The Star Wars universe has had a turbulent existence in the gaming industry, but one of the shining beacons of hopes will be officially unveiled in a few days. On Saturday, April 13, Respawn Entertainment’s Jedi: Fallen Order will be unveiled as part of the 2019 Star Wars Celebration taking place in Chicago.
Don't stand out. #StarWarsJediFallenOrder pic.twitter.com/dQ8bg4bqyf
— EA Star Wars (@EAStarWars) April 9, 2019
Star Wars Celebration is a yearly fan event that started in 1999 and 2019’s event in Chicago will be home to a panel for Episode IX, the conclusion to the most recent trilogy. Further, some of the Respawn Entertainment team will be on hand to officially reveal Jedi: Fallen Order, the adventure game set between Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV – A New Hope. Players will take on the role of a padawan who survived Order 66, a plan that resulted in the massacre of the Jedi. Considering the “Don’t stand out” tagline in the tweet from the official account, one could assume that players will be attempting to hide their identity as a Jedi Padawan during gameplay.
There’s not much else known about Jedi: Fallen Order up until this point and it’s even difficult to fathom specifically what type of experience Respawn Entertainment is putting together. The studio has a crew with track records of stellar first-person shooters and was founded by former members of Infinity Ward, the team behind Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Modern Warfare 2. Jedi: Fallen Order will be an interesting departure for the studio, but there’s at least one face very familiar with the world of Star Wars.
Chris Avellone, a developer who helped design Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: Sith Lords, has contributed to Jedi: Fallen Order. Avellone’s credits also include Planescape: Icewind Dale, Baldur’s Gate, Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and many more RPGs highly coveted for exceptional writing. At the least, we can expect Avellone’s contribution to yield some intriguing characters and events when we get our hands on Jedi: Fallen Order in late 2019.
Star Wars: Battlefront 2 wasn’t without its issues at launch and EA has canceled two Star Wars games that were being made by Visceral and one from EA Vancouver. Nevertheless, Disney has maintained faith in the publisher. Jedi: Fallen Order will be the next big test of the strength of EA’s relationship with Disney. The full reveal of Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order will be livestreamed on the official EA StarWars Twitch channel starting at 11:30 a.m. PT on Saturday, April 13.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.
Imagine tapping a Zelda icon on your iPhone and jumping straight into Hyrule. A new open-source project called nxnative makes that possible by repackaging Switch games you’ve bought into apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, with no emulator in the middle.
Why does this run so well on Apple devices?