The New Jedi Order

The story of STAR WARS JEDI KNIGHT: JEDI ACADEMY’s most dedicated community.

- Hannah Dwan

Released back in 2003, Jedi Academy was, by most accounts, a really good game. Age hasn’t been kind to it. Try it today and you’ll notice that the graphics don’t hold up, the AI is shoddy at best, and the presentation and design are relics of the mid 2000s. Despite that, it’s still fun—a testament to the strength of the combat, and the quality of its realization of the Star Wars universe.

Jedi Academy is also highly customizable, with populated servers and a bustling mod scene. These are invaluable tools for one small community, called JEDI. Initially a clan of players who were skilled at Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, they transitioned to being a roleplay focused community when they moved over to the game’s successor. Since then, JEDI has grown. The community has over ten years of role playing experience, and a whole unique lore created off the back of the first six Star Wars films. They’ve even made their own bespoke tools so that they can create missions, stories, and items.

JEDI’s roleplay isn’t just about having the imagination to act out a character’s behavior in a given situation. The community makes full, scripted missions that go further than just talking about what can be done.One of the oldest members, John Mazuelos—the player behind High Councillor Cael Dan’kor—told me the story of a mission he directed, wrote, and ran.

A number of students in the community were sent to find some Jedi archaeologists who had gone missing. A whole new map was created to tell the story, and NPCs brought in. Other human players joined as extras—imbuing the story with far more human responses than could be achieved through scripting. This was a key part of why Mazuelos’ story worked so well.