Star Wars Jedi: Survivor lets Cal keep his Fallen Order powers because he's "no longer a Padawan"

It turns out that Cal Kestis will get to keep all of his powers from the first game in the upcoming Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

The problem with video game sequels that follow on from games where you end up quite powerful is that they have to figure out how to nerf the player character so the game isn't too easy. Turns out that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor isn't doing that, as Cal will apparently have all of his abilities from the first game. In an interview with GamesRadar, design director Jason de Heras and senior director of production Kasumi Shishido explained how they came to that decision, and the challenge it took to get it right.

"We knew we wanted his skills to continue in Survivor, and that was one of the challenges," de Heras explained. "We had to kind of tweak enemies to handle his new powers from the start. We don't want to take away those moves, because they feel good. You can't go backwards, and feel like a Padawan. It has to feel that the power level is the same, but also, you have to reach another level."

It's a cool move, and makes a fresh change from how sequels usually go down. We recently saw, for example, that in the upcoming Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Link will have to start from scratch when it comes to his hearts and energy, likely due to him getting hurt as we've seen in previous trailers.

Shishido also noted that "It's been five years since Fallen Order, and we want the player to feel like Cal has been through a lot. He's no longer a Padawan." The director of production noted that Cal isn't Yoda, and that "he hasn't mastered everything yet. So there are still a lot of things that he can learn."

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was meant to be out in March, but received a delay to April 28, making it just a few weeks away until it launches.