A losing fight

At this point, it’s obvious this is the second game in a trilogy, and it’s very much the Empire Strikes Back to Fallen Order’s A New Hope. The five years since we last saw Jedi Knight Cal Kestis have been hard on him, and he’s had to face facts that, despite his efforts to curtail its expansion, the Empire is growing ever stronger.

We join Cal in Coruscant on a mission to obtain crucial information from a senator’s yacht. With him is a new crew. Cere, Greez, and Merrin have all left to follow their own paths, leaving only BD-1 as a familiar face.

Like in The Empire Strikes Back, the galactic stakes are lower in Survivor. There’s no Death Star or holocron that could dox force-sensitive children throughout the galaxy here. Instead, the story primarily focuses on Cal’s dilemma and the fate of two worlds, Koboh and Jedha.

Jedivania

Koboh is a forested frontier world, largely still wild. However, it harbors a hundred-year-old secret left behind by the High Republic, which might mean peace for the remaining Jedi in the galaxy. It’s the largest map and where you’ll spend much of your time during the game.

You’ll also explore Jedha, a desert planet where the esoteric Anchorite monks tend the last vestiges of Jedi knowledge. They’ve built a cult that seeks to attain enlightenment by academically studying the Force and are wholeheartedly dedicated to helping the survivors of the Purge.

You’ll visit several other locations during Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, but this journey is more intimate than we saw in Fallen Order. In contrast, Cal isn’t just scouring lonely, forgotten worlds for Zeffo ruins. These worlds are inhabited, and you’ll meet characters who you’ll grow to love and want to protect.

Even though most of the action takes place on two planets, that doesn’t mean this is a smaller game. On the contrary, these two maps are expansive, dwarfing Zeffo, the original game’s largest location. If anything, concentrating on Koboh and Jedha led to tighter environmental design and an even bigger emphasis on Metroidvania elements.

It’s incredibly satisfying to slowly uncover more and more of each map throughout the game. You’re unequipped to fully explore most areas you encounter your first time through, and you’ll take note of impassible forcefields or doors that won’t open. Once you finally get the ability to get past these, you’ll discover new branches leading to more areas that require further abilities.

Each map is like a spiderweb, with paths flowing into one another, and it’s only at the end of the game that you realize how interconnected the whole thing is. However, this isn’t for everyone. It requires a lot of backtracking and patience. You’ll revisit some places three or more times before you finally have everything it takes to explore them fully.

Some players might also find traversal frustrating in general. I consider myself an excellent navigator, but this is one of the few games I’ve played that had me scratching my head about how to move past certain points. Survivor features more verticality than Fallen Order, which can sometimes make things even more frustrating. Fortunately, the game is pretty forgiving if you take a tumble. However, unlike with the combat, there’s no easy mode for exploration.

Use the Force

Surprisingly, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor doesn’t strip Cal of all his powers at the beginning of the game. He starts off with the skills and equipment he had after Fallen Order and grows from there.

One of the big changes coming from the previous game is that there are now five lightsaber stances, two of which you can have equipped at a time. Carrying over from Fallen Order are the standard single-saber stance and the flashy Double-Bladed form made famous by Darth Maul.

The three new stances are more technical forms. First, there’s the fast and powerful Dual-Wield stance, which existed as a single move in the previous game. Cal also gains access to the Blaster Stance, which, as the name suggests, pairs a lightsaber and a blaster for long-range combat. Finally, the Crossguard Stance allows Cal to wield a lightsaber (more like a lightclaymore) that allows for slow but devastating hits.

The catch with the new stance system is that you can only equip two of them at a time. At first, I thought this was kind of dumb, but I found it forced me to stick with stances that complement my playstyle. I usually go with strength builds in Souls games, so choosing the Crossguard was a no-brainer for me. However, I’m also a sneaky little bow spammer, so I reserved the Blaster stance for when I felt cheeky.

Fortunately, you’re free to switch these out stances at every meditation circle, so you can stick with your two favorites for the whole game or constantly switch them out. However, since each stance has its own skill tree, which takes quite a few points to max out, I feel most players will go with the former.

A Jedi craves not this swag

One facet of the game that’s been majorly expanded in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is the cosmetics. In Fallen Order, you could swap Cal’s poncho to another color and cut, change BD-1 and the Mantis’s colors, and choose from a limited selection of lightsaber parts and finishes. It was okay, but there was room for improvement.

Starting with Cal, in Survivor, you can change his hair and facial hair style and pick between jackets, shirts, and pants, all with different color options. Your lightsaber and blaster are also highly customizable, with many color palettes and parts available for you to discover. Also, this time around, you can choose your weapon’s condition, so it can either look pristine or like you found it in some ancient ruins.

