I went into my four-hour date with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor with an inventory of causes to doubt it. I have been replaying 2019’s Fallen Order and it hasn’t been going nicely. A recreation I favored rather a lot at launch is now filled with annoying flaws: Cal’s torpid motion, underwhelming lightsaber upgrades, and checkpoints that pressure me to reclimb stuff that was barely partaking the primary time. Uncharted plus Darkish Souls is not the successful combo it was for me three years in the past.
Judging by the opening hours of Jedi Survivor, Uncharted Souls just isn’t what Respawn goes for anymore both. My largest gripes with Fallen Order had been tackled inside minutes of selecting up the controller. Wallrunning now not drags Cal downward like gravity is getting the higher of him, lightsaber fight is split into Ghost of Tsushima-like stances with distinctive improve timber, and you may lastly quick journey between checkpoints. Jedi Survivor is maturing alongside Cal himself.
The five-year time soar is felt in Cal’s thrilling new lightsaber takedowns, his faster and extra assured acrobatics, and his “nonetheless figuring it out” early-20s stubble. Even Cal’s actor, Cameron Monaghan, sounds older, or is no less than attempting to sound older by talking with a deeper-than-usual voice that jogs my memory of how I sound within the morning earlier than ingesting water (I hope that does not stick for the entire recreation).
Jedi Survivor may be very a lot a “extra of the primary recreation” type of sequel, and I am principally not complaining. It is higher and grander in methods you’ll be able to guess, however Jedi Survivor’s largest shock is the way it’s dipping its toes into open world territory.
House on the vary
My demo centered on a single planet that was simply twice the dimensions of a single Fallen Order map. Assume much less Darkish Souls and extra God of Battle 2018: you are still doing lots of mountain climbing, wallrunning, and lightweight puzzle fixing by slim canyons or caves, however within the case of the planet Koboh, these sections spoke off from a wide-open central desert containing a city with sidequests, a vendor, and a headquarters that Cal can develop over time.
Respawn indicated to me that Koboh is a reasonably large chunk of Jedi Survivor, and one among a number of sandbox-y planets. There are additionally linear “Fallen Order-style” ranges too, however I get the sense Respawn is most enthusiastic about its open areas.
I’m too. It felt nice to stretch Cal’s legs in Koboh’s sun-scorched nook of area desert in a manner that retroactively makes me like Fallen Order’s ranges much less. That recreation’s funnel-shaped planets had been a continuing hop-scotch between combating and climbing that afforded no time to take breath and admire its fantastically bizarre alien landscapes. Koboh is immediately convincing as a spot the place individuals stay (it helps that you simply truly meet the individuals who stay there) and has impartial areas the place you’ll be able to simply exist for a beat with out something to saber or climb.
Ready off the crushed path is often a chest that is holding, very similar to the primary recreation, a brand new beauty. Unearthing a pair of pants from the underside of a cave remains to be fairly weak sauce for loot, however no less than there are sufficient customization choices this time round to get invested in my redheaded saber-swinger’s trend sense: Cal can now sport a bunch of various shirts, armors, pants, and even hair types (particularly bizarre to open a metallic field and discover a beard). BD joins the costume get together too with modular half units that may fairly radically alter his look.
In a couple of uncommon cases I discovered precise upgrades, like a everlasting Power meter enhancement or a perk—Respawn appeared fairly enthusiastic about how this perk system allows you to personalize your Cal construct, however I solely discovered one in my demo and its impact was slight sufficient that I am unable to keep in mind it now.
Motion and puzzles
Respawn is making the clever alternative to offer Cal virtually all of his outdated skills proper from the beginning. That is nice, as a result of attending to double soar or pressure pull a rope into your palms with no traumatic padawan flashback makes Jedi Survivor’s light-weight problem-solving instantly extra stimulating than the primary two-thirds of Fallen Order, the place typically your solely verbs had been “sluggish” and “push.”
