Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Release: April 28, 2023
Publisher: EA
Developer: Respawn Entertainment
Genre: PlayStation 5 Reviews, PS5 Reviews, ReviewsXbox Series X Reviews
PEGI: 16
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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is an action-adventure game developed by Respawn Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts. A sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019), it was released on PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S on April 28, 2023.

The game takes place five years after the events of the previous game. Cal continues to attempt to take down the Empire while being constantly on the move to hide from them. Of course, chaos ensues, lots of explosions, fighting, robots, etc., etc., you know the standard Star Wars fare.

Much of the gameplay mechanics remain intact with a handful of upgrades and enhancements. You can use your single lightsaber and double-ended lightsaber like before but now they have also added dual wielding, a cross lightsaber like Kylo Ren, and the addition of a blaster.

So, there are plenty of options to fulfil all your greatest Jedi fantasies including a new force power status (also like Kylo Ren had). Combat continues to feel incredibly good, better than any Star Wars game has ever done, you can feel the weight, and power behind your various attacks.

The voice acting and motion capture work again is phenomenal as all characters feel fully developed and a real part of the world and story, they play in. While bringing back a lot of the core cast, we are introduced to a handful of new characters and a lot more world-building in this sequel.

They did a great job of making each location feel more alive than the previous game. Along with being able to use skill points to upgrade your combat, force powers, and general well-being, there are TONS of options on how to customize Cal’s outfits with inspiration from all over the galaxy, his lightsaber, and of course our favourite sidekick BD-1.

You are also given very early on a grappling hook-like device to help you traverse the massive sprawling environments in this game, so you don’t ALWAYS have to jump, but you still will, along with wall running, double jumping, wall jumping, etc. There is still a lot of platforming to be done in this game.

One of the other new features is the Jedi Meditation Chambers, which you can tell were heavily inspired by Breath of the Wild’s Shrines. In these, you must complete various puzzles or challenges for rewards, like additional skill points or perks.

While optional, they will help you along the way. Another noticeable change from the previous game I noticed was boss battles, while I wouldn’t say they were easy last time, they are significantly harder this go around. When playing on a higher difficulty you can easily find yourself fighting a boss for over ten minutes, which as you can imagine, feels like a lot. Especially when you lose…

While the journey and the story are a great follow-up to the previous entry, it still had moments of blandness and predictability. While giving you an open-world feel in this game, it definitely still is a very focused linear game when you dig in. In any future instalments, they may do, I’d like to see some better story crafting and writing to kind of complete the perfect package. It is still a fantastic game despite my very minimal nitpicking, and 100% a solid contender so far for a GOTY nod.

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