BD-1 also gets a lot more customization options this time around. You don’t have to go with a premade color scheme for him, and he’s just as modifiable as Cal’s weaponry. You can change out his eyes, head, legs, body, and audio sensors, and he gets the same vast array of palette options.

Strangely, you can no longer change the color of the Mantis. It’s stuck with its default paint scheme throughout the game. That’s not a huge deal since you’ll be boarding it significantly less in Survivor than you did in Fallen Order. However, it struck me as odd that this option was removed when the other cosmetic choices were expanded.

Even though Cal’s performance doesn’t change with the cosmetics you pick, the wide variety allows you to fill in some of the five years between games with some headcanon. For a big chunk of the game, I played as “Dirtbag Cal” and rocked a mullet, goatee, muscle shirt, vest, and beat-up denim-looking pants with boots. I gave him a rusty, ramshackle lightsaber and pistol and imagined he’d turned a bit space redneck.

However, I will warn you that during a first playthrough, you might want to go with a more serious look for Cal. Your outfit carries over into cutscenes, and some poignant scenes came off a bit flat because I could only imagine Cal sighing out a “whatever” and putting a dip in.

A disturbance in the Force

Unfortunately, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is just as buggy as Fallen Order. In my playthrough, I experienced issues with collision, enemies vanishing from existence while I was fighting them, misfiring triggers, and a handful of crashes. I have to dock it a bit for all that, but none of the glitches really bothered me that much.

It’s a big game that gives you a lot of freedom of movement, which inevitably means you will find somewhere in the level collision you can fall through. I’d much rather be able to jump around and feel like a Jedi and risk losing 30 seconds or so of progress than it being like God of War, where a knee-high wall can defeat your powerful hero.

However, there is one new mechanic that caused me some frustration. In Fallen Order, you can rarely die from fall damage. Instead, if you fall into a bottomless pit or off a cliff, you pass through a kill zone and die no matter how high up you were.

Since Survivor has more verticality to its level design, the devs added deaths from falling. When you drop a certain distance, the screen will start to vignette, and you’ll die if you go too far. Double jumping and air dashing can somewhat negate this effect, but it’s inconsistent. Sometimes you’ll end up dying from a seemingly small fall and survive lengthy tumbles. The inconsistency can make it tough to navigate at times, especially when it seems like a jump is the right way to get through an area.

There were also graphical issues on the PS5. Pop-in and Level of Detail issues abounded. I will assume these problems can be patched because we saw similar behavior in Fallen Order on last-gen consoles.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor review: The final verdict

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a game that, despite a few launch bugs and inconsistent jumps, genuinely delivers an engaging experience for fans. The level design and personalization options for both combat and character appearances are definite highlights. It’s an adventure that lets you explore new corners of the Star Wars universe while building on the foundations laid by Fallen Order and tells another excellent tale of a galaxy far, far away.

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EA wants players to stop sharing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor spoilers

Not only has EA requested players to “be mindful of others and avoid posting or sharing spoilers” ahead of the release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor on April 28, but developers from Respawn have also been posting their own concerns. Senior Writer Pete Stewart pointed out that “for us it’s REALLY disheartening to see [spoilers] as well”, while EA’s Global Director of Integrated Comms for Shooters & Star Wars Andy McNamara asked players to “please be respectful of the experience for others.”

The spoilers can still be seen across the internet on places like Twitter and Reddit, so be careful with your browsing ahead of the start of preloading tonight at 9 PM PT. The PS5 file size has been reported as over 140 GB and even those with a disc copy will need to download some aspects of the game.

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Getting the Platinum Trophy will still require a lot of effort

The full list of trophies for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor can be found at PSN Profiles, which reveals the names and descriptions for all of the hidden trophies (so fair warning, some minor spoilers could be there).

Among all of the trophies, it looks like the most difficult or the most effort will be ones that require you to collect or complete every last particular thing. For instance, the “Blood, Sweat, and Tears” trophy requires you to complete all Force Tears. These transport Cal to special challenges where there can be enemies or platforming puzzles.

A few more examples are the “Gambler” trophy that requires you win every holotactics match and the “Reconnaissance” trophy that has you scan every type of enemy to fill out the Tactical Guide. Last but not least is the “I’m a Living Legend” trophy that forces Cal to defeat every legendary foe in the game.

As previously reported, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has a massive download size on PS5 and physical copies will still require an internet download.

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The game’s 4K texture files likely can’t fit on the disc

As noted on a Star Wars Jedi Reddit, photos from retailer Mighty Ape show that the very small words “Download Required” are on the PS5 cover above the age rating. Since a Ultra-HD Blu-ray disc can only hold about 100 GB of data, it’s no surprise that players will need to download the rest of the game off of EA’s download servers. That said, it’s unclear if the disc even holds a part of the game at all or whether the disc just has a download key.

