At the launch of Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order in November last year, fans and critics called out the game’s many bugs, performance problems and an assortment of other technical issues. Some of these were severe enough to warrant docking a point or two off some review scores, and though I didn’t run into anywhere near as many on PC when I reviewed Fallen Order, it’s clear the experience was soured for many. Developer Respawn, of course, was well aware of these issues. Given that last year was a big one for Star Wars, what with The Mandalorian and The Last Jedi, the developer decided that the game needed to be released before the holidays. “Yeah, [delaying it] was a conversation that we had and we decided that we wanted the game out there, we wanted to get it, you know, being out for the holiday,” Respawn CEO Vince Zampella told USgamer at the recent DICE Awards, where Fallen Order won Adventure Game of the Year.
“I think we’re in a situation [where] we’re trying to build a game for several different systems and we wanted to hit a date, obviously,” added game director Stig Asmussen. “[W]e all look at it, and earnestly we feel like we could, if we had a little bit more time, it would’ve been better. But at the same time, we could play through it. It was good and we felt like fans were going to like it.” Jedi Fallen Order patches have been steadily improving the game since launch. The most recent of which unlocked pre-order content for all players. Publisher EA, too, is very happy with how well it’s been selling, at over 8 million so far.
