Star Wars: Jedi Survivor [PS5/PC] Review – The Rise Of A Jedi

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was undoubtedly EA’s diamond in the rough. Having held the Star Wars licence uncontested for years it seemed like EA may have thrown away its golden opportunity to build new games with the Star Wars …

Thankfully Respawn Entertainment jumped in with Jedi Fallen Order. It focused and listened to what fans had been asking for – a deep, immersive single player Star Wars game. Mixing engrossing story with inspirations from Dark Souls and Metroidvania games, Repawn had found the diamond EA was looking for and to the surprise of no one but EA, it was a hit.

So here we are four years later to see if respawn can catch lightning in a bottle twice with Star Wars Jedi Survivor.

Setting five years after the original, you pick up with Cal Kestis and BD-1 on Coruscant. But not before the game gives you a quick recap on what took place before in Jedi Fallen Order. This does a good enough job of filling in the gaps if you haven’t played the original, although we’d still recommend playing the first game before diving into this one 0 as you miss out on some great character development otherwise.

In A Galaxy…

As soon as you start taking control of Cal it doesn’t take long to realise he’s come far since his previous adventure. Equipped with all his previous abilities and a few new ones, Cal’s progression is felt straight away. Couple that with the fast and furious opening chapter, spectacular set pieces, and cut scenes Jedi survivor really flies off the line. This is not a slow burner, and is all the better for it.

Once you complete the first chapter Cal and BD-1 head to Kobah in search of your old gang from the first game. This is where the game starts opening up and settles into the familiar gameplay loop of its predecessor – only on a far grander scale.

The planets you explore in Jedi Survivor are larger in every sense. The planets feel more populated and alive than the previous game and even hold more collectables, things to do, and secrets to discover. You will often see other alleys around the maps, some even offering side quests – an element that was missed from missions in Fallen Order.

With the increased map sizes Respawn has thankfully decided to include fast travel points throughout the maps. This was one of the most frustrating aspects of previous games, especially after completing a quest then having to work your way back through the map to the Mantus (your ship) – so this fast travel relieves that frustration tenfold.

Another thing worthy of praise here are the difficulty and accessibility options. When being compared with something like Dark Souls – where you know the combat will require a certain amount of skill and time to master – this has plenty of options for people to play the game the way they want. As let’s face it, sometimes it’s pretty fun to put a game on an easier setting and feel like a real Jedi Master.

So with Cal’s abilities passing over from the first game you may wonder what’s new with the combat and character progression. As mentioned earlier he has a few new tricks up his sleeve and will continue to learn new abilities throughout the journey like the previous game. But what’s new here though is what the game calls stances.

Stances boil down to lightsaber variations. An example is that the duel ended lightsaber is considered a different stance compared to the regular single bladed sabre. We won’t spoil too much on what the different stances are, but you unlock a variety of them throughout your journey.

You can equip two stances at a time, and like with your force powers there’s an upgrade tree with each stance. This is where the upgrade system can get a little overwhelming, but after a little time you’ll quickly find out your two favourite stances and work to upgrade them specifically. If you want to upgrade everything there are plenty of extras to gain skill points throughout the planets too.

The game’s story is also brilliant, delivered via amazing cutscenes and great writing. This does however lead us onto what Star Wars Jedi Survivor doesn’t do quite so well.

And the first thing is performance issues. Jedi Survivor is a beautiful game and can look absolutely stunning, and thankfully there is nothing game breaking here or a mode that’s unplayable. But there were often times throughout our playthrough the frame rate would noticeably dip or the game would start dropping in resolution.

We played the game on the default setting on PS5 which is set to 30fps, and this is the mode we’d recommend – with visuals remaining consistent. The 60fps mode most definitely isn’t worth it though, and the image quality is hugely noticeable.

We also ran across a few minor bugs in our play through such clipping through the floor or getting stuck for long periods when interacting with lifts or crates. There was also a very funny bug during one cutscene, which we can’t ruin because of spoilers (unfortunately).

With the game’s epic scale some may miss the simplicity and focus of the first game. With a lot more being added in this follow up it’s easier to get lost and lose your focus, and that’s something that could be seen as a positive or a negative depending on your viewpoint.

Overall though Star Wars Jedi Survivor successfully builds on the foundation of the first game, and then some. This is gaming on a massive scale, and despite some performance concerns and a few minor bugs this is hands down one of the best Star Wars titles in recent years.