Either way, this means that if the servers for the game ever go down, players who haven’t installed the game already can’t play it off the disc. (If you want to sell the disc, you’ll probably need to do so before then.) Of course at that point no one else can download the game either.

At any rate, all of this trouble with physical copies for games over the last few console generations have made many players, by force or not, become more comfortable with digital downloads. The vast majority of players will want the day one patch anyway and access to future updates for any game, so an internet connection is mainly assumed at this point.

PS5 players will be able to start pre-loading the game on April 25-26, about two days before the game’s full launch.

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This date is shared between all platforms, including Xbox Series X|S and PC via Steam or EA App, which hopefully won’t clog the download servers too badly. This will give players about two days before the game officially comes out on April 28, 2023.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor download size for PS5

As reported yesterday, the download size for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor for PS5 is expectedly massive. Players will need to make sure they have at least 147 GB of free space on the console’s hard drive.

That’s somewhat less than the 155 GB of space required for the PC version of the game, but it’s not by much. To put this file size into context, God of War Ragnarok is only 80 GB, so we imagine that the texture files and character models for Jedi: Survivor must be ridiculously large.

On top of that, since the game version for the download is listed as 1.000.001, there will likely be a day-one patch that players will need to get as well.

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Will Star Wars Jedi: Survivor day-one patch impact PS5 file size?

The aforementioned information was unearthed by Twitter user PlayStation Game Size, known for scraping PSN servers for information. According to them, Jedi: Survivor’s game version is listed as 1.000.001, suggesting that there will be a day-one patch – par for the course when it comes to AAA games.

It’s unlikely that the day-one patch will lower or increase Jedi: Survivor’s download size. Any difference is likely to be minute. In other words, unless you have extra storage, you’re going to need to mop your hard drive a bit.

To put Jedi: Survivor’s file size into context, God of War Ragnarok is 85 GB, Hogwarts Legacy is 80 GB, and Horizon Forbidden West is 118 GB.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will release on April 28th. Players can pre-load the game starting April 26th.

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Is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor the same size on PC and PS5?

Sizes vary from game to game and even platform to platform so Star Wars Jedi: Survivor being a massive 155 GB on PC doesn’t necessarily mean PS5 players will need to clear out that much space as well. However, it does suggest that the game is a heavy download, so don’t expect a huge difference.

So what makes Star Wars Jedi: Survivor so heavy? Seems to be a combination of things. The next-gen only release does look graphically intensive from what we’ve seen so far. And game director Stig Asmussen recently told Dexerto that Survivor offers “a larger player space” than its predecessor Fallen Order.

Survivor’s world is supposedly expansive, and players will be given fast travel options. In terms of content and the game’s length, Asmussen didn’t divulge any details so we can’t say how long Survivor is.

We’ll update our readers when we find out Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s download size on PS5.

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Trouble finds Cal, yet again

The portion of the game we went hands-on with began about an hour into the campaign, no doubt to avoid spoiling exactly how things all start. Cal Kestis has been on the move for around five years since the conclusion of Fallen Order, and he and his reliable and inquisitive droid companion BD-1 have crash-landed on a backwoods planet known as Koboh while attempting to visit Cal’s old friend Greez Dritus.

It doesn’t take long before the local drama finds Cal, of course – a local gang known as the Bedlam Raiders is terrorizing locals, including prospectors who go to great lengths to try and harvest the planet’s natural minerals and ancient ruins. Cal, being a Jedi, naturally wants to help, and quickly crosses paths with the gang’s leader, an imposing Gen’Dai named Rayvis. This sets up what will no doubt be a lengthy sequence of encounters and battles between the two.

While we can’t go too deep into the story here, some things have changed while others have stayed the same. Cal’s repertoire of moves has been expanded upon, as he now has five different stances. The Dual Wield stance seen in the first game has been fully realized, while he also has access to a crossguard stance as seen used by Kylo Ren. Finally, one stance even allows the use of a blaster, which, while perhaps a bit uncivilized compared to a lightsaber, does have its uses.

From Story Mode to Grandmaster

There are five levels of difficulty to choose from, which can be freely switched at any time. A new Jedi Padawan mode sits between the absolute non-challenge that is Story Mode and the more average Jedi Knight level, to give players an occasional challenge without throwing insurmountable foes at them. Certain boss fights can be particularly tough, so being able to change the difficulty on the fly will no doubt help some players who don’t want to spend the extra time repeating a fight over and over. The Souls-like meditation circles are back in Jedi: Survivor, which allow you to manage skills, change stance loadouts, fast travel to other meditation circles, and heal. That last option does completely fill up Cal’s health and force bars, along with restoring BD-1’s stimpaks for healing in the field, but it also respawns all enemies.

