There’s no denying that Star Wars has been a quality lottery in recent years. The latest films have been heavily criticized by fans, Disney+ series have oscillated between excellent and mediocre at best, and yet, despite the film and TV space being plagued with quality content that is polarizing lovers of the saga, there was a stable region in this galaxy far, far away. I’m talking about the Star Wars Jedi series from Respawn Entertainment. And I say “series” because, although Star Wars Jedi: Survivor doesn’t launch until Friday, April 28, my experience with this title shows that the studio, best known for Apex Legends, is still one of the best when it comes to to tell modern Star Wars stories.
Five years after the events of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Survivor brings us a more mature and slightly grizzled version of Cal Kestis. This character hasn’t exactly been hidden from the Empire for five years, but has been a key player alongside it, carrying out all sorts of resistance missions as part of his work with the rebel Saw Gerrera. However, after a mission goes awry, Cal begins to question his endless fight against the almighty Empire and begins to search for a way to protect those he loves, which brings him back to the same crew as it reunited on the original game, but that broke off and went its own way years before.
As a direct sequel to that story, albeit five years later, Survivor doesn’t offer the same progression experience as Fallen Order. Cal starts this game off with the gear, abilities, lightsaber, and Force abilities he mastered in the first game, just as Kratos doesn’t follow the same progression in God of War: Ragnarök as he did in the 2018 title. That means you’re thrown into the thick of the action in moments, and you do it in a way that makes you feel like a true Jedi warrior, not a Padawan fighting tooth and nail for his survival.
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If you’ve played Fallen Order, many of the mechanics from that game that made it so fresh and fun are also in Survivor. The platforming sections are still long and require a bit of thought, but at the same time they are fluid and showcase the levels of stamina and physical strength that Jedi and other Force users can achieve. If you like platforming sections like Uncharted, Survivor is very similar, except Cal shows no fatigue when hanging from vines or climbing vertical surfaces. It’s awesome. The same goes for the environment puzzles, which require a bit of thinking but are never extremely difficult.
Combat has also been improved and expanded with new lightsaber stances and uses of the Force that allow you to engage enemies in different ways. Whether it’s using the environment to your advantage, pushing Stormtroopers to their doom, or catching projectiles mid-air to deal their own damage. Add to that the ability to switch between the Blaster stance, which lets you wield a pistol in one hand to deal ranged damage while dodging and slashing with a lightsaber in the other, or my favorite Crossguard stance, which allows you slower, more powerful attacks using the lightsaber blade made famous by Kylo Ren recently. There are five lightsaber stances and countless ways to upgrade them, your Force moves and Cal’s health and survivability with tons of skill trees to explore and upgrade in any way that suits your needs. better to your form of play.
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But more entertaining platforming sections and improved combat aren’t the only areas where Respawn has stepped up. There’s a huge collection of new enemy types, not just from the Imperial faction, but in the case of beasts from across the galaxy and a brand new faction type, the Bedlam Raiders. This faction brings tough new humanoid enemies to face, as well as a host of Clone Wars-era droid variants, each requiring you to deal with them differently, or the tough fighting game they’ll chew you up and spit out. Between Super Battle Droids that attack relentlessly with ranged blaster fire and Bedlam Warriors that strike relentlessly with charged blades, Cal must be faster and smarter if he is to survive and defeat threats in this sequel. .
And that even extends to the open world and the kinds of activities you can do around the many locations that make up this story. Whether it’s simply returning to Coruscant to collect collectibles, taking on bounty hunters scattered throughout the system, or traveling to the far reaches of Koboh’s caverns to battle a Rancor, Survivor has many ways to continue and improve the experience beyond the beaten path. main narrative path, to the point where you can easily squeeze in over 30 hours of gameplay before the credits roll and new secrets become available.
That being said, most people come to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for the main story and to see how that tale expands on Cal’s story. While I’ll steer clear of direct spoilers, I will say that I don’t think this story offers an outstanding narrative like Fallen Order did. Of course, there are still some incredibly awesome Star Wars moments that put almost every other Star Wars product of the past decade to shame, and in fact the story as a whole is better than most Star Wars productions that we had years. Simplemente no creo que esté a la altura de Fallen Order en un sentido puramente narrativo, ya que la plot tiene claros altibajos ya menudo se apoya en personajes que se supone que nos importan pero con los que no llegamos a conectar debido a un desarrollo de personajes weaker. If you love Star Wars, even if only fleetingly, there’s plenty to discover and be amazed here, including story details that can be picked up along the way, but don’t expect to a story as moving as that of Fallen Order.
Luckily, there’s more to do than in Fallen Order. As a current-gen exclusive, environments are bigger, deeper, and more detailed, and there’s always something new to explore thanks to the game’s Metroidvania-like progression system, which lets you come back to your steps to explore previously inaccessible areas. . Some of the extra activities aren’t as exciting as others, for example fighting bounty hunters is much more exciting than collecting seeds and growing plants, but at least there’s the option to do both. Additionally, the customization suite is the same as Fallen Order, which means that all accessories (whether it’s clothing, hairstyles, Cal’s lightsaber parts and colors, BD-1 parts, etc.) are found in the world and cannot be purchased for real money at all, and this is one aspect where Survivor, like Fallen Order, deserves a lot of credit as it is a full game with no monetization beyond it. beyond the initial purchase.
Although I’ve talked about the small flaws in the main narrative before, overall I think Survivor is a better title than Fallen Order, but that game has some very clear performance issues that are holding it back right now. When playing in PS5 Performance mode, the game struggles to reach 60 FPS promised and still having issues with jumping textures, crashing animations, ugly textures, other weird bugs, crashes and much more. The list of issues is so long and instantly recognizable that it will likely take Respawn a while to fix them, and this is the aspect that hurts the game the most overall. If a release day patch fixes these issues, great! But, in my pre-release experience, they are a real title drag.
Still, for Star Wars fans and fans of action-adventure games, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a great continuation of that series. It’s packed with references and other little details that paint a wonderfully comprehensive picture of a galaxy far, far away, and the gameplay is simply an improvement on Fallen Order’s already excellent formula. It has its flaws, and it’s not perfect, both in terms of performance and main narrative, but given that 2023 has been characterized by big AAA remakes so far, Survivor is one of the best. really new titles we’ve ever seen. This year.