The High Republic is a big part of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Adding something new to a universe as beloved and familiar as Star Wars must be an impossible task. Can you imagine how hard it is to show someone a new Star Wars droid, city or planet and convince them that this thing has always been there, you just haven’t seen it yet? What a crazy thing to try!

And yet the developers at Respawn Entertainment are the people behind it Star Wars Jedi: Survivorthrew their hat in the ring with aplomb, not only creating new Star Wars characters and locations (in addition to those already featured in the excellent Jedi: Fallen Order), but moves even further away from the established film canon to explore the latest era of Star Wars: The High Republic.

The stones on these people.

[Ed. Note: This post contains minor spoilers for the first act of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

This is one of the biggest surprises lurking inside Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – the game Really enters the era of the High Republic. It’s not shy. Its numerous database entries constantly refer to the epoch. It is the time when many of the Jedi ruins and breath of the wild-similar shrines you encounter were erected, and that’s where the game’s villain, Dagan Gera, comes from, as Cal Kestis learns after waking him up from a centuries-long nap in a Bacta tank.

Image: Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts

On the one hand, that’s pretty cool! The High Republic is a new installment in the Star Wars canon that previously existed mostly only in books and comics; seeing its iconography rendered in three dimensions is a nice touch. Respawn’s inclusion of these elements also signals a serious commitment for anyone unsure how much Disney-era Star Wars is invested in this part of the timeline. Video games take a long time to make and they have a pretty long shelf life. So this narrative twist seems to be a sign that the Powers That Be are interested in telling stories in this setting for a while.

But also: The High Republic not particularly mean nothing yet. The setting is just beginning to be explored in depth (you can read our introduction to it here), and while it introduces some new characters who have already become fan favorites, like the fearful Jedi Elzar Mann or the sentient alien-rock Geode (No kidding! He is a rock!), the stories set in the High Republic era haven’t quite caught on yet. There’s plenty of adventure, but it definitely still feels like a publishing initiative rather than a fully realized location full of its own unique stories.

Consider its closest analogue: The similar-sounding Old Republic, an era thousands of years before the films that were hugely popular, especially two Knights of the Old Republic related video games. Now that take is its own distinctive flavor of Star Wars, with more books and comics to fill it in. Set just a few hundred years before the prequels and original trilogy eras, The High Republic has yet to quite have its KOTOR moment. From its various stories – the rise and fall of the Jedi space station Starlight Beacon, the growing threat of the Nihil space pirates, and some mysteries related to the Force – it mostly feels like a nice way to hang out with some new Jedi.

Image: Lucasfilm

Food: Survivor serves an important function in further establishing the High Republic as an environment worth investing in by having beloved characters Jedi: Fallen Order dive into his story. Soon this attitude will be reinforced by The Acolyte, the upcoming (and mysterious) new Disney Plus series set in this era. Shaping the High Republic will be a long game, and more importantly, it is one different Game as that played by the stories they spin out of The Mandalorian and the animated Star Wars series.

Right now, The High Republic feels like a bunch of tabletop RPG sourcebooks full of interesting tidbits to tug at, with no real story to draw people in to. Food: Survivor is pretty good bait for fans curious about this new setting, but you might be surprised how much of it still has potential.