Everyone loves Star Wars Jedi Survivor’s Turgle, right? The green frog alien was a highlight of my time with the newest Star Wars game, as his design, performance, and personality continue to prove that all of Star Wars’ freaks, against our better judgment, are likable weirdos. Naturally, the developers of Star Wars Jedi Survivor at Respawn feel the same way and have now talked about how Turgle’s design influenced what we love about him so much.
Multiple developers at Respawn have talked about Turgle’s inception in a new interview, so if you want to learn more about him here you go.
“On one hand, you get a specific brief for a specific character where most of the anatomical and narrative requirements are already pointing towards a general direction, which greatly informs the final look and feel of the critter,” senior concept artist Jean-Francois Rey tells Prima Games.
“On the other hand, sometimes you just get told, ‘We are gonna need a whole bunch of aliens. We don’t know who they’re gonna be, we don’t know how many of them we need, but we will for sure need aliens, so just have fun with it – and your individual creative process.’”
If you loved the likes of Skoova Stev, Doma Dendra, and especially Turgle, you’ll be glad to hear that the latter is how everyone’s favorite frog-man came to be.
“I did a lineup with about 15 alien sketches designed to live within the Pyloon’s Saloon cantina area, and out of those, five were chosen, including Turgle,” Rey adds, explaining how Turgle’s whole deal, from his appearance, voice, and movements, came from a team effort. “It’s really a fully collaborative process, and the final version ended up being quite a surprise to me, in a very good way.”
Rey even says that towards the end of development to team at Respawn really started to show their appreciation for Turgle, and even went as far as to share memes about the odd guy.
Jedi Survivor writer Danny Homan, who recently revealed how they captured BD-1 in the game, also weighed in on Turgle, explaining what the team’s overall narrative goal was with the character.
“Exploring how each character at Rambler’s Reach saw and treated Turgle was a lot of fun as well. He’s a classic instigator, and one of our narrative goals was to make him so outrageous that players would want to keep coming back to talk to him in Pyloon’s Saloon.”
Rey and Homan also have differing opinions on who would win in a fight: Skoova Stev or Turgle, but we all know who we’d want to come out on top.
If you’re still in the middle of Cal’s newest adventure our Star Wars Jedi Survivor walkthrough breaks down absolutely everything you need to know about the game, and if you’re new we’ve instead got a whole host of Jedi Survivor tips for you.
