Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order Hands On - 10 Things We Learned
8. The Souls-Like Formula Is Obvious
EA
The term 'Souls-like' gets bandied about a lot these days, and not necessarily without reason. FromSoftware's SoulsBorne series has proven massively influential over this last console generation, and publishers have reacted duly. Last year's God of War succeeded by transforming the series from a fast-paced button-masher into a slow-paced action RPG, and a flood of new IPs modelling themselves on those aforementioned titles have experienced relative success too.
With that in mind, it should be no surprise that Fallen Order mimics certain elements of the Souls genre. Combat is almost a puzzle in and of itself, while the game's various 'meditation points' are very much a Star Wars version of the bonfires seen in FromSoftware's various titles.
To be clear, this isn't a bad thing. There's a reason Souls has become such a huge influence and it's because there are few games on the market that are as gratifying to play. The player really has to earn their victories, and each encounter in Fallen Order felt the same - even if my brief time playing it didn't ascend to the perilous heights Souls has become infamous for over the last generation.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
