A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a young Jedi sets out to save the universe. Again.
Nope, it’s not the latest Star Wars film, but the plot of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the latest video game to be churned out by the Star Wars conglomerate.
Set a few years after the original game, the clunkily titled Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, we’re picking back up with our favourite ginger Force knight, Cal Kestis. In the previous game, Cal was revealed to be a Padawan who escaped Order 66 and spent most of Fallen Order being hunted across the galaxy.
It’s been a while since then (as evinced by Cal’s slight scattering of facial fuzz, indicting a certain maturity) but things are, as ever, in dire straits.
Cal is by now a fully fledged Jedi knight and the leader of a small band of rebels tasked with obtaining valuable information for Saw Gerrera (the fellow played by Forrest Whitaker in Rogue One). However, obviously things go wrong and Cal soon finds himself on the run once more, forced to rely on his wits and an ever-shrinking circle of allies. Oh, and there’s also the prospect of a mysterious Jedi planet utopia to track down.
It’s been only four years since Fallen Order was released, but the difference between that and Survivor is actually remarkable. The graphics are better, and that’s to be expected — with the notable exception of Cal’s face, which sometimes looks rather 2D and flat — but the gameplay and world have also improved considerably.
In Survivor, the linear levels of Fallen Order have been built out into something much more dynamic: there are secret areas to find, enemies to beat and stash to pick up. It feels like a world more ripe for exploration. The soundscape especially deserves a mention. In addition to John Williams’ soaring score, the game’s designers have really succeeded in evoking everything from the electronic beeps of the Empire’s stronghold, to the booms and clicks of an alien countryside; listening to it is like interplanetary ASMR.
Even better, this time around Cal can actually interact with NPCs on a more-than-superficial basis, asking questions, recruiting new faces — and even making friends. It’s a refreshing change from Fallen Order, which often felt like bit of a shallow cash grab on the parts of the developers. And yes, you can change more than Cal’s poncho colour in Fallen Order; in fact, you can actually customise everything from his hairstyle to his undershirt. Hooray!
But of course, nobody buys Star Wars games primarily for their worldbuilding: they buy them to feel like a Jedi knight. On that level, Survivor delivers excellently. Cal is a fully trained Jedi by the start of the game, which means that you already have a plethora of Force-based attacks to hand. These include deflecting blaster shots, slowing down time, and pushing enemies around like ninepins.
Even better, Cal learns a range of new lightsabre-wielding methods during the game. These include the much-anticipated double-handed wield, which is bloody satisfying to carve through enemies with. There’s a pleasing variety of enemies to test out your attacks on, and as with most RPGs, he gains experience points during the game. These can be used to upgrade his Survivor, Force or Lightsabre abilities, allowing you to customise your playstyle — slightly.
There are shortcomings here, mostly to do with the levels. Some of the puzzle solutions are not well signposted at all — resulting in, on my part, around half an hour of frustrated running back and forth, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. That’s annoying — as is the inclusion of the ‘Workbenches’, which offer nothing more than the chance to customise Cal’s lightsabre and BD-1.
My biggest quibble is Cal himself. The man is as bland as an underbaked Coronation quiche, which makes it kind of difficult to invest in his journey. Are all Jedi knights quite as noble and self-serious as him? If so, perhaps it’s a blessing that there are so few of them in the game. A few hours in Cal’s company and you want to give him a bit of a shake, regardless of the amount of cutscenes attempting to establish his inner turmoil; honestly, he’s a bit of a drip.
But make no mistake, this is a hugely ambitious game, which has had a lot of care poured into it. It is also a whopper: at 150GB, I had to delete almost everything from my PS5 to make room for it, so consider investing in an external hard drive if you’re precious about keeping all your games in one place. But Star Wars Jedi: Survivor sets out to do a lot of things, and mostly succeeds. May the Force be with it.
