Do you think you have what it takes to be a Jedi? Then, get yourself the worthy Game of the Year contender, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor and fight the dark side.
It’s been four years since Fallen Order, but actor Cameron Monaghan returns to the Star Wars Jedi franchise to provide his top-tier voice acting and motion capture in the latest instalment – which you may notice that it also distributes significantly faster loading times that players will surely appreciate.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s lead voice actor, Cameron Monaghan is best known for portraying Ian Gallagher in the long-running showtime comedy-drama, Shameless and as the iconic Batman villain, Joker, in the DC Comics-based TV series Gotham. His first acting job was as Alex in 2002’s film, The Wishing Stone, and he gained national recognition as Winthrop Paroo in the television music film, The Music Man, which arrived a year later. Fast forward 16 years later, and not only did he get involved in gaming, but he starred in a video game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was developed by veteran developer Respawn Entertainment, and this will be their first ever game initially released on a next-gen console. Also making a return is the game’s director, Stig Asmussen, who also directed the predecessor and some may not know, but he also directed God of War 3 (2010), when he was working with the developer, Santa Monica Studios, for approximately 5 years. Clearly, he was involved in major titles, and players can expect Star Wars Jedi: Survivor to be among his greatest projects.
Jedi Survivor would have been released on March 17, 2023, but on January 31, 2023, EA announced that there would be a delay in making further improvements and polish the game. So, the time has now come, and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is available on Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, and PC.
Five years after the events of the predecessor, the Galaxy is descending into the hands of darkness. Faced with newer enemies and meeting up with familiar faces and new allies – protagonist Cal Kestis is one of the last remaining Jedis embarking on his biggest adventure yet and will eventually acknowledge the consequences of his intense battle against the Galactic Empire. And throughout Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, he’ll constantly demonstrate how far he’s willing to go to save his close ones and protect the legacy of the Jedi Order.
With Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, your allies offer more assistance during fights as you can now order them to execute their special attacks on enemies by holding the RB button and any of the X, Y, B or A buttons. Making life easier for you for 2 principal reasons: 1: you have a backup on the battlefield, and 2: the NPC’s AI is sharper, meaning allies are more reliable against all enemies. Moreover, they’re useful for certain obstacles, where you’d have to press RB to command the NPC will navigate environments for you.
Cal Kestis has transformed from a padawan to a stronger, smarter, much more developed and highly trained Jedi Knight. This is evident with some new moves and more inclusions, despite Star Wars Jedi: Survivor borrowing many of the existing gameplay mechanics from the predecessor. Furthermore, Cal is more creative in dispatching enemies, not to mention the exciting and immersive quick-time events and many cinematic battles – almost like you’re in a movie.
Cal’s abilities feature an abundance of survival, lightsaber, and force abilities, including new ones, and has more actions for more than just travels and combats but also for completing obstacles. Including BD-1’s abilities that feature clicking R3 stick for the built-in binoculars (BD-Noculars) and supplying Cal with stim canisters to replenish health by pressing the up directional button.
Also, pressing the down directional for it to scan defeated enemies, a point of interest and more, and the same button for other actions such as hacking and activating computers and zip lines. Furthermore, if you are stuck during situations such as puzzle solving, you are required to hold the down directional button and BD-1 will help by providing hints. Your trusted droid companion is proven to be a very versatile and useful machine and performs actions that Cal won’t be able to do himself – which is why they both make such a great team.
One of Cal’s newest abilities is grappling with an ascension cable to certain points. How this works is, they help players to reach certain surfaces where simply jumping will not work – every grapple points have LT trigger icons right next to them, indicating what you need to click to proceed. This is a brilliant mechanic and can also be useful for escaping fights if you’re on the brink of death.
You know the great saying – “May the force be with you”, and the force is definitely with Cal, possessing an array of force abilities for battles, obstacles, and much more. The primary buttons are LT trigger to force pull and RT to force push. There are great secondary force mechanisms such as the RB button to mind trick other characters to your advantage during interrogations, and you’re given choices to select responses and for puzzle solving, involving the use of LT to pull objects and RT to push or place them in their required spots to proceed.
Plus, just like how your allies assist you in fights, so can enemies, as the force can also be used to temporarily manipulate enemies to help attack other nearby enemies. This mechanism is best used against many enemies at once – and to do this, players must hold RB and then tap the B button.
Just like in the predecessor, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has meditation points that are bright and circular symbols and are only located on the grounds. Players can learn basic and advanced combat mechanics, upgrade their skill trees, fast travel and more. Also, the rest option – if you select this, your character’s life and force metres are restored – but unfortunately, all enemies you’ve tackled, will respawn. They also act as checkpoints – but the checkpoint system isn’t very good, especially when playing on the hardest difficulties.
Let’s put this into perspective; you’ve just managed to finish one battle, you get to the next one, and you die because of most of the recourses used in the previous one. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor doesn’t save progress regularly; instead, you’ll respawn all the way from the last meditation point you’ve visited and would have to endure the previous fight all over again. This is indeed incredibly frustrating. Luckily, sometimes you don’t necessarily have to go through the hassle again because you’ve completed an objective or obstacle.
And in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, you can now discover perks that can be found throughout the game and drastically changes how you perform. A total of 25 perks can be collected, and you have 3 perk slots at first, but as you progress, the number increases. Note that the most powerful perks will need at least 1 slot. You can equip and make alterations to your slots anytime you wish by heading over to a meditation point and the ‘abilities’ menu.
The lightsaber is a Jedi’s iconic and primary weapon of choice, and it’s imperative as a Knight to connect with the weapon to achieve optimal results.
