Game Review: Star Wars Jedi Survivor

Star Wars is special to me for so many reasons.  I imagine a lot of people like me, grew up with the franchise in some way, shape or form.  While it originally started out as a simple film back in the late 70’s, if you fast forward to today, there isn’t a single form of media that doesn’t represent the franchise in some capacity.  While I love the films, another key area I gained a lot of exposure to the series was through its video games.  Whether it was the movie tie-in games, or the LEGO games, I loved jumping into the galaxy far, far away and feeling like an actual integral part of it. Even today, my fondness for the series hasn’t yet wavered and I still find myself enjoying the modern video games of the series substantially.  In 2019 I picked up and played Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, a game devoted to telling a compelling Star Wars story with a mixture of Metroidvania/Soulslike gameplay.  While not without its issues, I found the game in itself memorable for its captivating narrative and engaging gameplay. When a sequel was announced, I was intrigued to see how the successor could build on the foundations set up by Jedi Fallen Order and the end result did not disappoint.

Titled Star Wars Jedi Survivor, the 2^nd entry in the story of Jedi Knight Cal Kestis was developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. Development on the sequel began not soon after the release of Jedi Fallen Order, with creative director Stig Asmussen returning to helm development.  Taking over three and a half years to develop, it’s worth recognizing how a significant portion of the games development occurred remotely as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic forcing Respawn and other studios to work from home at the time.  Jedi Survivor released primarily on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X on April 28^th 2023, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One editions following later in the year on September 17^th 2023. Upon it’s release, the game struggled with a fair number of technical issues relating to performance and optimization.  These issues didn’t seem to stop the game from selling well however, while figures aren’t known; EA did report the game became the highest selling game in April 2023 and sold enough to be considered a commercial success by their metrics.  Critically the game aggregated a respective 84 on OpenCritic.

Taking place over 5 years from the end of Jedi Fallen Order, the game follows the perspective of Jedi Knight Cal Kestis on his never-ending journey to resist and combat the Galactic Empire during their initial reign of tyranny.  When we left Cal, he was still with the Mantis crew consisting of Jedi Master Cere Junda, Dathomirian Nightsister Merrin and their salt-loving pilot Greez Dritus.  Despite their strong bonds however, the crew eventually set out on their own paths which has left Cal notably isolated in the years since their departure.  It’s only after a routine mission gone wrong on Coruscant that Cal finds himself on the planet of Koboh seeking the assistance of Greez in order to repair his ship.  His presence on Koboh soon reveals Cal to a notorious gang of criminals called the Bedlam Raiders, led by an intimidating Gen'Dai warrior called Rayvis. His encounter with the local gang ends up leading Cal and his new rebel ally Bode Akuna to find old High Republic ruins on the planet as well as the discovery of a long-lost Jedi called Dagan Gera. While Cal is initially hopeful with discovering another Jedi ally, he soon learns Dagan Gera has fallen to the dark side and Cal must venture across the galaxy to stop his plan for revenge before it’s too late.

The narrative core of Jedi Survivor is honestly some of the best storytelling I’ve seen in a Star Wars property for a long time.  Development notes emphasized how Respawn’s writing team wanted to give Jedi Survivor a much darker and grittier tone and in turn make the stakes much more serious. Cal Kestis as a character is an excellent reflection of that ambition.  I found Cal to be a way more compelling presence in this story compared to Fallen Order based on how much he’s shown to have changed in the face of his struggles against the Empire.  The journey he goes on in this game gives him a renewed hope that he clings to desperately, and the game takes great effort to reflect how fragile his struggle to persevere is in the wake of so much turmoil. Respawn do a good job supporting Cal on this journey through the supporting cast. The distance he’s suffered from his old Mantis Crew makes his reunions with them feel much more impactful and in turn it’s nice to see how much they’ve changed throughout the past few years as much as Cal has.  The dynamic he shares with the games wider cast is structured so maturely, the game takes great effort to slow itself down to really flesh out the relationships Cal shares with friends and foe and that in turn makes the resulting story which revolves around them feel a lot more memorable.

The structuring of the narrative is not without fault however.  While I love the way it treats its characters, I do find the pacing of the story to be stop and go a fair bit throughout. There’s a lot of back and forth between the same set of planets with a lot of MacGuffin objectives to pad out the runtime.  Don’t get me wrong I think the setup in itself is excellent, and the twist and turns the game eventually takes really payoff, but I feel that’s down to the characters more than the actual plot.  I feel the true quality of this games story comes from the deep connections you’ll form with its wider cast and the moments they encounter.  Its story is a means to an end but it’s character moments and set pieces are really where the game’s narrative quality shines the most.

How does the game function though? Well Jedi Survivor pretty much builds on top of the strong foundation already set up from Jedi Fallen Order.  As Cal, you’ll be tasked with visiting a range of planets with a very large open environments to explore. Jedi Survivor this time ups the scale and density of these environments however, with a much more expanded selection of locations to traverse with their own terrain and enemies to overcome.  Like Jedi Fallen Order, the game features a general number of obstacles which will require certain skills or equipment to approach.  You’ll have to progress through the game and unlock these skills/equipment and make an effort to come back and explore these areas further.  There’s a reason this gameplay approach has become so ingrained since the release of Metroid, as it gives a genuine sense of reward and progression for taking the effort to unlock new functionality and return back to old areas and explore.  I found the natural traversal of these environments to be much more fluid in Jedi Survivor. Movement on Cal’s part feels faster and there’s a lot of traversal options like ridable mounts and fast travel to make navigating these areas less tedious.  That’s not to say it’s all perfect however, as even I found myself getting tired of the constant length of time lost to the process of navigating to different planets with how much time it takes to get the Mantis in the air and to light speed.

