Star Wars has been around long enough to gather a rather expansive Extended Universe that expand the world and characters past what you find in the movies. Introducing new elements can be a tricky thing at this point, when there are a lot of expectations and precedents for what a Star Wars property should feel like. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is one of the best Star Wars games in a while, and yet it still has some pitfalls when it comes to introducing a new ancient species into the long established Star Wars canon. That’s not to say it can’t be done correctly, but that introducing new elements successfully requires careful execution to make it fit seamlessly into the Star Wars mythos. We discuss the Zeffo, Apex Legends newest season, and Outer Wilds on this week’s episode of Waypoint Radio. You can listen to the full episode and read an excerpt below.
Austin: I don’t want to say that the Zeffo shit ends up necessarily being rewarding or compelling, but what it does end up doing is being a launchpad for character work that ends up being some of the strongest stuff here. Which is surprising, because I think the first half of that game, every time I went to a Zeffo temple, I was like “Man, fuck this, let me fight alongside some Wookies, let me cut down some more stormtroopers, I don’t want to go deep into these these temples” because the story that they’re telling about the Zeffo was not necessarily interesting.
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And I don’t know that it ever becomes interesting, but by the end of that game, even by the end of the second second act, it becomes a location that allows for some really great character work. I hope you stick with it, I’m really curious to see where you where you come out.
Rob: I’m a little skeptical that the Wookies would know about a civilization that’s dead on the scale of geologic time. That seems–
Austin: What do you mean? The Wookies are old! The Wookies have been around a long time and they’re old. An individual wookie–
Rob: There’s old and there’s old.
Austin: Okay, what’s that mean? You mean there’s a Yoda old versus a Wookie old. But Chewie is hundreds of years [old]!
Rob: Yeah but aren’t the Zeffo sort of portrayed as [existing] thousands of years [ago]?
Austin: Right but–
Patrick: Pre even this instance of civilization right?
Austin: I think they were around during–
Rob: It’s a little much to be like “I’ll bet the Wookies know about that, they live for a few hundred years, right?”
Austin: But think about that think about how long, if Chewbacca, 200 years old, not even a Wookie Elder. 200 years old, not even an elder!
Rob: That’s true. Just a pup really.
Austin: So imagine, when Chewie is 400 or whatever the fuck, I don’t know how old they live. Chewie can talk to a little youngling, the younglings aren’t the same thing, but a little youngling and be like, Cado can I get the Chewie–
Cado: I’m getting there.
Austin: You can’t have it [ready]? You can’t do a Chewie sound for me?
Cado: Oh, what?
Austin: I was like “can I get a [Chewie],” I needed a Chewie. Chewie would say to a youngling:
Cado: [an ok Wookie noise]
Austin: And then the youngling would go “wow!”
Patrick: Wait so then what did Cado think you were asking for? “I’m getting there?”
Austin: I think he was looking for the ages of Chewie? I think he was trying to look up the ages of Chewies.
Cado: That’s exactly what I was looking up!
Patrick: I thought “is this a Dragonball Z thing? He’s gotta work up to it?”
Austin: He’s gotta charge up!
Patrick: “I’m getting there, gimme a fucking second Austin!”
Austin: There’s no camera in here but all the pebbles on the ground started vibrating as he was charging his power. His hair is actually blonde now.
Cado: You were right, it’s 400.
Austin: 400, what’s good. I could tell because Chewie’s is about 200. Yeah, Chewie’s got another 200 years in him. Chewie at 400 can look down and be like “Listen, there was this Palpatine motherfucker, we dealt with that, or did we? The dead speak!” and will tell the whole story of the entire Skywalker saga, and after the Skywalker saga Chewie’s gonna live for another 170 years or something, right? And they’ll fake kill him another seven times.
And so, I think that in a culture like that you end up passing on more knowledge or a longer period of knowledge, maybe. They would know about, that they wouldn’t know about the Zeffo but they could go “oh yeah, I know where a temple is. It’s got a bunch of Z’s on it, probably a Zeffo temple.”
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