The platforming is nothing difficult or cerebral sufficient to get your blood pumping, however I truly desire it that manner—there’s comfy simplicity in slicing a rock pillar so it timbers right into a bridge or uncorking a reservoir of tar to boost floating platforms to my attain. Jedi Survivor is an early 2000s 3D platformer sporting costly 2023 textures. Perhaps basking in 20-year-old degree design and pondering “hell yeah, now this a videogame” is an indication of encroaching PlayStation 2 nostalgia, however I welcome it with open arms (for now).
Moreover, Jedi Survivor’s fight is hard sufficient. Cal is extra succesful than ever, however Respawn has turned up the temperature to accommodate. You will discover harder-hitting stormtroopers present up earlier on, just like the jerks with anti-Jedi sticks or the one with a laser minigun, typically blended with common blaster troopers. Troopers are as gratifying as ever to kill in a single slice, however much more enjoyable to homicide are the brand new separatist droids plucked proper out of the prequels, now reprogrammed to struggle for a band of native raiders.
I admire that Respawn is leaning into the usual conehead droids as bumbling doofuses which might be virtually begging to get scrapped—one droid stationed on a cliff I climbed underneath monologued to himself for 20 seconds about how alone and susceptible to assault he was. With no human gore holding Respawn again, droids slice up properly and permit Cal to get slightly extra inventive in his executions.
Slicing energy
Jedi Survivor’s further enemy selection performs properly with Cal’s deeper bag of lightsaber methods. There are 5 stances in Jedi Survivor, however I may solely use the primary three in my demo. The opposite two (and coolest-looking) stances, blaster and crossguard, had been solely proven in a hands-off fight demo presumably meant to rub it in our faces. Here is how EA described the stances to press:
- Single: The usual lightsaber, balanced for offense and protection
- Double-bladed: The workers is nice for crowd management
- Twin Wield: Cal’s lightsaber break up into two lightsabers. Nice for aggressive play, excessive ability ceiling.
- Crossguard: A strong, deliberate stance that means that you can deal huge injury at the price of lengthy wind-up instances.
- Blaster: This stance permits Cal to take care of long-range foes.
The 2 stances from Fallen Order, single saber and double-sided, have extra distinct strengths and weaknesses now. The heavy assault button, as an example, now does one thing fully completely different relying on Cal’s stance: single blade is a strong stab, double-blade whips the saber round in circles to hit every little thing round you, and within the new dual-wield stance Cal slows down time and briefly counters each assault thrown at him.
These strikes are cool and flashy, however there are subtler variations which might be enjoyable to experiment with. An early improve for double-blade allows you to infinitely deflect blaster photographs in the event you completely time the primary one (good for shielded minigun troopers). The same improve for dual-wield splits one completely deflected shot into two projectiles that may take out two troopers directly. Even after only some hours and round a dozen improve factors, I used to be continuously switching stances attempting to select a favourite.
It is a disgrace, then, that Jedi Survivor locations a seemingly arbitrary restrict on energetic stances. Solely two stances may be geared up at a time and you may solely swap them out at checkpoints. Even with solely three stances unlocked, this feels needlessly limiting.
Respawn instructed me you’ll be able to play the sport front-to-back with a single stance if you wish to, however what I would like is the other—a violent ballet of each fashion and battle tactic transferring seamlessly collectively. As an alternative, I settled on single and double-blade as a result of they appeared essentially the most versatile and sorely missed that cool multi-parry unique to twin wielding.
Simply shy of a month earlier than launch, Jedi Survivor is hitting the spot. The primary few hours recommend it will not be essentially the most adventurous sequel round, however its modifications are calculated. Fallen Order was an awkward-but-promising motion recreation that left lots of meat on the bones, and Respawn clearly does not wish to repeat that. Jedi Survivor seems like a sequel made by people who find themselves keenly conscious of its predecessor’s most talked-about faults and laser-focused on erasing them.Â