Lightsabers will not have the power to dismember people in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The first Jedi: Fallen Order trailer dropped at the 2019 Star Wars Celebration in Chicago, and in that trailer, fans saw a Jedi who had escaped Order 66, as he fought his way through a world that had grown unfriendly to his kind.
The trailer surprised fans, who saw something that felt a lot like the Knights of the Old Republic, with a little of the Jedi Knight series thrown in for good measure. Not only did they learn that Gotham's Cameron Monaghan was playing the lead character in the game, but they got to see a peek at combat that included use of the Force, as well as a lot of epic lightsaber duels. Jedi: Fallen Order seemed like the kind of Star Wars games that fans were craving all along.
There's just one thing that's going to feel off about Jedi: Fallen Order, though. After playing through a preview of the game, IGN reports that lightsabers will not have the ability to dismember people in battle. They can dismember pretty much everything else, including robots, but, apparently, people losing limbs is entirely off-limits in the game. Considering that much of the Star Wars universe consists of characters losing limbs in lightsaber battles, this seems like an odd choice, but it could have something to do with developer Respawn attempting to get a "Teen" rating from the ESRB.
The problem is that this goes against the very nature of how lightsabers work. They are quite literally "laser swords" meaning that they can cut through anything, including human flesh and bone. Throughout the history of Star Wars, some of the most memorable characters in the movies have lost limbs in lightsaber battles, including both Anakin and Luke Skywalker. Darth Maul got split in half with a lightsaber in The Phantom Menace, although fans later learned that Maul survived. Slicing off limbs of enemies also features heavily in previous Star Wars video games.
Jedi: Fallen Order was not initially intended to be a Star Wars game, though. That means it's likely that lightsaber combat is only a small part of the gameplay. At one point, it was referred to as "Uncharted with laser swords," meaning that part of the game could involve exploration more than combat. If that is the case, perhaps fans won't miss the ability to cut off their enemies' legs, but it will still feel a little weird to those familiar with how lightsabers are supposed to work.
Source: IGN