How do you solve the problem of resurrecting a fallen Jedi for a completely new game? Fans of The Force Unleashed have waited patiently for the answer, and the team behind its sequel are more than poised to deliver the twisty, epic solution.

At the close of the first game, your character, Starkiller, had to make a choice. Raised as Vader’s secret apprentice for all sorts of badass wrongdoing, you eventually learn that the cards are stacked against you — you were nothing but a tool for Vader to sniff out his enemies. Though the finale gave you two paths to choose from, the canon ending saw your death at the hands of Emperor Palpatine. Cue Force Unleashed II.

As we sit in a darkened theater, the lead writer for both games, Haden Blackman, introduces us to the game’s opening scene. “We knew we wanted to bring back Starkiller,” he tells us. “We’re very attached to him; we thought we could build an entire franchise around him and continue to tell stories during this time period.” So, after the series’ trademark “text crawl” outlining what’s taken place in the short period between games, we learn that the Rebel Alliance may still be ragtag, but it’s now growing in power against the Empire.

On the world of Kamino — shown in Attack of the Clones as the manufacturing homeworld of the Empire’s duplicate soldiers — Vader’s ship touches down at an isolated facility to visit a training room cloaked in shadow. Chained to a wall is Starkiller, who Vader promptly releases shortly before revealing that his former apprentice is, indeed, a clone. With only fragmented memories, Starkiller finds himself up you-know-what creek without a paddle. As this clone, you don’t know what to believe — how many of your thoughts and memories are your own? Vader preys on your confusion, convincing you that you exist expressly to do his bidding.

This opening sequence also pits you against a small fleet of hologram droids who, like your late sidekick Proxy, can assume the guise of different characters. One transforms into Starkiller’s love interest from the previous game, Juno Eclipse, and this proves to be your catalyst. “Every time Starkiller goes to strike down Juno, he can’t,” Blackman says. “He’s overwhelmed by emotion, by memories of her — presumably from the real Starkiller’s experience in the first game.”

Vader then reveals that you are (dun-dun-DUN!) a failed clone — one built using a special sped-up process whose inherent glitches often drive clones insane. Good times, but the joke’s on him as you make your escape to avoid your inevitable termination as a clone with bad wiring. Now you’re on the run through Kamino, taking down Stormtroopers and AT-STs with your still-developing Jedi powers. As you escape, you learn more info — that you were created to assassinate Jedi Kota, who taught you how to be a good Jedi in the first game, on Cato Neimoidia, an archway planet that fans have seen only briefly in Revenge of the Sith. Moreover, you know that finding Kato and joining with the Alliance will uncover more info on the whereabouts of Juno, who holds the key to your memories and identity.

With such potential in the storytelling department, the team has also focused a lot of their efforts on refining gameplay mechanics like improving the aim and controls when using Force Grip to grab objects or people and throw them around. This’ll come in handy when you’re kicking much Imperial booty — something LucasArts wanted to enhance by diversifying the type of foes you’ll be tussling with. Your powers also come in new flavors: Jedi Mind Trick works sort of like the Hypnotize power in BioShock, letting you temporarily turn enemies against each other until they explode, while Force Fury lets you briefly amp up all of your powers for max destruction. You’ll also have more puzzles and more exploration, we’re told.

From our early glimpses of gameplay in that darkened theater, it’s clear that LucasArts wants to improve the successful formula they established with Force Unleashed. Hopefully, they’ll tweak a couple of other factors along the way, like dropping the number of annoying quick-time events and making the boss battles a little less confusing. From what we’ve seen, though — killer-looking storyline and all — we’re ready to resume abusing the Force as soon as possible.