Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Will Be Darker, But Won’t Be Grim for The Sake of It

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the second entry in the series developed by Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts, will be darker but won’t be grim for the sake of it as the game attempts to strike a balance between different elements in its story.

Speaking with Entertainment Weekly following the game’s official reveal at The Game Awards 2022 show, actor Cameron Monaghan, who plays main character Cal Kestis, commented on his character’s journey up to the start of the new game, saying that the story will be darker and more challenging than in the original game, as it explores the changes on Cal’s worldview and on how he interacts with others following years of fighting in a desperate situation.

I wanted to see what it looked like for Cal as he aged, and what a number of years of fighting in a desperate situation would look like for the character. How does that change his worldview? How does that change the way he interacts with people? How does it affect his decision-making? These were all questions we started kicking around while we were making the first game, and then to be able to explore a mature story with Cal — one I would say is more challenging, darker.

Despite being darker, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will not be grim for the sake of being grim, Cameron Monaghan added, as the game will balance the adventure feel of the original with more challenging character moments. Cal will also ask some big questions that people will be surprised by.

But something that was always important to me is, you don’t want things to be grim for the sake of being grim. I think there’s a difference between something dark and something joyless — still finding the adventure of the story was really important. But then also balancing that with something more challenging and interesting for the character, who will ask some really big questions I think people are going to be surprised by. Hopefully we’re able to hit people with a couple of gut punches along the way.

Last but not least, Monaghan also talked about one of the main visual additions for Cal in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – the beard, which came from the actor himself.

Obviously, when you get older, some very interesting changes happen to your body. So we sat down with the creative team. We had a little presentation. We brought the projector into the room and explained what might happen. They had a few questions, but ultimately we understood that hair grows in places you might not necessarily expect, and one of those places was Cal’s chin. It was important to have Cal’s internal journey reflected by his physical appearance. If you have a physical marker, it clues the audience in to what is going on internally. But also, we are able to explore multiple looks with Cal, and some of them are really cool.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor launches on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S on March 17th, 2023. You can learn more about the next entry in the series by Respawn by checking out the game’s Steam store page.