As excitement steadily grows in anticipation of the rumored Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2, fans have been speculating about where the game will end up taking Cal Kestis and his crew in their journey across the Star Wars universe. Because of the open-ended nature of Fallen Order’s ending, paired with the seemingly limitless possibilities of Star Wars narratives, the game’s sequel could go in any direction. While a direct sequel would make a lot of sense, a spin-off reboot of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed seems like it could be a worthy in-universe follow-up.
The title of the game could be Star Wars Jedi: Force Unleashed, and would serve as a reboot of the original The Force Unleashed series. Third-person action games have come a long way in the years following The Force Unleashed and its sequel. Now is a better time than any to do the premise of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice justice in a way that the original games couldn't due to the limitations of their time. If the game were to follow a similar format as Fallen Order’s narrative-driven experience, but still stay true to much of the DNA of the original series, it could go over really well with fans of Jedi: Fallen Order and help build more of the game’s universe.
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Connecting The Rebooted Force Unleashed to Jedi: Fallen Order
The stories of Fallen Order and the first Force Unleashed game mesh together surprisingly well and, with just a few tweaks, could end up complementing each other and making for a gripping spin-off. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed follows Starkiller, Darth Vader’s secret apprentice who was trained to hunt down the surviving Jedi following the events of the notorious Order 66. Cal Kestis survived the attack as detailed in Fallen Order, but has since rekindled his relationship with the Force and is once again a Jedi determined to stop the Empire’s rule.
Following the events of Fallen Order, Cal and his crew are most likely being hunted by the Empire after infiltrating the Fortress Inquisitorius to retrieve the Jedi Holocron. That’s where Starkiller’s story could start, as the secret apprentice of Darth Vader, who made a brief appearance at the end of Fallen Order. He could be promoted to the leader of the remaining Inquisitors and instructed to finish their work by hunting down Cal Kestis and his group of friends.
In a mission style similar to Fallen Order’s worlds, Starkiller would go from planet to planet in search of picking up the pieces left by Cal until he finally meets and kills one of the crew members of the Mantis. Following their death, Cal stops running and meets Starkiller head-on for a battle and at the end of it, the player could choose one of two options just like in the original Force Unleashed: follow the path of the light and join Cal or continue with the Darkside and try to kill him.
The events of the story’s third act would change depending on what the player chooses, but no matter what happens, Starkiller would end up dead either way to make the game a self-contained story and not impact the narrative of Fallen Order 2.
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Keeping The Force Unleashed's DNA
The choice would be reminiscent of the player’s choice at the end of The Force Unleashed which follows a similar moral question about Starkiller’s intentions. However, instead of simply changing the final cutscene, it would allow for a deeper exploration of Starkiller’s character. The traitorous nature of the Empire is a central theme of the original series, and could make another appearance in Jedi: Force Unleashed.Starkiller could be killed by Vader no matter what path the player chose, making for either a climactic showdown between the two when following the Lightside, or a backstabbing reveal when following the Darkside of the Force.
More iconic parts of the original series could be included in the reboot as well. From simpler game mechanical aspects that would translate to the Fallen Order format like Starkiller’s gradual acquisition of new Darkside Force powers to more powerful narrative moments like Starkiller pulling a Stardestroyer out of space with the Force.
The Force Unleashed’s central narrative that would come along with it to the Fallen Order series would be greatly benefited by the new motion capture technology that’s greatly improved the way that games tell their stories. As proven by Fallen Order, Star Wars stories can now look and sound nearly identical to their film counterparts which would greatly aid just about every aspect of The Force Unleashed. Gameplay ambitions aside, this technology would allow the reboot to be the true vision of the studio behind it, unhindered by the limitations of previous technology.
One other thing that could set Jedi: Force Unleashed apart from Fallen Order would be the way that the two games would handle their combat. Fallen Order takes a lot of combat cues from From Software games, where parrying is essential, and the player would be advised to take on more than one or two enemies at a time. The Force Unleashed saw Starkiller ripping through legions of Stormtroopers with the use of his many destructive Force powers. Jedi: Force Unleashed could find a happy medium between the two that make it easier for the player to dispatch threats while also adding enemy types that make them consider the best approach to combat.
Fleshing Out Fallen Order's Universe
As Fallen Order exists canonically in the new Star Wars universe, anything added to it also technically has the chance to appear in other canonical entries like films and the numerous Disney Plus series, so the game series needs to be very careful about the types of things it includes. Fans of The Force Unleashed have been calling for some sort of canonical recognition of Darth Vader’s secret apprentice for years and the Fallen Order series seems like it could do just that and do it well.
This would finally give those fans the taste of a canonical entry that they’ve been asking for and also add an interesting story and character dynamic between Vader and Starkiller to the larger Star Wars canon.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is available on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Nintendo Wii, and Xbox 360.
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