‘Star Wars: Jedi’ Series Director Stig Asmussen Exits EA, Veteran Respawn Entertainment Leaders “Stepping Up To Guide The Team”
Spencer Baculi
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In a development that does not bode well for the quality of any future potential Cal Kestis adventure, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor director Stig Asmussen has announced that his time at EA subsidiary studio Respawn Entertainment has officially come to an end.
Dagan Gera (Cody Fern) brings Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) to heel in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023), Respawn
The exit of Asmussen, who got his directorial start helming Sony Santa Monica Studio’s God of War III before being joining Respawn Entertainment in 2014 and subsequently assigned to direct the Star Wars Jedi series, was confirmed by an EA spokesperson on September 13th.
“After careful thought and consideration, Stig Asmussen has decided to leave Respawn to pursue other adventures, and we wish him the best of luck,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement provided to Bloomberg. “Veteran Respawn leaders will be stepping up to guide the team as they continue their work on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.”
Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) and BD-1 (Ben Burtt) seek out a safe haven in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023), Respawn
Notably, it appears that Asmussen’s departure was somewhat unexpected, as the director had previously indicated that he wished to extend the Star Wars Jedi games into a full-blown trilogy.
Reflecting on his team’s approach to the plot of Survivor during a March appearance on IGN’s Unfiltered show, the director revealed that even before Fallen Order hit shelves in 2019, “We were already talking about the second game.”
Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) catches his breath after taking on a unit of Stormtroopers in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023), Respawn
“I mean, frankly, we were talking beyond,” he explained. ” And these are conversations that, when we’re breaking this story with Lucasfilm, it’s like: ‘Well, where are we going with the second game?’
“I always wanted to see this as a trilogy,” Asmussen told the video game news outlet. “How can we take Cal and the crew to new places beyond what we were doing in the first game?”
“We had a pretty decent idea of timeframe where we wanted Survivor to take place, what the stakes were going to be, what the tone of the game was going to be, what Cal was going to be up against, and how the crew was going to factor into that,” he added. “And there’s ideas of what we could do beyond that as well.”
Dagan Gera (Cody Fern) taunts Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan) in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023), Respawn
Further, Respawn’s loss of Asmussen comes just three months before EA’s ten-year Star Wars exclusivity deal with Lucasfilm is set to expire.
However, as of writing, it is unknown whether or not the expiration of this deal played any role in the director’s decision to leave the studio.
Cal Kestis (Cameron Monaghan), Nightsister Merrin (Tina Ivlev), and Greez Dritus (Daniel Roebuck) steel themselves for the future in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor (2023), Respawn
Ultimately, with Asmussen having been heavily influential in the development of two of, it not the only well-received Star Wars projects in recent memory, his exit is a massive loss to not just Respawn, but the franchise as a whole.
After all, with the current track record of Disney’s Star Wars story group, it’s likely that any future Star Wars Jedi entry will fumble its good will – likely by using Survivor’s ending mention of Tanalorr and the Hidden Path to force a direct, memberberry-stained connection between Cal’s story and that of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s solo series, where both the location and group play a major role in the titular Jedi’s boring story.
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