I love Star Wars. Ever since I was a kid I’ve loved Star Wars. Which is weird because only, like, half of the movies are any good. When I first saw those originals though? Man, I was hooked, and from that day on, I’ve been a huge fan. Now, Star Wars, being the biggest property in, well, history, is going to have a few video games. The latest in the long line of Star Wars games is Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars-Jedi: Survivor. I am also a huge fan of Respawn’s previous work. Titanfall 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, and Apex Legends was the only battle royale I even considered playing for a while.
Now Respawn’s first Star Wars game, 2019’s Fallen Order, is a pretty good game, even though its pretty much Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice with a Star Wars skin and… worse, if I’m being honest. But that game absolutely, positively NAILED Star Wars. Its aesthetic, its feel, its sound, its music all felt genuine to the incredible setting. And I don’t have to tell all of you that in 2019, not many Star Wars things were nailing the landing. So, all things considered, I was reasonably excited for this game. Even if it was only for a chance to reengage with something in Star Wars that hasn’t been ruined. So is Respawn’s latest adventure the game you’re looking for? I went in and found out for this Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review!
IMPORTANT: Performance and Optimization on PC
Alright, lets rip this band-aid off real quick; the pc port of this game is an absolute, inexcusable disaster. I’ve decided to put this first to warn anyone on PC to stay far away from this game for now. I played on a rig with 32 gbs of RAM, a 3070ti, and an i7 10700k for a few sections of the game. The optimization is nothing short of abysmal. Really, you name a technical aspect of this game right now on PC, chances are its broken. Constant crashes, terrible stuttering, and terrible visual bugs make this game legitimately unplayable at times, as the port struggles to find its feet in even the most basic of encounters. Furthermore, Digital Foundry did a test on this game and found equally terrible results.
Optimization (cont.)
The 2 patches Respawn has deployed to try and “fix” these issues have also done next to nothing as far as I can tell. This is an inexcusable mess, and its sad that we’ve gotten to the point that this is the expectation for a PC port these days. Part of me wants to tell you to not buy this game at all, even if it gets better. I really just to get these companies to show some accountability at some point.
Knocking down my settings from 1440p High to 1080p Medium made no discernable difference as far as I can tell. Even weirder, both CPU and GPU utilization hovered at around 30-40%. So, uh, in conclusion I have no idea what’s going on with this port, but its bad. Real bad.
The rest of this review is indicative of my playthrough on a PS5. Anything positive I’m about to say comes from that experience. Again, I cannot stress this enough. If you are playing on PC, do not play this game, at least not for a while. This is a very hard “wait for it to be fixed” recommendation, which is really sad.
Right. Lets talk story.
Story
Just like last time, Jedi Survivor follows Cal Kestis, one of the few Jedi left after the infamous Order 66. Survivor is set a few years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, with the remains of the Jedi on the run and where a certain Skywalker is still a kid farming moisture in the middle of the desert. The last game found Kestis running around the galaxy assembling a merry band of misfits to combat the newly ascendant Galactic Empire. That was very much a classic swashbuckling adventure, but did some surprisingly deep character moments sprinkled in there. Just like Titanfall 2, Respawn has proved again here that what they lack in writing a compelling overall plot, they more than make up for in character work.
This is the same in Jedi Survivor. Cal starts out alone again after the crew from the last game all went their separate ways, and he finds himself alone and on the run from the Empire yet again. Spoiler: He’s not a huge fan of the lifestyle. To its credit, Survivor does a good job and giving a new dimension to Cal and both the new and returning characters.
Sequels are inherently much harder to make compelling than origins. Its hard to excavate the intricacies, motivations, and all the things that make a character tick when a lot of that excavation has already been done. Survivor pulls this off surprisingly well in my opinion. Cal, while still that same boyish charm that made Mark Hamill’s original performance as Luke Skywalker so compelling, is more grizzled here due to the events of his youth. The plot goes a bit into the nature of a rebellion and what it even means to be a Jedi, a “peacekeeper”, in this new era for the setting.
Story (cont.)
One of my favorite personal threads explored here is the nature of being someone like Cal. Cal undoubtedly puts his friends first most, if not all of the time. However, his ideology with the Jedi Code demands they remain detached. Its a really interesting plot thread that goes into both Cal and the new and old characters he teams up with. My favorite among the new characters is Bode, who definitely feels like the Han Solo-esque swashbuckling scoundrel of this story. For the most part though, the new characters all stick the landing, and returning favorites like Greez and Merrin from the first game still hold up.
The plot, as mentioned before, leaves something to be desired if you think about it a bit more. Its filled with a lot of contrivances and conveniences to get these characters where the writers and designers want them to go. But honestly, for the most part, I didn’t really mind. If there’s one thing Star Wars should be, its an adventure. And goddammit, this game really gives off that feel as an adventure, so I can’t complain too much. If you’re looking for a great, “Star Warsy” feeling story, look no further than here, though I would recommend playing the first game first.
World Design
One of the biggest changes that Survivor introduces is the increase in the size and scope of its levels when compared to Fallen Order. Fallen Order was fairly linear in its level design, and the more secret passages in the levels usually were pretty short and ended in either a little optional boss fight and/or a cosmetic item. Survivor is still very linear when it comes to its “main path”, but the scale and options that open up in the first act really sell the increased scope of this game. One of the first planets, Kobo, is a great example of this.
