Star Wars Jedi Survivor Review – In this Star Wars Jedi Survivor Review we’ll take a look at the sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, developed by Respawn and Published by EA. Is it better than the original? What improvements have been made? How is the performance of the game on PC? We’ll answer all these questions and more! If you love our Reviews, check our our others here.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Review

• Genre: Action
• Developed by: Respawn
• Published by: Electronic Arts
• Release date: April 28, 2023
• Platforms: PC (reviewed), Xbox One (reviewed), Playstation 5
• Price at the time of review: USD 69.99

Star Wars Jedi Survivor – Story & Setting

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor takes place some years after the events of Jedi: Fallen Order, with the crew of the Mantis now scattered to the winds, and Cal running with a new crew of operatives, striking at the Empire across the galaxy wherever they can. What happened to the characters from the previous game remains a mystery until further into the story, but I won’t spoil that for you.

Cal and his team once again find themselves battling formidable opponents, this time on a journey looking for a mysterious planet called Tannalor that is rumored to hold a Jedi temple and the remains of the fallen Jedi Order. Can Cal find it and the Jedi? Or is it too late? We won’t spoil it here in this Jedi Survivor Review.

Jedi: Survivor has a much darker tone than the previous title, and there were more genuine moments which felt aimed at an older audience this go around. And, when combined with a wiser and grittier Cal Kestis, the story felt more relatable. The weakest aspect of Fallen Order for me was always the story, and Survivor is a much clearer flowing example of a Jedi tale.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor – Gameplay

Exploration

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has a similar gameplay loop as that of Fallen Order, wherein players will explore planets while ultimately following the main story line and gaining new powers and abilities for Cal as they progress. The biggest improvement here though is the addition of the “open-world” planets of Koboh and Jedha, which allow the player freedom to go in just about any direction and explore nooks and crannies of the Star Wars universe how they see fit.

I cannot understate how well these areas are designed, mixing in Metroidvania elements that will have players returning again and again to find new secrets that they couldn’t previously discover. It’s on par with some of the best games out there in the genre, it’s simply a shame that there wasn’t more of it!

Combat

Combat-wise players will find they’ve already learned quite a few of the techniques they possessed from the previous game, which makes sense as Cal has learned already. But, there are new additions as well, including the Blaster and Cross-Guard stances which allow Cal further means of dispatching enemies.

Players can also unlock more Skills, via Skill Points as Cal gains experience from defeating foes and finding treasure, allowing them to somewhat tailor how Cal plays to their preferences. These Skill Points don’t change the way you play the game drastically though, and many nodes in the Skill Trees are simply passive benefits that improve a skill you already know.

Players can also gain Perks that improve Cal in various ways, from providing more Blaster damage to generating Force slowly over time. They are, however, few and far between, and usually only 1 or 2 can be equipped at a time, providing little overall impact to the way you play.

My biggest gripe that I’ll mention in this Jedi Survivor Review is that once again no “Weapons” or “Armor” are present in the game, meaning you will never change your gear (except your Stance), and Cal rarely feels like he is getting stronger because of this. I really wished Respawn would have added equipment to the game, leaning a bit more into the RPG side of things, as I feel it could push Jedi: Survivor over the top into elite company.

Quests

Quests are handled in a minimalistic fashion with Cal speaking to locals on different planets and picking up information about their needs and wants with a simple dialogue. There are no dialogue options here, you simply gain some information about where roughly something is located, and you head there to find it.

Conversely the main quest is always clearly labeled showing you exactly where you need to go, and in my case telling me where to stay away from until I was finished exploring. However, there are no branching quest lines or alternate plot points, you simply follow this through the entire game, which as I mentioned, further opens up more exploration options.

Audio, Visual & Design

Design

From a design perspective, Jedi: Survivor is laid out in a masterful fashion with each area being interconnected in ways you don’t even realize until much further into the game. It’s quite genius really, once you begin to understand just how the game was put together, it’s again just unfortunate that the open world nature of Koboh and Jedha didn’t persist all the way through the game.

Audio

Audio wise the voice acting is good but not great, not really adding a lot to the game, except in the case of Droids which are the real star of the show here and made me chuckle more than a few times.

Sound effects were good, and hearing lightsabers, blaster fire and stormtroopers shoot the shit about what they’ll be doing after their shift in their helmety-voice really immerse you into the game world.

The music of the game is decent, but slightly disappointing for a Star Wars game, and you really only hear the main theme once, during a key plot point which I won’t mention here. Overall I thought their would be more familiar music, but it seems like they didn’t have the licensing for it sadly.

One important note here is that on PC I had an incredibly annoying audio bug the entire game that made all cutscene audio skip and loop over and over, ruining just about every cutscene for me. This is not present on the Xbox version of the game (and I assume PS5 as well), but I have been told their is a patch going live on the 27th addressing this issue specifically. However, I caution you to make sure it’s been fixed before purchasing or you may regret your purchase, so don’t say this Jedi Survivor Review didn’t warn you!

Visual

Visually Jedi: Survivor is a pretty looking game, and one that does justice to the Star Wars universe. Vibrant colors and slick animations add to your immersion, and make you feel as though you’re really there with Cal.

Unfortunately I had terrible performance issues on PC, struggling to get 60 FPS the entire game on 1440P resolution on High quality graphics. This while using a Corsair One Pro i300 which boasts an i9-12900K Intel processor and a Liquid-Cooled RTX 3080 Ti.

I had constant stuttering even when the FPS was above 60, and sometimes the FPS dropped to single digits. I simply don’t see how anyone running any mid range system could possibly play this game on PC, since it would be way too choppy, and even with a high end system it will still frustrate you, though it might not completely ruin your experience.

Again I have been told that a patch is being deployed on April 27th to address this issue, but I’m unsure it will truly fix it. Make sure you do your due diligence before picking up the game on PC!

Xbox on the other hand had no problems except with the Quick Resume feature, which seemed to tank FPS into the ground when used. However, simply booting the game normally quickly resolves this issue, so it’s not too big of a deal and I actually didn’t mention it in our video version of our Jedi Survivor Review.

Replayability & Pricepoint

It took me roughly 20 hours to finish Jedi: Survivor on the Normal difficulty, with about 60% of the game showing explored and completed. This leads me to believe you will likely get about 30 hours or so if you complete everything, and possibly 40 hours if you play on the hardest difficulty, since you will die a lot.

There is also a New Game Plus mode which adds Perks to the game that make you deal more damage and take more damage, and also one that increases the difficulty of enemy placements, further mixing things up. Because of the lack of loot and any real meaningful customization, however, I don’t see too many people playing this.

Jedi: Survivor has as steep pricepoint of 69.99$ USD on PC and console, so it’s definitely something to take into consideration before purchasing this game. That said, I think it’s about right for the quality and length of game delivered, if only just, and only if you are a fan of the first game or a Star Wars fan in general. And I definitely don’t think it’s worth this in its current state on PC.

Final Thoughts

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor surpassed my expectations in just about every conceivable way. From the storytelling, to the open world exploration that kept it fresh, to the lightsaber combat that was frankly just satisfying as hell. Jedi: Survivor is another great Star Wars title that is desperately needed by a franchise that has had a lot of clunkers in the not so distant past!

I can wholeheartedly recommend this game to you, particularly if you were a fan of Fallen Order, just don’t purchase the game on PC and pick it up for Xbox or Playstation instead. It is simply unplayable for the vast majority of players out there that can’t afford a 4000 dollar PC, and it’ll likely piss off the ones that can.

You can watch the review here on YouTube.