There’s rarely been a dull moment for Cal Kestis and the Stinger Mantis crew since Cere Junda and Greez Dritus rescued Cal on Bracca in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. That said, nobody has pursued the Stinger Mantis crew as successfully and vigilantly in the Star Wars Jedi series as the Haxion Brood, a gang of bounty hunters who Cal was introduced to when he and BD-1 were kidnapped by them and forced to participate in an Ordo Eris combat arena against waves of enemies hosted by Sorc Tormo.
Bounty hunters have been a huge source of spontaneous tension and high stakes in the Star Wars Jedi franchise thus far, but whether it should reprise the Haxion Brood for a third time or shelve it for another handful of diverse, random mercenaries is another question entirely, especially if Cal himself is positioned to become a bounty hunter of sorts. Indeed, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor makes the Haxion Brood far more of an explicit threat than before. But, while they do appear in the same manner to intercept players, Cal now gains the upper hand and the hunters become the hunted this time around in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, teasing a whole new arc for Cal in a future entry.
Star Wars Jedi Making Cal Kestis a Bounty Hunter Could Lean on Jango Fett’s Origin Story
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter indulges in numerous optional “dead or alive” contracts that players can seek out at their own discretion. This concept is phenomenally realized on early chapter levels such as Coruscant, where enemies are sparse enough that players can comfortably and liberally take the time to scan NPCs with Jango’s slow-motion POV visor.
However, bounty hunting becomes much more arduous and impractical in later chapters where enemies flood the screen in waves, flank players, and spam them with blaster bolts or missiles from unseen distances, but it’s still an engaging feature that allows the game to feel like more than an elementary arcade shooter. Indeed, choosing to turn bounties in alive means players need to first mark a scanned bounty target and then tie them up with Jango Fett’s whipcord and interact with them, which is nearly impossible to do in the middle of a room full of enemies.
Even harder is then trying to painstakingly eliminate every other enemy in a room first and saving the bounty target for last, but few options are left for securing a bounty in mid- to late-game levels. Either way, these elements would make for fantastic ingredients in the next Star Wars Jedi game, especially if Cal himself becomes an official bounty hunter since he technically already became one in Survivor while taking out targets for a scheming Caij Vanda.
Players’ only incentive to do so was bounty pucks for several abilities—some for
Survivor
’s blaster stance
and some for BD-1’s droid slicing—and blaster cosmetics they could be turned in for, and surely there could be an even greater reward in a sequel for hunting characters down and having the option to turn that bounty in alive.
Star Wars Jedi’s Bounty Hunting is Too Integral to Shelve Now
The Haxion Brood hasn’t been permanently dealt with and with so many bounty hunters and bounty droids now cut down by Cal it would make sense for Sorc Tormo’s manhunt to be even more persistent and vicious in a third game. Now that Cal’s had a taste for bounty hunting, though, it puts him in an interesting position to possibly seek out bounties himself, even without Caij tipping him off to locations of Brood affiliates waiting patiently for him to arrive.
Survivor teased that Cal could be retiring his lightsaber soon and putting the fight behind him. Of course, while the Haxion Brood is searching for Cal Kestis and the Stinger Mantis crew, the refugee Jedi Knight may not have a quick means out of the bounty hunting business until that’s a problem he’s solved indefinitely and it’d be a shame to see that subplot arc suddenly dropped in a third Star Wars Jedi game without so much as a concrete resolution one way or another.