During your first pass of the planet it might not seem like its too much bigger than Fallen Order’s destinations, until you come back for some more exploration and realize that you probably only explored 1/5th of that planet your first time round. Some of the individual spaces and sections in these planets are bigger than entire destinations in the first game. The increased traversal options really help to sell the scale of these worlds as well.
Exploration and Traversal
Another big difference in the exploration is the gameplay you’ll be engaging with in these spaces. In Fallen Order the optional areas were a balance of combat challenges and traversal. But in Survivor, the bar has shifted into heavily favoring traversal challenges over combat encounters and minibosses. You’ll still find those, but you’ll do a lot more platforming than you did in the last game. This gameplay loop won’t appeal to everyone. I will admit, it was wearing a bit thin on me at about the halfway point. But, if you want to be Jedi Mario, than you’ll find a lot to do here.
Traversal also has a big issue in that the game doesn’t do quite enough to tell you what is climbable, what can be grabbed, e.t.c. I often found myself dashing forward at a grated wall, or trying to climb something that just wasn’t coded to be grabbable. It can lead to some frustration and confusion at these traversal puzzles when you fail because you dashed at a wall that you thought could be climbed, only to plummet to your death immediately after.
Traversal is also extremely linear. There’s usually only one way and one way only to solve a traversal puzzle or challenge. There is zero ways to think outside the box or use the terrain in a way that Respawn doesn’t want you to. Any attempts to do so usually end in your demise, much to my chagrin. This won’t bug most people I’m sure, but I personally prefer my games to be open to some experimentation once in a while.
Customization
One thing that really surprised me in this game is not just that there is an in depth customization system, but the nature of it. Exploring these aforementioned traversal challenges does reward you with experience and XP. But it also rewards Lightsaber components, collectibles, and even NPCs that you can recruit. If there’s one thing that I think Respawn really gets, its that they really understand the mind of a Star Wars fan.
None of these items are statsticks or upgrades. None of that loot system garbage that’s been plaguing every game nowadays, where when you collect a Lightsaber hilt that gives you 2.7% more stagger chance or something dumb. All of this stuff is purely cosmetic. That may rub some people the wrong way. But as someone invested in the Star Wars universe, there are few things more important to both me and in the setting than a personal Lightsaber. Anyone who’s the same level of nerd as me knows what I’m talking about.
There’s also more customization stuff too. exploring will reward you with customization outfits for Cal and his droid buddy BD. There’s even NPCs that you can send back to your little settlement on Kobo. Stuff like a garden, or a stable, or a chess-like mingame, or a DJ that accepts music requests isn’t really needed, but it is appreciated for someone like me to just engage in the weirdness that is Star Wars. I can’t think of many other games where I was motivated to go find space pineapples for no stat bonus. It was just something I was able to do, so I did it.
Combat
Alright, lets talk combat. I have a complicated relationship with combat in this game. Its good, don’t get me wrong, but I just can’t shake the feeling that, again, its just Sekiro… but worse. It has the same stance mechanic. The same unblockable moves that must be dodged. The same parry mechanics, but its all just a bit more floaty than it needs to be, or lacks the real weight of Sekiro. Its a perfectly serviceable combat model with some decent variety with the different types of sabers and combat styles you can use. But it ultimately probably won’t wow you.
Anyone who’s really serious about melee combat games is probably going to walk away feeling a bit underwhelmed. It doesn’t have the crazy antics of a character action game, like Devil May Cry, but it also doesn’t have the weight and methodical systems of something like Dark Souls. It occupies a weird middle ground where you get some from both sides of the melee spectrum, but ultimately those systems often end up feeling pretty half baked. Respawn has definitely prioritized the spectacle of combat rather than the function. Cal can equip all of these crazy different Lightsaber fighting styles and the combos for them look really flashy, but none of them really have any inherent advantages or disadvantages over the others, and there’s really only one or 2 combos you can pull off with each fighting style.
Combat Pt 2: Enemies
One thing this game does have in spades is enemy variety, if not in overall moveset and strategy than certainly in design. You got the classics of course. Your basic Stormtroopers and other Imperial units obviously make an appearance, along with some iconic monsters, such as the Rancor. But you also get a lot of different stuff sometimes. Old Separatist battle droids make an appearance, and some new units are added to spice things up when going against your basic Imperial goons. If nothing else, you’ll be fighting a lot of different things in this game. Unfortunately, those things usually all fall to the same few strategies over the game’s span. Enemies are overall kinda sloppily designed. Not many standouts here as far as difficulty or moveset goes, which is a real shame.
If you’re not a Star Wars fan and you’re looking for a great, in depth melee action game, you can probably pass here. Too many of the systems feel not quite baked enough, the combat feels a bit too floaty and the enemy animations are all over the place with their application.
Conclusion
I really, really wish I could recommend Star Wars Jedi: Survivor to you right now. Despite its flawn, its overall a very good game. I am totally here for Respawn’s take on the most prolific sci-fi setting in history. But I just can’t at the time of writing. Even going past all its flaws in the story and combat loop, if you’re playing on PC there isn’t even a game you can play here. If you’re reading this in the future, that’s great, its probably fixed by now, I give it my wholehearted recommendation. If you’re reading this near the time of release, however, skip this one for now, at least on PC. It needs some drastic fixes before I can recommend this.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor released April 28th, 2023 on Steam, Xbox and PlayStation platforms by Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment. Jedi aren’t your thing? Check out my mod list for a great Star Wars mod that transforms the game SQUAD into an immersive battlefield sim!
