Star Wars Jedi: Survivor brings back Cameron Monaghan as Cal Kestis, but this time, Cal looks a bit different. He actually looks largely similar to the way he did in the first game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, though he’s been given a beard in Survivor to show the passage of time and what we’d assume to be a more rugged, experienced version of Cal. The beard was surprisingly one of the most talked about things from the recent trailer the game got, and alongside that reveal, Monaghan has given some insight into the creative decision to depict Cal this way.
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Speaking to EW, Monaghan said the beard was a result of the creative team wanting to find a way to show Cal’s internal journey through a physical cue, too. Part of his answer appears to be a tongue-in-cheek response to the attention the beard got, too, since so many people were interested in it compared to everything else that was shown in the trailer.
“Obviously, when you get older some very interesting changes happen to your body,” Monaghan began. “So we sat down with the creative team. We had a little presentation. We brought the projector into the room and explained what might happen. They had a few questions, but ultimately we understood that hair grows in places you might not necessarily expect, and one of those places was Cal’s chin. It was important to have Cal’s internal journey reflected by his physical appearance. If you have a physical marker, it clues the audience in to what is going on internally. But also, we are able to explore multiple looks with Cal, and some of them are really cool.”
The idea of alternate looks for Cal is an interesting one and is perhaps something that’ll come out in the future whenever concept art for the game is shared to show what could’ve been, but for now, Star Wars fans will have this bearded version of Cal to look forward to.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is scheduled to release on March 17th and will be available on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms.