Jedi: Fallen Order dodged a delay because it needed to hit holiday sales target

All’s well that ends well

Much like Natalie Imbruglia, Respawn Entertainment was torn. The studio knew that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order needed a few more tweaks and some polish, and then it’d be the best it could be. Conversely, the ship date was rapidly approaching and everyone was really against a delay that wasn’t 100 percent necessary.

EA had lofty hopes for Jedi: Fallen Order‘s sales — between six and eight million copies before the end of the fiscal year, which seemed ambitious for a singleplayer narrative-driven game, even one that carries the Star Wars branding — and that wouldn’t be realistic if it were pushed back to the spring. So, Respawn carried on, launching on-time in November despite technical hiccups.

In a recent interview with USgamer, Respawn CEO Vince Zampella admits that talks of a delay were entertained, saying “Yeah, 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.” Apart from holiday sales, Zampella pointed to the launch of Disney+, the Mandalorian series, and the premiere of The Rise of Skywalker as reasons why it made sense to ensure there’s a new Star Wars game on shelves.

It was probably the right call. EA is happy with Jedi: Fallen Order‘s sales performance, noting that it has surpassed initial targets and is on track to hit 10 million sales by the end of March. The technical issues were very much evident, however. In our review, Chris warned that even the premium models of console (PS4 Pro and Xbox One X) had some struggles, and that Jedi: Fallen Order felt like something meant for next-gen that’s running on current-gen hardware.

Jedi: Fallen Order is the rare game that’s quality enough to shine despite performance problems. Elsewhere, bugs and glitches would dominate the conversation. Here, Jedi: Fallen Order got some game-of-the-year consideration and won Adventure Game of the Year last week at the DICE Awards. The business side of games led to this one launching in a sub-optimal state, but things worked out all around anyway.

Respawn Considered Delaying Jedi: Fallen Order to Smooth out Its Rampant Bugs [USgamer]