Introduction

Cal Kestis; A rigger working for the guild on Bracca, salvaging anything of value from the ruined ships left by the galaxy’s many conflicts. After a long day of physically demanding work, Cal’s about ready to set down his tools and get some rest, when he’s given a last-minute opportunity to earn some extra credits. As he makes his way to the job site, he gets a sight of the salvage yard, with a new haul being brought in. A Lucrehulk-class battleship, one more remnant of the old times.. A string of uncomfortable memories rush through Cal’s mind as he lowers his gaze, trying to push them away. Just when his mind approaches clearness, his eyes rest upon a Venator-class Star Destroyer mid-deconstruction. Closing his eyes as if in pain, Cal sees vividly a glimpse of the past.

He sees a battle, smells the mixture of dirt, rust and decay, and feels the warmth of a familiar object in his palm. He straightened his back, took a deep breath, then opened his eyes. He was not just a rigger working for dismal pay on Bracca. He was a Jedi Padawan to one of the greatest masters he could ask for. And this was not the end of his story; the tale of Cal Kestis was only just beginning…

This is a game I have a long history with; having played it on release and feeling like it was an inferior (and extremely glitchy) Dark Souls clone, I discarded it relatively soon after buying it. Some time later, I gave it another attempt and, despite finding it more refined, still found it lacking and boring pretty quickly. This was a cycle that repeated, and in total I must have tried to play this game at least four times before finally succeeding in enjoying it recently.

During the Star Wars day sale this year, I saw the game on sale for a whopping £3.49 ($4.45) and decided on a whim to pick it up. Since around 2021 I had lost all love and passion for Star Wars despite it being the sole franchise I had been consuming from my early years up to that point, all the while never tiring of it nor its endless array of content. I had tried various things to get myself back into the franchise, from watching the movies and readings the books, to reading the comics and even affiliating with one of Disney’s publishing arms as a reviewer. The small bursts of excitement never stuck, though, and after a year away from the franchise as a whole, I purchased this game with the intention of giving myself one last shot at re-entering the Star Wars universe.

Review

Let’s get something out of the way immediately; this game still has some of the clunkiness I found troubling at launch. However, the team at Respawn have been updating the game over time and it’s in a much better state than it was on launch day almost five years ago. I had no glitch-related deaths or bosses which phased through the map. Although not perfect, I did have a good gameplay experience. It didn’t get in the way of the story, and, despite some minor annoyances, the overall experience was smooth and refined.

The story is relatively straightforward; Cal and crew are seeking a holocron containing the information needed to rebuild the Jedi Order and overthrow the Sith and their Galactic Empire. Despite this simple objective, though, the game manages to take you through a complex series of journeys towards that ultimate goal, with each location offering intricate force-based puzzles, waves of enemies - usually Imperial forces hunting your gang - to mow down, all while you witness the evolution of new friendships and alliances, as well as the bitter hatred that the dark side can bring out of a person. It’s an extremely character-focused game, and in this field Respawn have created a masterpiece.

Thanks to the mods I was using, my experience was much smoother than the default alternative, allowing me to stroll through the environments at a leisurely pace, taking in the breathtaking surroundings, then bursting into a sprint to take down a patrol of Stormtroopers or group of bounty hunters. The game does a wonderful job at making you feel like you’re in a galaxy far, far away, with the familiar yet unusual environments paired with fascinating architecture housing various types of enemies. The short glimpses we get of Cal’s past throughout the game build a sense of intrigue, which gets rewarded heavily at the tail end of the story where we see the full event of Cal enduring Order 66, watching his master die in front of him. All he had to remember him by was his lightsaber, but when that gets destroyed, he feels hopeless, as if he has come so far in rebuilding his connection with the force only to have lost his final relic of the life he held so dear.

Setting off on a quest to start anew, motivated by his new mentor Cere, Cal seeks out a new kyber crystal and uses the construction of his lightsaber to complete his mission to keep the force sensitive children throughout the galaxy safe from the prying hands of the Empire. The overall narrative was quite compelling, and the tragic backstories of some characters feel as heavy as they should thanks to the performances fuelling their portrayals. Although the ending itself is bittersweet, it left many fans, now including me, excited to see what would come next for Cal Kestis and his unique group of dear friends.

Score

Although the experience was not flawless, it was still extremely enjoyable, and the mods did a wonderful job of making the game feel much more immersive. My score for the modded experience is a solid 9/10, with there being very few things I could ask for a sequel to improve upon. For the price I paid, the game is certainly worth it, especially when you consider that the many custom skins available to download would allow you to replay the game feeling like an entirely different character.

Mod List

• Realistic Visual Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order

By no means a necessity but very nice to have, this simple reshade adds some more realistic coloring which reveals finer details and stronger lighting to make the world feel more alive and gritty. The game looks fine without it, but much better with, so I can’t recommend it enough.

• Walk - Logic Mod

Believe it or not, I consider this mod to be essential. On keyboard and mouse without this mod, Cal’s running his way through every scene like a kid on a sugar rush. This mod allows you to walk at varying speeds, increasing to a run whenever you wish, allowing you to experience the beautiful (and horrific) locations of Fallen Order at your own pace.

• Lightsaber Marks

It feels weird to walk around with a huge laser sword and not leave any scorch marks on the terrain or your enemies when you cut them down. This mod fixes that nicely, although you may find it annoying when Cal accidentally burns the floor every few seconds just by walking.

• Dismemberment

After many years of patiently waiting to receive a game with good lightsaber combat following Disney’s acquisition of the Star Wars franchise, fans were extremely disappointed to learn that despite the robust physics engine it was built upon, Fallen Order would not contain proper dismemberment. This mod (in early development) fixes that, bringing some forms of dismemberment into the game.

• No Corpse Removal

Something which always ruins immersion for me is going on a rampage and butchering dozens of enemies, only to see that their bodies have vanished when revisiting that area a few minutes later. This simple mod brings those immersion-breaking moments to an end, making it so that the corpses only disappear after almost three hours of in-game time.

• Overpowered Cal

This mod, coming in three configurations, buffs Cal in various ways to make him a more competent Jedi warrior capable of holding his own against powerful enemies with much more ease than his vanilla counterpart. I played it with the lowest possible buff, but depending on your play style you may want to try out the stronger versions.

• Better Cal Force

One of the most enjoyable parts of this game is the ability to rapidly chain together fluent lightsaber attacks with Cal’s different Force abilities. A frustration in the base game, however, is how sparingly these abilities must be used until the Force skill tree is maxed out - with it still feeling quite limited even once that goal has been reached. This mod offers three files; one which reduces the cost of Force points that Cal uses with each ability, one which grants greater power and range to each ability, and one which provides both of these in one file. I used the latter and it provided some awesome moments in gameplay.

• Disable Lightsaber Auto Sheathing

Whenever Cal dispatches a group of enemies or enters certain areas, he switches off his saber and acts like nothing happened - even if there could be other enemies ahead. Personally, if I was one of the only surviving Jedi in a galaxy out to kill me, I’d be a little more cautious. This mod allows you to have full control over how Cal behaves with his lightsaber.

• Better Call Cal

This one might seem out of the blue, but Cal’s baby face as we see it in the vanilla game just doesn’t do it for me. I prefer a more rugged, experienced and tough look for someone who’s spent half a decade doing physically straining work and evading the Empire. this mod gives various options for customization; I chose Hipster Cal since it gives the look I was going for without straying too far from the original character design.