I finally beat Star Wars Jedi: Survivor this past weekend, and the game was mostly a lightsaber parts collection game for me. I love building my own lightsaber, especially when I’m provided with a catalogue of existing parts that I can mix and match. My mental design game isn’t so great as to design one from scratch, but when I’ve got parts? You best believe I’m gonna make something fun and cherish it greatly!

Anyway, what were we talking about?

The Star Wars Jedi games are fun. You’re a largely generic Jedi named Cal Kestis as he carves his way through Stormtroopers and leftover battle droids, set about a decade before A New Hope. He’s got his own cast of characters, hanging out on their own planets, in largely self-contained adventures. They’re pretty fun, but in my opinion, nothing remarkable. They’re also popular enough to warrant a threequel, and based on what I just played, I have some story ideas and other things I’d like to see in a third installment of this series.

So join me after the jump for six things I want to see in our next Cal Kestis adventure. Expect SOME SPOILERS for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor as I cobble this list together. And feel free to share your own hopes and dreams in the comments below.

6. Time jump

The first game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, takes place roughly 14 years before A New Hope, several years deep into the rise of the Empire. Jedi: Survivor takes place roughly 9 years before A New Hope. To put that into some larger perspective, Star Wars: Rebels takes place 5 years before the first movie. My hope is that, in the threequel, we jump even further into the future to roughly the time period between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Let’s skip over the Rise of the Rebellion phase and plant the next game squarely in the middle of the original trilogy.

This can be accomplished quite easily, because Jedi: Survivor ends with our hero and his friends making a new home on a hidden planet. The plot of the game is getting the coordinates to this hidden world in order to live there free of the Empire. So I say they succeed and everybody lives there peacefully for more than a decade, jumping us in time to the OT.

5. Star Wars: Outlaws crossover

Why do I want the threequel set in that time period specifically? So that it can crossover with the next Star Wars game, Outlaws! That’s going to be a free roam scoundrel game set between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. We’ll play up-and-coming outlaw Kay Vess as she makes her way through the criminal underworld. I don’t know if Outlaws and the Jedi series are made by the same game developer and I don’t feel like looking it up. I just think it would be a genius move to have the two games crossover. Why not? They’re all Star Wars characters. Why make different video game series if you can’t have them crossover for some shenanigans?

4. Original Trilogy cameos

Also, I want to see some Original Trilogy cameos. Why not? These characters are not sacred cows. And what would be more fun than giving players a fully realized Millennium Falcon to walk around in? They’ve done a good job with Cal’s ship, the Mantis. Just do the same thing for the Falcon. Have it parked in some spaceport somewhere, and then we can go up and explore to our heart’s content, before heading to the cockpit to take off on some adventure with Lando and Chewie.

But mostly, I want a lightsaber battle against Luke Skywalker. Both Star Wars Jedi games have featured lightsaber battles with Darth Vader. And that’s fine. But why do that for a third time? Mix things up a little and give us a cameo battle against Luke!

3. Cal goes to the Dark Side

Why do we fight Luke Skywalker? Because Cal Kestis needs to descend to the Dark Side! It’s teased in the newest game towards the end, with Cal giving in to anger and hate in order to kick some butt and defeat overwhelming odds. His friends and loved ones draw him back and it’s all fine in the end, though he’s clearly been touched. So I say go whole hog in the threequel and send him to the Dark Side. Why not? Again, he’s not some sacred cow. Cal Kestis is not some great figure in Star Wars canon. He only exists in these games. And it’s just not often that we get a protagonist fully commit to the Dark Side. So let’s do it with Cal and send him up against Luke Skywalker.

2. Padawan Kata Akuna

So what happens when Cal Kestis goes to the Dark Side and becomes the main villain of the threequel? The player takes over as his padawan, Kata Akuna! Not to give too much of the story away from Jedi: Survivor, but we’re introduced to young Kata towards the end of the game. She’s the daughter of the final boss, who is a secret Jedi who has betrayed Cal and is the fuel for his anger and hatred. But Kata is innocent in that betrayal and bad guy stuff, and is adopted into the crew by the end of the game.

Therefore, I don’t think it’s a stretch to have Kata revealed as Force sensitive in between games. And if we time jump to when she’s an older teenager, she’d be the perfect age to take over as a video game protagonist. We can say that Cal and his girlfriend (wife?) Merrin have been teaching her how to be a Jedi, and that Cal has officially taken Kata on as his padawan apprentice. Then she can accompany him around like a sidekick in the new game, like how Merrin and Bode served as sidekicks in Survivor. And when Cal turns evil, Kata can take over as the protagonist for the rest of the game. I think that would be neat!

The story is already perfectly set up. At the end of Jedi: Survivor, Kata’s father betrays Cal in order to do what’s right for her, in order to keep her safe from the Empire. So he betrays Cal in her name. And the anger and hatred that Cal feels because of this betrayal is what starts him down the path to the Dark Side, except that his friends and loved ones bring him back from the edge by the end of the game. Kata knew what her father was doing was wrong, and she pleaded with him to stop and work with Cal, but he refused and got killed. So now, in the threequel, something should happen that truly pushes Cal over the edge to the Dark Side. And then Kata will take over as protagonist, knowing full well that Cal’s descent started because of something her father did in her name. So she’s got that guilt and that sense of responsibility to make things right. And there’s your thematic story!

I would also be open to the idea of Cal and Merrin having a child of their own.

1. More lightsaber parts

With two protagonists, we could build two different lightsabers! Look, I enjoy Star Wars as much as the next person. And I had a fine time playing Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor. But in the end, all that really mattered was building my own lightsaber. that’s what I want in life, and that’s what the game gave me. I spent more time reading guides online to find all the hidden treasure chests than I did progressing through the story, because I needed every lightsaber piece as soon possible so that I could build Cal the perfect lightsaber and have it in cutscenes. And when that happened, it was gorgeous! And I want to be able to do it again in the next game. And I want a ton more lightsaber parts! Just flood the game with them!

Because, again, we could build Cal’s lightsaber, and then build Kata’s lightsaber! They could be two character-distinct lightsabers! How much fun would that be?

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