Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's UI Was Inspired By The Last Jedi

thegamer.com:

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor launched last year and, despite having a decent number of performance issues, was chock-full of references to the movies to create a world that fans of the series loved exploring and learning more about. With a seemingly endless amount of source material to choose from, you can likely find inspirations in Jedi: Survivor from across the entire series, but one big inspiration was staring all of us in the face the entire time.

During the UX Summit: Designing Immersive UI For Star Wars Jedi: Survivor panel at GDC 2024, attended by TheGamer, art director Daanish Syed revealed that The Last Jedi a big inspiration for the Cal Kestis customization screen in the menu, particularly the movie's portrayal of the mirror cave that Rey enters on the Temple Island of Achch-To.

For those that haven't seen the movie, Rey enters the cave while searching for answers about her parents after being drawn there by the Force. Upon reaching the wall of the cave, she begins to see multiple images of herself reflected, implying that her lineage can only be defined by herself. It's this particular scene that has been used as inspiration for Jedi: Survivor's character customization, as multiple versions of Cal Kestis showcasing different cosmetics can be seen on glass panels surrounding him.

Syed goes on to explain that a core theme of Star Wars is all about "looking within", with The Void that Cal Kestis stands around in while players are in the menus being a visual representation of the Force. All the menus that players can fiddle around in are Cal's personal visualization of the things you're changing, hence why Cal's visualization of character customization is based on the mirror cave, and why skill trees are displayed on ancient tablets.

It's a neat little tidbit, which also demonstrates just how much thought and effort can go into something as simple as a menu screen. It also shows just how much the developers at Respawn love Star Wars, and how much they're