X button to attack and perform combos, B button to dodge, A button to jump, LB for defending, and Y button for special force moves are Star Stars Jedi: Survivor’s simple yet elegant core combat controls. Your lightsaber icons and health metres are at the HUD’s bottom left.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s defence is centred on the arts of blocking, parrying, and dodging, and from whatever difficulty you’re playing on or if enemies are using melee weapons or gunfire, timing all techniques properly evidently makes it much easier in defeating enemies and boss fights, and taking less damage of course.
To explain things further, holding LB will block most attacks – albeit holding the button for too long will reduce Cal’s stamina, making him vulnerable to enemy attacks. Therefore, it’s wise to use this mechanic sparingly, and also use the dodge button more often, and most importantly, master your timing on deflecting.
Right before an enemy strike, you need to tap the LB button to perfectly deflect enemy attacks. The reason why it’s crucial that you learn it is because it momentarily stuns them – allowing you to either dish out more attacks or occasionally deliver fatal finishers by pressing the X button and shifting the L3 stick to any direction to execute different takedown animations. You can also perform awesome takedowns with allies by pressing the aforementioned buttons.
However, if an enemy that is about to attack you is glowing red, this means that blocking or parrying will be completely useless to the incoming attack. You’ll sustain considerable damage if you perform either of them. Instead, press the B button to dodge or occasionally the A button to jump.
By the way, if you’re struggling to defeat certain enemies, press the menu button on your controller, head over to the ‘tactical guide’ tab, and it’ll provide in-depth explanations of their strengths, weaknesses, tips, facts and so on. But you can only gain access to their profiles after defeating them so that you won’t struggle as much against them in future fights.
Another addition to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is lightsaber stances. Players will have at least 3 stances: Single, double-bladed, and dual-wielding blades – all of which have their own personal stats and fighting styles, and players can only equip 2 for battles. Players will need to press the left or right directional buttons to draw out their sabers and their own cool animations.
The single stance is a classical technique that draws one blade and is very much reliable in all combating situations – plus, it’s the most powerful attacking method. The double-bladed stance is when a blade is drawn at both sides of the saber and is best for handling many enemies at once. Lastly, the dual-wielding stance is a newer method where Cal’s lightsaber is split in half, and he has one on each hand and is a strictly offensive technique that unleashes relentless attacks that even bosses cannot handle, mainly due to its immaculate speed.
However, when it comes to defence, you’re much more vulnerable to attacks than the other stances. Therefore, whenever you’re in this stance, you might need to utilise the dodge, parry mechanics, or the LB button to abort attacks more often.
There’s another stance you’ll unlock as you progress in the story – it’s called the ‘blaster stance’, where you are wielding both a lightsaber and a blaster (ranged gun) at the same time during combat. Press Y to shoot with the blaster, hold the Y button to perform special shots and the X button for lightsaber strikes. Yes, you can execute combos with this stance – you can either tap the X button repeatedly or mix it up by using both buttons to utilise both weapons simultaneously.
Don’t worry about ammo, when all you’ll have to do is recharge your blaster by attacking enemies with the lightsaber. And surprisingly, blocking with this stance isn’t much of an issue either. In fact, according to its stats, you won’t have much trouble defending yourself. Let’s put it this way, the defence is just as good as the singular stance. This style is best for virtually every combating situation and against any enemy, regardless of difficulty – including boss fights.
You can now change the stance of your sabers at workbenches and because Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has so many different combatting situations, you may need to use the station to switch stances every now and then. You can change them at any meditation point.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s customisation has expanded with greater selections to surely fit your preferences. Attire, hairstyle, facial hair, and more to tickle your fancy and give your Jedi Knight the desired tailored look. Yes, that includes your lightsaber, blaster and BT-1, all of which have more depth to their customisation to provide ravishing looks to them.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has two graphical options: Performance or Quality. Unfortunately, the performance mode right now is appalling. It’s understandable that Respawn felt they had to delay the release a few months ago to polish the game. However, the frame rates are still incredibly glitchy and there is too much stuttering going on, making it almost unplayable. You’re better off sticking with the quality mode for now. Apparently, all platforms are affected by these problems, which is even more worrying.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s maps are stunning, yet humongous domains where you are kept busy throughout your experience, and it gets better knowing that you are now exploring larger planets. And to visit them, you use the holotable that’s located inside the Stinger Mantis (Ship), whether you’re playing the story, engaging in battles, or visiting new shops, activities and much more, to keep you entertained.
Plus, there are so many collectibles for your inventory, unlockables, rewards, XP and plenty more to motivate players into grinding and levelling up. And whilst doing all of that, you wouldn’t be able to help yourself but to glance at the gorgeous, colourful, and artistic designs all-round. If you need a helping hand on locations, simply click the view button for the holomap that consists of map locations, holomap controls, legend and much more.
If you were wondering, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor now provides faster ways of travelling. You are now given vehicles and creatures that behave as a source of transportation to get you to your destination much faster than on foot or if you are in a car chase-like situation and so on. Also, for the creature mounts, you’ll have to press the RB button to tame them first to be able to mount.
One example is the Nekko mounts; they are feathery bipedal birds that’ll get you from A to B and are very easy to use – R3 stick to mount, L3 stick to steer and accelerate, A button to jump and B button to dismount. You can use them for other situations, such as jumping to steep surfaces – you’d have to double tap A. And for combats – you can only use the X button to attack whilst on one but will only support the single stance lightsaber technique. Note that you can only find a Nekko mount in Koboh World.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is not just vastly superior to Fallen Order but is also, without question, the greatest Star Wars video game ever. Although there are a couple of issues, it’s very easy to let them slide for now, seeing as the positives astronomically outweigh them – plus, a few patches should shape them up – so there’s virtually nothing to be too concerned about. Furthermore, Respawn Entertainment has done more than enough for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor to be a Game of the Year contender.
