There has never been a dull moment for Cal Kestis and the crew of the Stinger Mantis since Cere Junda and Greez Dritus rescued Cal on Bracca in Star Wars Jedi: The Fallen OrderThat said, no one has pursued the Stinger Mantis crew with such success and vigilance in the Star Wars Jedi series as the Haxion Brood, a band of bounty hunters Cal becomes acquainted with when he and BD-1 are kidnapped and forced to compete in an Ordo Eris fighting arena against waves of enemies hosted by Sorc Tormo.
Bounty hunters have been a great source of spontaneous tension and high stakes in the Star Wars Jedi franchise so far, but whether it should pick up the Haxion brood for a third time or shelve it for another handful of different, random mercenaries is another question, especially if Cal himself is positioned to become something of a bounty hunter. Indeed, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor makes the Haxion brood a much more explicit threat than before. But, while they still appear to intercept players, Cal now takes over and the hunters become the hunted this time in Star Wars Jedi: Survivorteasing a whole new story arc for Cal in a future chapter.
Star Wars Jedi: Turning Cal Kestis into a Bounty Hunter Could Be Based on Jango Fett's Origin Story
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter grants numerous optional “dead or alive” contracts that players can pursue at their discretion. This concept is executed phenomenally in the chapter’s early levels such as Coruscant, where enemies are sparse enough that players can take the time to scan NPCs with Jango’s slow-motion POV visor.
However, bounty hunting becomes much more arduous and impractical in later games, where enemies flood the screen in waves, flank players, and bombard them with blaster shots or missiles from invisible ranges, but it's still an engaging feature that allows the game to feel like more than a basic arcade shooter. In fact, choosing to turn bounties alive means players must first mark a scanned bounty target and then tie them up with Jango Fett's whip and interact with them, which is nearly impossible to do in the middle of a room full of enemies.
Even more difficult is trying to laboriously eliminate every other enemy in a room first and leave the bounty target for last, but there are few options left to secure a bounty in the mid- or late-game levels. Either way, these elements would make fantastic ingredients in the next Star Wars Jedi game, especially if Cal himself becomes an official bounty hunter, since he technically already has in Survived while eliminating the targets of a scheming Caij Vanda.
The only incentive for players to do so was to get reward discs for various skills, some of which were
Survived
and a little bit for the BD-1 droid cut, plus the blaster cosmetics they could be turned in for, and surely there could be an even bigger reward in a sequel for hunting down the characters and having a chance to turn in that bounty alive.
The Star Wars Jedi Bounty Hunt Is Too Important to Be Shelved Now
The Haxion Brood hasn't been permanently dispatched, and with so many bounty hunters and droids cut off from Cal, it would make sense for Sorc Tormo's manhunt to be even more persistent and vicious in a third game. Now that Cal has gotten a taste for bounty hunting, though, he's in an interesting position to go after bounties of his own, even without Caij tipping him off to the whereabouts of the Brood members patiently awaiting his arrival.
Survived teased that Cal might soon retire his lightsaber and leave the fight behind him. Of course, with the Haxion Brood searching for Cal Kestis and the Stinger Mantis crew, the refugee Jedi Knight might not have a quick way out of the bounty hunting loop until he's finally sorted out that problem, and it would be a shame to see that side story arc suddenly abandoned in a third Star Wars Jedi game without even a concrete resolution one way or another.