You’ll want to spend the time to go back and forth though as the scale of the games reward system this time around is much more extensive. Gone are the days of constant ponchos, now there’s a plethora of new customization options to acquire through your exploration.  You can customize Cal’s hair and facial features as well as his upper and lower body clothing. Along with these new options is a much more extensive approach to weapon customization with new parts for your lightsaber and new blaster. You can even find parts to customize BD-1’s appearance.  Respawn clearly took on board player feedback from Jedi Fallen Order as the notable lack of customization was even one of my major gripes with the game at the time and Jedi Survivor really reflects the studios dedication to listen and build on player feedback. The depth behind the customization features cannot be understated either.  I legitimately lost so much time to just re-working my lightsaber and blaster with new parts and paint materials to get them just how I wanted them, they really spared no expense on the customization front and I truly appreciated it.

What good is a nice-looking lightsaber and blaster if you can’t use it though? Well Jedi Survivor has you covered there also.  One of my biggest gripes with Jedi Fallen Order was its slow combat style.  It worked for the most part, but certain movements and attacks didn’t feel like they had much weight or response behind them.  In this game however, Respawn did everything possible to speed up the combat and inject it with so much variety that you’ll come out of every encounter feeling like a legitimate Jedi Master.  Cal now has the ability to switch up the stances of his lightsaber attacks, allowing him to choose between a decent number of attack styles to help you outpace an enemy.  My favourite stances were definitely dual wield for the speed and rapid attacks you can get off, as well as the crossguard stance which sacrifices maneuverability for strong attacks which can help cut through an enemy’s defensive barriers.  I would describe combat as a dance of skill in this game, every encounter feels like it’s geared to test your ability to outmaneuver your enemy.  The boss fights are especially noteworthy for this distinction, they really put you through your paces and can catch you off guard very easily if you’re not paying attention.  After enough practice though you’ll really come to appreciate the fluidity of the games combat.

What helps is there’s a wide-ranging number of skill trees associated to your weapon stances and general Force abilities which you can upgrade throughout the course of the game.  These skills will help you unlock new abilities and moves to make your combat more diverse and help you take on some of the late-games stronger enemy types. It’s not just cosmetic rewards you’ll find by exploring the games environments too, as there’s a great number of items which will enhance your strength.  You can find Stim containers which will increase BD-1’s ability to heal you and there’s also Force Essences littered around the map which can increase your general health and force meters or even give you free skill points to spend.  All of this works to imbue you with a clear sense of progression when it comes to your own skill and strength and equally the opposition of the game, it’s so naturally deployed that you never for one moment feel you’re not equipped to handle an encounter when you come across it.

What else really stood out for me was the environmental design in this game.  While it is a shame the planetary options are limited, I think where Respawn make up for it is the scale and depth of their environments.  So much thought was clearly given to making these locations inviting to approach and fun to traverse.  The game actively wants you to go off the beaten path too, by enticing you to explore every nook and cranny in return for a justified reward at the end of your deviation.  There’s also a lot of thought put into making revisiting these locales much easier by adding shortcuts to unlock as you naturally progress. It’s all top-level environmental design that I cannot go out of my way enough to praise.

It also helps that these locations look absolutely gorgeous to just hang around.  The artists in this game really spared no expense giving so much life and color to the planets in this game.  Whether it’s the western expanse of Koboh or the dark and metallic under levels of Coruscant, there’s so much work put into these environments and their skyboxes to help them give off a defining presence throughout your time exploring them.  Combine that with an overall impressive graphical style and animation, this game projects so much detail and beauty at every stride.  What really cements the artistic impression of the game for me though is the soundtrack. Stephen Barton and Gordy Haab return to score this game and once again nail the blend of their own original impression but also do a superb job paying homage to the DNA of the John Williams motif all throughout.  I didn’t expect the soundtrack to hit as hard as it did, but was I impressed none the less.

While the games overall presentation is solid for the most part, I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t discuss the technical experience I had playing the game.  Despite playing it a few years out from when it originally released and with numerous patches since then, I did find my time with the game still to be fairly glitchy.  I know this is a big game and usually the odd crash here or there wouldn’t warrant being discussed, but I feel anyone who plays this game needs to be prepared for the technical issues that the game still sadly retains.  It’s not nearly enough to but a downer on the overall experience, but for such a big budget game, you would have thought these issues would be ironed out by this present point.

None of the game’s detractors are enough to warrant any kind of dismissal however, because Jedi Survivor on a fundamental level if a fantastic game and a worthy sequel to Jedi Fallen Order. It’s clear by the time I rolled credits that Respawn care about this franchise to a considerable degree.  With its truly layered narrative and a gameplay system which works to challenge and reward you in equal measure, so much of this game works to leave you wanting more.  I’m happy to know there is a planned third and final entry in this series, I really hope Respawn can nail the landing here, because I haven’t been this invested in a Star Wars story in a long time and I really want to see Cal and the Mantis crew get a truly deserving conclusion.