilm. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2019/12/17/how-stig-built-god-of-war-and-star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-ign-unfiltered-47"] "'We want to make a game with Jedi and lightsabers and Force powers.’ and I could feel that the room kind of gasped for a moment. That’s when I realized; Jedi are really big… I mean, of course they are a big deal… but it’s a really big deal. It’s like the Holy Grail here." Asmussen also discussed Lucasfilm's reverence for Jedi in the latest episode of the AIAS Game Maker's podcast, when he sat down with Insomniac's Ted Price. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="legacyId=20096150&captions=true"]

"There was a little bit of people eye-balling each other and somebody, I don’t remember who, on the Lucasfilm side said, ‘What about making a game with blasters? Something more like a shooter?’ They didn’t mention any games in particular and I said, ‘You know, part of my background is melee and the team that we built is melee-action… I think you wouldn’t be really happy with the results of what we’d make for that, because I’m not super comfortable with doing that.’ And I said, ‘but, you know… lightsabers.’”

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That was far from the end of the discussion, Asmussen said. “They talked a little bit more about it, and we went back and forth and they said, ‘Here’s the deal; we can do something with lightsabers and Force powers, but we can’t… we can’t talk about Jedi. We’ve got to refer to them as “Force-users.”’” Asmussen shrugged, “As long as we’ve got lightsabers and Force-powers, I’m cool.”

“That’s the day that I learned; every step of the way, we have to earn it. We can’t just come in and say, ‘This is the game that we’re making.’ It’s gotta be a conversation. It’s gotta be a collaboration, and we have to earn the respect, and that works both ways. But here we are, years later, and the name of the game is ‘Jedi: Fallen Order.’”

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Brian Barnett writes news, features, wiki guides, deals posts, and much more for IGN. You can get your fix of Brian's antics on Twitter and Instagram (@Ribnax).

from IGN Video Games https://www.ign.com/articles/lucasfilm-initially-wanted-respawns-star-wars-game-to-avoid-jedi-and-lightsabers
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