I enjoyed Respawn's first Star Wars game, Fallen Order, a pastiche of present-day gameplay concepts on top of a venerable, popular IP. Eager for something with the potential to improve upon some of Fallen Order's shortcomings, I was interested in Survivor from the moment it was announced. There were damning reports about Star Wars: Jedi Survivor's performance on PC, so I held off until the recent patch. Happily, I can report a patient gaming win here.
Survivor ran well on my aging, mid-tier PC (3060Ti, overclocked i5-10600k), with some framerate dips here and there. It's interesting to play a Star Wars game that gives a sense of scale to the planets, and I think adding in fast travel this time created room to stretch things out a bit. Between that and how Star Wars the game feels by blending in distinctive architecture, character design, and fashion, this was a visual treat for me.
Some of that was a big dose of the prequel films, surprisingly. These two games are set in between Episode III and IV, and this one leans even more into the prequels by introducing a local faction that rose to power by taking over a Lucrehulk and its droid contingent. There are B1 droids sprinkled throughout the game (you know the ones, wiry builds and rather chatty), and if you'd told me that ahead of time I would have groaned, not being a fan of the prequels myself. By the end of this one, however, I'm starting to think these games could rehabilitate the sequels in my mind, as I enjoyed this dose of flavor. I suspect they have a smart writing team being selective about what to pull from the established universe, seeing as how they also made the excellent choice late in the game to draw from the same well Andor has.
On the gameplay side, it's interesting that I have zero interest in any of the side content and Metroidvania-style exploration. Survivor does feel just as good in battle as any of the Jedi Knight games (massive praise coming from me, being my favorite melee combat in gaming until Souls came around). Maybe I'm okay with taking my lightsaber fencing fantasy in small doses. Cosmetics being exploration rewards is also a problem here--not interested--and running around wasn't always consistently fun for me. I had whiplash from how awful Jedha was at times and then suddenly being the best parts of the game. There's certainly a concerted effort to give the exploration-oriented players something to do, but I wonder if this would be a better overall experience if it were trimmed down.
Overall, I enjoyed Survivor more than Fallen Order. I'm excited to see where this trilogy goes with more iteration on this winning formula.
Thanks for reporting in about performance, the steam reviews have been pretty unhelpful and this is coming up on my list of games to play.
It’s especially nice to hear the aspects you enjoyed because I was a bit disappointed by the Ubisoft game releasing so poorly and yet I do enjoy the Star Wars content. I will say, I haven’t played the first game yet but my partner has and I enjoyed what I saw of it. Definitely will give both games a look after reading this.
I think the most damning thing about Star Wars Outlaws was that I completely forgot it had come out. It barely showed up in my news feeds, and literally no one in my gaming circles was playing it (not surprising after the report on its sales performance). Now it's got the problem of not being overshadowed, being a heist story after Andor blew me away with its take on it, and I just started Ghost of Tsushima, so far one of the best open world games I've ever played. Oof.
Ghost also does have smoother melee combat than either of Respawn's Jedi games, but lightsabers and force powers will always allow me to overlook a thing or two. The latter is one of the major reasons why I liked Survivor more than Fallen Order. They felt super limited in Fallen Order (even if it arguably makes sense with the narrative) and even Survivor had fights boiling down to hacking away with a lightsaber a tad more than I'd like. Still, lightsaber duels!
Hope you enjoy!