Rick the Door Technician may not be probably the most highly effective or harmful enemy in Respawn’s unbelievable sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. However he’s a fan favourite who, in a sport full of nice boss fights, offered one of many sport’s most memorable and shortest.
Pretty late into Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s principal marketing campaign, whereas exploring a big Imperial base, your protagonist, Jedi warrior Cal Kestis, runs right into a single stormtrooper. Proper earlier than this, Kestis needed to battle off a big garrison of Imperial baddies in one of many sport’s largest, hardest fights. After surviving all that, and sure injured with no checkpoint, you encounter a brand new boss: Rick the Door Technician. Whereas one other boss encounter looks like an unfair problem after such an enormous battle, this lone trooper is admittedly only a joke character who Kestis can defeat with one hit. So why is he right here? Effectively, in line with Respawn, he was created to make you snort and really feel higher after a troublesome battle. Isn’t that good of Rick?
In an interview with IGN, Jonathan Wright, the lead encounter designer at Respawn, defined the origin behind this odd “boss battle.” After that very massive battle, gamers have been stressed, as Respawn purposely designed that part to be even tenser by not together with a checkpoint. This makes gamers nervous about what’s coming subsequent, as they desperately seek for a checkpoint. Whereas this all labored to create a tense second, Repsawn needed to finally present one thing that will “be a launch of all that built-up stress.” Its resolution: making gamers snort.
“Gamers have simply come from a particularly exhausting battle. Gamers are greater than seemingly very low on well being at this level, and are most likely very harassed with discovering the subsequent meditation level to allow them to relaxation,” stated Wright. “The second with Rick allowed us to construct up one other second of stress as gamers assume they’re in for one more exhausting battle, however then launch all that built-up stress once they totally understand the second with Rick. It’s a great emotional reset to arrange gamers for what’s to come back.”
That is all a part of Respawn’s effort to stability the principally severe narrative and occasions in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor with moments of humor. In keeping with Wright, this stability is what makes the jokes “land.”
“The seriousness of the remainder of the sport is what makes the extra humorous moments land,” stated Wright. “The distinction between humorous and severe elevates each sorts of moments. We knew that the second with Rick was necessary due to this.”
Respawn didn’t count on folks to fall in love with Rick
Nevertheless, no one at Respawn may have predicted how followers would react to Rick, shortly embracing the character and creating fan artwork, mods, and different content material based mostly on the lonely stormtrooper who tried to cease Cal Kestis. The character has turn out to be one of the crucial talked about moments within the sport, and has gamers asking for extra of Rick the Door Technician. (It will most likely must be in a prequel, contemplating what occurs to him…)
Wright informed IGN that seeing all of the fan love and neighborhood help for Rick has been “indescribable” and that he “by no means imagined [Rick] would explode in recognition to this extent.”
“To me, there is no such thing as a larger achievement than one thing you had a hand in creating [then inspiring] different folks to be artistic,” stated Wright. “All of the feedback on movies from folks describing their expertise with Rick’s heroic final stand, all of the jokes and the memes, the movies and tales, it’s all a spark of creativity that began with Rick and I feel that’s superb.”
As for if Rick will return, as so many Star Wars Jedi: Survivor followers have requested about, Wright informed IGN that it isn’t his name, however he added that he doesn’t assume extra Rick content material is “wanted.”
“Rick’s story already has a valiant ending,” stated Wright. “The explosion in recognition and fan creativity reveals that we already did a ok job with Rick. Let gamers have enjoyable with it and let folks be artistic with Rick’s backstory in their very own minds.”