Combat in Jedi: Survivor is melee-focused. While Cal is a Jedi and can wield the Force with ease, ultimately his use of those powers is limited by a Force meter and is used as an assist to get the upper hand against his enemies as he slices them up with his trusty lightsaber. After our hands-on time with the game, we were treated to a live demonstration by a member of the combat design team of just what was possible with mastery of the various mechanics available to the player. Think taking out groups of Stormtroopers in one fell swoop, or juggling enemies with a combination of Force moves, and even an occasional hit from a blaster. It’ll probably take several hours for any player to rise to that level of competence, but it all looked so smoothly animated you couldn’t help but be impressed with the options on display.

Like your own personal Star Wars movie

The production values in Jedi: Survivor are world-class. Whether it’s the incredibly detailed world, characters, weapons, or ships, the whole game plays, feels, and sounds like you’ve been transported into the world of Star Wars. Cinematics are fully rendered in-engine, and feature classic wipes between cuts, and plenty of tension between enemies in true sci-fi Western form. The world feels lived-in with other beings busy doing their own thing, and of course natural predators to either avoid or fight for potential experience.

In an interview with the team, Jason Harris, Design Director for Gameplay and Combat mentioned that Disney and Lucasfilm continued giving Respawn Entertainment essentially free license to create whatever they wanted to in order to flesh out their vision. Not to say they didn’t check in, of course, just that at this point their track record has earned a certain amount of trust with the intellectual property holders. He gave special mention to the teams involved in turning concept art into fully-realized, digital versions that perfectly reflected the intentions of the designers. The careful attention given to even background objects is easy to see throughout the experience.

As for performance, while the build we played was on a beefy PC, it should roughly represent what we will see when the game launches on the PS5. Respawn is leaving the previous generation of consoles behind, something we will no doubt see more of now that supplies of the current generation are more stable. This has many benefits, chief among them being quick loading times. There is a seamless transition between the game world and entering training areas, or respawning after a death. We did notice some stuttering in some of the game’s wider areas, but perhaps this will be buffed out by the time the game launches on April 28, or at least with a patch on or around launch.

Previous experience not necessary

From what we could tell, while it’s not necessary to have played The Fallen Order before you start up Survivor, it will help because there are a lot of references to the earlier game mentioned in passing between Cal and other characters. Otherwise, though, Cal is simply trying to fix his ship, the Mantis, and along the way discovers ancient Jedi ruins and an anomalous planet called Tanalorr that seems to be the key to Cal’s journey. So, it seems the story will be able to stand on its own, while offering plenty of callbacks and hidden references to the first game, and perhaps the novel that followed, for those who enjoy that sort of thing.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor appears to continue telling Cal Kestis’s story in a most exciting fashion. Two additional fully-fleshed-out fighting stances ensure more variety in combat, and the fact that Cal retains his powers from the previous adventure means combat gets intense pretty early on. There is plenty of challenge to be found, and if this hands-on is any indication, Respawn Entertainment hasn’t fixed what isn’t broken and is seemingly giving us an improved version of what made The Fallen Order so appealing in the first place. Get ready to continue Cal Kestis’ journey when it launches on the PS5, Xbox Series, and PC platforms on April 28, 2023.

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Star Wars single player FPS is inspired by classic titles

The new AAA Star Wars FPS will be a single player game inspired by “classic titles like Dark Forces and Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2” according to a job listing for a Rendering Engineer at Respawn (thanks exputer). These games from the late 90s both had gameplay akin to classic DOOM. The FPS will be built on Unreal Engine 5 and Respawn says that this inspiration together with the new technology will create “a brand new experience our players will love”.

While the game will primarily be a story-driven single-player game, previous job listings have suggested it could also have multiplayer features. Regardless, very little has been officially announced about the game bar that development had only just begun back in January 2022. Respawn also has Star Wars Jedi: Survivor due for release at the end of next month, while a strategy game is also in progress at Bit Reactor.

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor PS4 would be bogged down by processor and memory

Speaking to PLAY magazine (March 2023 edition via MP1st), Asmussen said that Jedi: Survivor PS5 and Xbox Series X versions take advantage of the consoles’ processing power and faster, larger memory. As a result, Respawn is able to create larger maps, add more detail and density, and offer more NPC and enemy variety, among other things. Jedi: Survivor also takes advantage of the DualSense.

“Bottom line, we learned quickly that we could take advantage of the faster processors, larger/faster memory, better loading times, etc., to create much larger maps, with more detail, greater density, broader enemy/NPC variety, and overall fidelity,” Asmussen said. “This new generation allowed us to do exactly that, and I believe it translates to a true new-gen experience in the Star Wars universe.”

Sony recently said that it’s actively pushing PS4 owners to transition to PS5.

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