Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
There was a time not too long ago where the only Star Wars content we got were comic books, novels and mountains upon mountains of video games. While a few of them had the shelf life of milk (we’re looking at you Kinect Star Wars), there were some fantastic games like Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars The Force Unleashed. However, the Star Wars extended universe changed in 2012 when the House of Mouse purchased LucasFilm. Things are decidedly different in 2023.
We’ve had a complete reboot of the extended universe, multiple movies (some good, some… not so good), TV shows (again some good, some not so good), but fewer video games. At the time, EA & DICE gave us Battlefront (2015) and Battlefront 2 (2017) which won back some favour with much-needed some post-launch content to provide a smooth and fun experience. Sadly, the launch of Battlefront 2 left a sour taste in some fans’ mouths, and the announcement of another Star Wars game — this time developed by Respawn (Titanfall, Apex Legends) — didn’t excite fans as much as it should have.
However, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order completely blew expectations out of the water with a fantastic single-player experience. We followed the story of Cal Kestis, a Jedi Padawan who survived Order 66 and gained the unwanted attention of the Imperial Inquisitors (basically Jedi hunters). From there we met the crew of the Mantis with Greez and Cere, befriended a surviving Nightsister on Dathomir with Merrin, and attached ourselves to BD-1. Now, four years after its release we continue Cal’s story in Star Wars Jedi Survivor.
Set five years after the events of Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, Cal has grown, as has the crew of the Mantis. Cal and BD-1 are now members of Saw Gerrera’s Partisans, fighting the ongoing war against the Empire. After five years of constant battles, Cal is still constantly on the run from the ever-growing and powerful Empire. After a great re-introduction to our heroes, we notice that they’re on their lonesome, no longer doing missions with their original crew; the Mantis is solely Cal’s ship. With the ongoing war taking its toll, Cal makes a discovery on an outer rim planet that might help with his fight.
If you enjoyed Fallen Order, then Survivor will be very familiar, yet refreshing. If you didn’t play Fallen Order or simply want to jump straight into Survivor, the overall gameplay is commonly summarised as Dark Souls meets Uncharted, with strategic combat and entertaining exploration. Thankfully, Cal retains all his traversal and Force abilities from Fallen Order and continues to grow as a Jedi. You’ll have Force Push/Pull/Freeze, the ability to double jump, wall run and quickly climb as well as wielding Cal’s double-bladed lightsaber right from the start.
As you’d expect, Cal also learns some new tricks, one being a small grappling hook used to quickly anchor and zip himself to a point; it feels similar to the Meat Hook in Doom Eternal or the Quick Zip in Marvel’s Spider-Man. As it’s also been five years since Fallen Order, Cal has also learned valuable skills like the iconic Jedi Mind Trick. This can be used in story moments for when Cal needs a character to provide information, or in combat and traversal by using Stormtroopers to open locked doors or temporarily fight on your side.
Speaking of fighting on your side, Cal now has companions similar to Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic. Cal can fight alongside Nightsister Merrin or new scoundrel Bode. He can ask his allies to use special attacks during combat, like throwing down a EMP grenade to stun enemies, or using the Nightsister magic to pin down targets. Unlike the other titles I mentioned, Cal doesn’t have a friend with him at all times; they’re generally only available for major story missions.
Cal can now also use different stances of lightsaber combat. In Survivor, you’ll be able to learn five lightsaber stances, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. The first two you have access to are the standard single-blade stance, and the double-bladed lightsaber – both of which carry over from Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order.
As you progress you’ll unlock a duel-wield stance — very similar to Ahsoka Tano — with a main blade and a shorter shoto-style blade. The stances I couldn’t stop using was the blaster stance, where Cal has a lightsaber in one hand and a blaster in the other. As you attack with your saber, you’ll build up energy for your blaster, which replaces Cal’s standard heavy attacks. While the gameplay doesn’t turn into a third-person shooter, it does play similar to Red Hood in last year’s Gotham Knights; one button is for ranged attacks, while another is swinging with a lightsaber. This stance is like merging the fighting styles Count Dooku with Han Solo.
