Fallen Order Director Departs From EA

An image shows characters from Jedi: Fallen Order next to Stig Asmussen.

Image: Lucasfilm / EA / Kotaku / Barry Brecheisen (Getty Images)

Stig Asmussen, the director behind Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its recent sequel has left publisher Electronic Arts for unspecified reasons.

2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was a huge hit, selling millions of copies and garnering rave reviews from critics and fans. Earlier this year, the game’s sequel, Jedi: Survivor, debuted to equally positive reviews and sales. Both games were seen by many as a huge improvement over EA’s previous Star Wars output, which included multiplayer shooters and canceled projects. And now, the man who helped lead development on the Jedi games is no longer with Respawn or the studio’s parent company EA.

According to a new September 13 report from Bloomberg, Stig Asmussen has left EA, with the Madden and Battlefield publisher confirming the news with the outlet.

When asked about the departure, EA provided Kotaku with this statement:

After careful thought and consideration, Stig Asmussen has decided to leave Respawn to pursue other adventures, and we wish him the best of luck. Veteran Respawn leaders will be stepping up to guide the team as they continue their work on Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.

The specific reason for Asmussen’s departure is not yet known. His exit from Respawn, at least from the outside, does seem surprising, as the Jedi games have been considered huge successes for EA and its stewardship of Star Wars. His sudden exit seems even more surprising when you consider that, according to Asmussen, the Jedi series of games was always meant to be a trilogy, implying a third game is coming in the future.

In March, a month before the launch of Jedi: Survivor, Asmussen told IGN that he “always wanted to see [the Jedi saga] as a trilogy.” He explained further that the team had “ideas of what we could do beyond [Jedi: Survivor].”

While it’s very likely EA and Respawn will develop a third game in the popular franchise, completing the presumably planned trilogy, it will seemingly be without the director who helped make the first two chapters memorable.

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Big Lords Of The Fallen Update Chills Enemies Out

The latest Soulslike to grace us this year is Lords of the Fallen, a reboot of the 2014 game of the same name. While reviews have been mixed and I’m spooked by its dual-world exploration shenanigans, it’s painfully difficult to play because enemies are after your ass all the time. They’re relentless. Or they were, anyway, until a recent patch made a pretty massive change to the game’s trash mobs.

Dropped on October 23 for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, patch 1.1.224 for Lords of the Fallen introduces all kinds of tweaks to the action-RPG. Alongside fixing some rather irritating bugs, like T-posing models and collision issues, the latest update also changes enemy density and hostility, putting baddies on a much tighter leash. This alteration will shorten how long enemies chase you once you’ve aggroed them, meaning you can more freely roam the worlds of the living and the dead without a rabid group of vicious paparazzi vying to get a picture of your mangled corpse.

Read More: This Action-RPG May Have The Funniest Renaming In Game History

This is just one of the many planned changes developer Hexworks has in the works. As outlined by the studio on Lords of the Fallen’s official subreddit, another patch landing on October 26 for all platforms will reduce the overall number of goons “in areas where players most struggle”—which unfortunately wasn’t specified in the Reddit post. They’ll still be present in New Game Plus, with enemy density and hostility ratcheting up with each journey through the game’s dual worlds of Axiom and Umbral. But during your first playthrough, enemies should appear less frequently. The October 26 update will also tweak mob behavior so that enemies don’t jump you as often.

The latest update also makes a significant change to New Game Plus. If you beat the game, you can now choose to reset the entire world or continue in your current one. Both decisions let you retain your character, items, and progression. But starting a New Game Plus in your current world will maintain your existing difficulty, rather than increasing it. Once the October 26 update lands, Vestiges (this game’s version of Dark Souls’ bonfires) will no longer disappear when embarking a New Game Plus. These two changes are meant to make trophy hunting and general exploration a little easier.

Read More: Lords Of The Fallen Sounds Like 2023’s Most Divisive Soulsborne

That’s the main takeaway from the current and upcoming patches: It seems Lords of the Fallen will get incrementally easier with each subsequent update. Don’t get it twisted, it’s still a hard-ass video game. This is a Soulslike, after all, but tweaks like these will go a long way in making it a bit more approachable.