A terrific and welcome surprise

I’m just going to say this once, and only because it actually applies: Fallen Order is the Dark Souls of Star Wars games.

I know. I KNOW. I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. Knowledgeable players who have a broad range of tastes will no doubt spot other sources of inspiration. But the skeletal framework on which Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is built owes a great deal Dark Souls and its ilk.

The latest Star Wars adventure is a melee action game that has you smacking all sorts of familiar baddies with a lightsaber. You are Cal Kestis, a survivor of the Order 66 Jedi purge who’s lived life on the run ever since.

It wasn’t easy living for Cal after the Empire rose from the ashes of the New Republic, but he carved out an existence of relative peace as a gainfully employed corporate scavenger. That is until the Empire’s Jedi hunters came a-calling, and Cal went off on an interplanetary adventure with his new ex-Jedi mentor Cere Junda and her pilot friend, the endlessly salty (but secretly sweet) Greez Dritus.

It’s a perfectly Star Wars core cast on the surface, if also a somewhat bland one. Greez has the most personality right up front, while Cal comes off as a blank slate and Cere is just… serious about stuff. The story does explore the inner workings of our main cast, but it’s telling that Fallen Order‘s most emotional moment prominently features a droid.

That’s not to say Cal’s robo-sidekick BD-1 is a heroic sacrifice or anything like that (I’m not saying that doesn’t happen, either – no spoilers). But in the pantheon of plucky Star Wars droids, BD-1 is right up there with R2-D2 and BB-8. The slow reveal of BD’s origins hit me right in the feels.

Of course, there’s still a game to play here and it’s a massive one. Fallen Order ranges across five main planets, with a few other secondary locations thrown in. Each one you visit is a winding labyrinth of corridors, chambers, and wide-open spaces sewn together organically, but with purpose.

A big piece of the Dark Souls vibe lives here. Like From Software’s game, each world you visit slowly opens up as you follow whatever path the story lays out for you while opening up shortcuts that let you backtrack more easily as you go. 

That’s important because through all of this, you’re slowly tapping into more of Cal’s latent Force abilities and finding new gadgets for BD-1. All of these tools further empower exploration and puzzle-solving, letting you reach new, previously inaccessible pathways and secret areas. 

Among those secrets are additional healing “Stimpaks” for BD to store. In another Souls nod, Cal’s ability to heal in Fallen Order is always limited by how many Stimpaks he has left. Finding and using a meditation spot is the only way to replenish that supply, but meditating also resets the world, bringing back any baddies you’ve taken down since the last meditation.

Fallen Order isn’t a game about big, uh, star wars. It’s much more personal than that. The story is set after the birth of Darth Vader and before the real dawn of the Rebel Alliance. Cal is on a young Jedi’s journey of finding himself and discovering his true potential, while a great evil looms. 

It’s classic Star Wars, but it’s also a good narrative framework for the flavor of action Fallen Order delivers: small, intimate battle arenas that emphasize patience and skill over fast-paced “strike down anything that moves” swordplay. Cal’s lightsaber maneuvers – which you unlock more of as you level up and earn skill points – but the game flow is never more flashy or fulfilling than when you’re pulling off the most basic parries and counters.

Fallen Order is the Dark Souls of Star Wars games.

Fallen Order challenges you instead with intricately designed environments that test Cal’s growing suite of Force abilities. Almost every new space you step into is its own, self-contained little puzzle box that hides cosmetic items that change the look of Cal and his lightsaber, BD-1, and Greez’s ship, the Mantis – as well as the path forward.

The art design screams vintage Star Wars, too. The alien landscapes and cramped, control panel-filled interior spaces feel as though they’ve been plucked right out of a movie you’ve seen 1,000 times. I often found myself stopping as I played just to scrutinize a tiny wall detail or a bit of rubbish after a brief glimpse sparked some memory or another.

The fights are never far away, though, and they offer a satisfying level of challenge. The default “Jedi Knight” difficulty effectively conveys the power fantasy of a developing, young Jedi learning to master his craft. This is where Fallen Order steps away from the Dark Souls ethos, testing you in ways that feel challenging rather than punishing.

There are two higher settings for people who crave a steeper climb, and a constant feeling that you’re fighting just to survive at every step. There’s also a lower “Story” difficulty for people who just want to get their Star Wars fix. 

That easy mode is especially appealing in the later stages, when the difficulty on certain key bosses and scenarios suddenly spikes unexpectedly. In the final few hours of Fallen Order you face a lineup of foes that move more swiftly and unleash a wider array of attacks than anything you’ve encountered before. It’s not an insurmountable challenge, but it’s a sudden and powerful shift toward punishing.

While the story is uniformly good throughout, save for one late-game decision that throws us back into familiar Star Wars lore, the post-game portion of Fallen Order – which lets you continue exploring for secrets – does highlight some notable flaws. The lack of a fast-travel option, even one that just takes you back to your ship, becomes an increasingly frustrating reality as you open up more of each map.

The maps themselves, presented by BD-1’s hologram emitter, also start to feel unnavigable in the post-game. They’re helpfully marked with green, yellow, and red icons to highlight where you haven’t explored and whether or not you have the necessary ability or gear to reach that location. But you can’t place checkpoints or do anything else to chart a course forward. So you’re constantly jumping into and out of the map, a nuisance that’s made even worse by the fact that the access points connecting certain locations aren’t always made clear.

It’s a disappointing way to cap off what is otherwise an excellent Star Wars adventure. And I want to really stress that: Fallen Order is terrific. It’s an immersive, highly polished journey through that oh-so-familiar galaxy far, far away and it leans heavily on a popular sub-genre that turns out to be a perfect fit for Cal’s Jedi coming out party.

Let’s be clear: my biggest complaint, really, is that it’s hard to find more things to do at the end of a thrilling Star Wars story that spans more than 30 hours. Even factoring in the somewhat underwhelming main cast, I still feel like my time with Fallen Order was well spent and brought a deeper understanding of the Star Wars universe. 

The disappointment I feel mostly comes from a desire for more to do, and the game’s otherwise focused design getting in the way of finding more ways to have fun. It’s something I hope to see developer Respawn Entertainment address in post-release update (and maybe some add-ons please?), but “leave them wanting more” is a valid and understandable strategy.

Star Wars as a whole has a long history of under-delivering when it comes to video games, but that’s definitely not the case here. Yes there are frustrations. But more than that, there are lightsabers and Stormtroopers and wild displays of Force power. Fallen Order is a Star Wars game I didn’t even know I wanted, but it’s here now and I’m so glad it’s real.