The final stance is the cross-guard made famous by Kylo Ren. Cal’s saber is upgraded to have side blades and a longer hilt. This stance is slow but incredibly powerful, while also being great at defense. The challenge,though, is that you cannot swap between all five different lightsaber stances; Cal can only have two ready at any time, and can change those out at meditation points or workbenches. Because of this, some battles need to be approached with different tactics. For example, the double-bladed stance is great for deflecting shots back at targets when enemies barrage you with blaster fire, whereas the dual-wield is very fast and is great for dealing rapid damage.
While general gameplay is very similar to Fallen Order, it feels quicker and more polished this time around. Cal’s movement speed feels roughly 20% faster than how he moved in Fallen Order, and it’s needed — Survivor is now more of an open-world affair, full of side-missions for those who like to stray from the beaten path. Exploration featured in Fallen Order, but here in Survivor most planets are completely open, allowing Cal to survey either on foot, or on a mount. With that, there are hundreds of collectables to find, challenges, hidden temples to the point where Star Wars Jedi Survivor feels like Breath of the Wild.
There are multiple worlds in Survivor, but the main core world is Koboh which is similar Fallen Order’s Bogano. Koboh serves as your base of operations, as well as being a large open planet for you to explore. It presents a vibe much like the Normandy from Mass Effect in that you can save and recruit people to your base, play holochess, listen to music, collect fish and — of course — garden.
One of louder complaints some fans had with Cal’s first outing was a lack of customisation options. While we could customize Cal’s lightsaber with colors, materials, emitters and switches, Cal, BD-1 and the Mantis only had simple colour swaps. In this, customisation options for Cal are incredible. We can swap out Cals jacket, pants, shirt, and change the colours of each item. We can also modify Cal’s hair and facial hair. BD-1’s customisation is now set out like that of a lightsaber; we can swap our his legs, body, ears and even eyes. There are even multiple shops — with no microtransactions — where we can purchase clothing, lightsaber parts, blaster parts, BD-1 parts and hair options for Cal (though they can also be found out in the wild).
While Survivor is a fantastic sequel, it has a few drawbacks. I played this on PC (3070, 32gb ram, Intel i9), and found the frame rate would dip to around 15-20 frames-per-second when exploring out in the open world, or even something as simple as opening the galaxy map. Because of this sharp, instantaneous reduction in frames, Cal would fall of edges, fail to jump, or block crucial attacks.
Survivor’s score isn’t as memorable as what’s come before it. In most instances, a villain is only as good as their introduction — look at Darth Vader, Michael Myers, Sauron, The T-800, or Ivan Drago — and music is a key component to this. The introduction of the Second Sister was unique and chilling. “The Inquisition” by Stephen Barton & Gordy Haab in Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order is tense and sounds more like a horror movie with deep brass and frightening strings. Sadly though, the score in Survivor sounds like a generic Star Wars soundtrack and leaves no lasting impression.
Having said that, the character development in Star Wars Jedi Survivor feels heavily inspired by The Empire Strikes Back or Return of The Jedi. Every character has developed and matured, and fans of the original will love seeing Merrin, Greez and Cere again, as well as see how they’ve changed after previous events. When we see Cal at the start of his adventure — and how far he’s grown over the past five years — it’s similar to Luke in Return of The Jedi (but not as cool… nothing is as cool as Luke in Return of The Jedi).
Star Wars Jedi Survivor does what every sequel should do. It’s improved and iterated, adding new gameplay features and fixing issues as compared to its previous release. Whether you’re a hardcore Star Wars fan, or simply loved Fallen Order before it, Star Wars Jedi Survivor is The Empire Strikes Back to Fallen Order’s A New Hope.
Star Wars Jedi Survivor was reviewed using a promotional code on Windows PC, as provided by the publisher. Click here to learn more about Stevivor’s scoring scale.
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Star Wars Jedi Survivor28 April 2023PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X
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