Star Wars games have seen a small resurgence in recent years, first with the Battlefront games and then with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The latter is the first single-player Star Wars game in years, and it featured all the lightsaber combat fans could want.
Following a Padawan on the run, Fallen Order is a very Jedi-centric game, and the combat is comparable to something like Dark Souls. As visceral as the game's combat can get there's one major thing it's lacking, dismemberment. Past Star Wars games like The Force Unleashed have allowed players to chop off limbs, so fans were a bit confused when Fallen Order didn't allow the same thing.
Not including dismemberment was more than just a simple design decision, as it's something that's meant to fall in line with people's current perception of the Star Wars brand. Here's why Jedi: Fallen Order's lightsabers don't cut off limbs.
Disney and Lucasfilm Didn't Want Dismemberment in Fallen Order
The reason fans were upset about Fallen Order not featuring dismemberment is that it defies the logic of lightsabers themselves. Being "light swords," the weapons slice through anything like butter, and the series has long shown limbs being cut off. As IGN explained in an IGN Now video, the ultimate reason behind the lack of dismemberment was because of Disney. According to Disney dismemberment is used sparingly for big moments in the films and games, and it didn't want to make it commonplace in Fallen Order. In the same video, IGN spoke to Tatyana Carvin, a story artist on The Clone Wars, who said rules against dismemberment aren't something new with Disney's handling of Star Wars. It should be noted that in Fallen Order players can cut off the limbs of robots and some creatures, but not humans.
Another interesting point is that Fallen Order wasn't initially intended to be a Star Wars game, but was later adapted into the series during development. During E3 2019 Fallen Order's Director, Stig Asmussen commented on how the change came about. "And that's something that when we were working on this other game and we demoed it, people [at] EA saw it and said, there's something in there that you could see easily see it turning into a Star Wars game. My background is melee action, so when they came to us and were like, 'We really like the game you're working out and we want to do at some point, but how would you guys feel about doing Star Wars?' we were like, great," said Asmussen.
It's very possible that the early prototype didn't feature dismemberment, and when the game was converted into Fallen Order it made perfect sense to keep it that way.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is currently available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.