2023 is showing no signs of slowing down, and the next major AAA megaton is already right around the corner. In 2019, Respawn Entertainment delivered one of the best Star Wars games in years with Jedi: Fallen Order, and with its upcoming sequel, Jedi: Survivor, the studio seems primed to improve upon its first outing in this galaxy far, far away in nearly every way imaginable. Ahead of its looming launch, here, we’ll be looking at some of the key details that you should know about it.
STORY DETAILS
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is going to pick up five years after the events of its predecessor. In the Star Wars timeline, that means it takes place roughly nine years before the events of A New Hope, and at about the same time as last year’s Disney+ miniseries, Obi-Wan Kenobi. By now, Cal is, of course, a full-fledged Jedi Knight, and accompanied by BD-1, he’s trying to stay one step ahead of the Galactic Republic and their incessant hunt of any and all remaining Jedi. Though Cal and BD-1 won’t be in the company of the Stinger Mantis’ crew when the game kicks off, familiar characters like Merrin, Greez, and Cere are going to return- though exactly what role each of them will play remains to be seen.
DARKER TONE
The sequel being a darker story than the original is a pattern as old as time, and one that Star Wars in particular has been no stranger to over years. Unsurprisingly, Jedi: Survivor will go down that path as well, and will tell a story that’s much darker in tone than Fallen Order. Speaking in an interview with Game Informer, actor Cameron Monaghan, who portrays Cal Kestis, said, “We have a really interesting story with Cal where he’s faced with challenges that are difficult, and there’s not necessarily any right answers. It’s something that I always really wanted to explore with the character. It was a conversation that we had immediately after the first game – how do we put this character in situations that are challenging, and what are the ones that are really going to push him to the point where he might break? How do we get him to that point, and what do we do from there? What is the story that will be the most exciting, where we can still find adventure, but also find something that is deeper and darker and more intricate and complex? So yeah, I think that we have a bunch of really big questions that we’re asking with this one.”
BODE AKUNA
While Jedi: Survivor will be bringing back several characters that players will be familiar with, it will also introduce newcomers to the story. One in particular that Respawn has spoken a bit about is Bode Akuna, a mercenary who has a close friendship with Cal. According to director Stig Asmussen, he and Cal are “almost like brothers” and have “a special bond”. What role he will play in the story remains to be seen, but it has been confirmed that in some parts of the game, he will accompany Cal as an AI companion.
MERRIN
Merrin, one of the few surviving Nightsisters, was one of the best characters in Fallen Order, and it seems like she’s going to have an ever larger role to play in Jedi: Survivor. Again, details are a little scant on the narrative front, but in the brief glimpses we’ve seen of it so far, she seems to have a new look- which makes sense, given the fact that five years have passed since the first game. Like Bode Akuna, Merrin, too, will serve as an AI companion in some sections of the game, and will be helping Cal out in combat with some pretty flashy moves.
COMBAT STANCES
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is looking to make plenty of improvements over its predecessor on the gameplay front in particular, and where combat is concerned, one of the biggest improvements it’s making is with the inclusion of five combat stances, each of which will have unique strengths and attributes. For starters, there’s the Single Blade Stance, which is your starter stance and will function the way you’d expect. The Double Bladed Stance is slower and has shorter range, but it deals more damage and is effective for crowd control. The Cross Guard Stance is even slower and has even shorter range, but it deals the most damage and allows you to wield lightsaber that comes with a crossguard atop its hilt, similar to Kylo Ren’s saber. The Twin Blade Stance allows you to deal much greater damage at greater speed, but makes you more impervious to damage, putting greater emphasis on the necessity of dodges and blocks. Finally, the Blaster Stance will let you equip a lightsaber and a blaster at the same time, and will be more effective for longer-range combat (with some limitations- the game won’t suddenly turn into a shooter).
ENEMY TYPES
An expanded roster of enemy types is another area where Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is looking to crank things up a notch over its predecessor with its combat. We’re obviously going to have to wait and play the game ourselves to know just how expanded it is, but several of the game’s many enemy types have already been revealed and detailed. For instance, players can expect plenty of Separatist Droids from the prequel trilogy, including the likes of B1 Battle Droids, B2 Droids, BX Droids, IG-100 Magna Guard, and more.
FORCE ABILITIES
Using Force abilities is, of course, a crucial part of the combat in Respawn’s Star Wars games, and now that Cal is a full-fledged and experienced Jedi, he’s going to have plenty more of those in his arsenal as well. From what we’ve seen in the game’s trailers so far, Cal can now use the Force to pick up enemies and slam them into the ground and even use them as shields against oncoming fire. Another new ability that has been showcased is a bubble of sorts that slows down time around him, allowing him to maneuver around frozen enemies and dispatch them with greater ease.
TRAVERSAL IMPROVEMENTS
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order put plenty of emphasis on traversal and movement abilities, and Jedi: Survivor is seemingly going to step things up in areas as well. The biggest and most prominent change we’ve seen so far is the inclusion of an ascension cable, which is essentially a grappling hook that Cal can use to pull himself towards distant things in the environment. He also has a new dash ability, thanks to his upgraded Force powers, while it looks like AI companions will also come with unique traversal options. Meanwhile, Cal will now also be able to tame creatures he finds in the world and use them as mounts to get around maps more quickly. So far, we’ve seen both grounded and aerial mounts, but it remains to be seen just how much variety we can expect from mounts throughout the entire game.
JEDI MEDITATION CHAMBERS
Jedi Meditation Chambers will be another major gameplay addition in Jedi: Survivor for fans to look forward to. These will essentially be optional activities found in every location, and will serve a lot like the shrines in Breath of the Wild. The focus here will be purely on solving puzzles using your Force abilities and traversal options, the reward for which will be perks that will provide unique combat bonuses.
EXPANDED COSMETIC CUSTOMIZATION
Cosmetic customization was a bit lacking in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, with the game never really managing to make its options for Cal’s ponchos and his lightsaber hilts feel compelling in any real way. Its sequel is looking to step things up in this front, with cosmetic options now coming in the form of entire costumes that will change Cal’s look from head to toe. How expansive these options will be and how much variety they will provide remains to be seen, but it certainly seems like a step in the right direction.
ADDITIONAL GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS
In addition to some of the major gameplay changes and improvements that Jedi: Survivor will introduce – many of which we’ve spoken of here – it will also be making some more granular improvements- though not insignificant by any means. For instance, it’s been confirmed that the game will feature a fast travel system, which was one of players’ biggest demands in the original game. Meanwhile, it looks like human dismemberment is also in now, so you can expect to see some limbs getting chopped off when you slice foes with lightsabers.
KOBOH
We’re expecting to see plenty of new locations in what will likely be a galaxy-spanning story in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and while we’re unlikely to find out the full list of these locations before the game actually comes out, one that has been revealed is Koboh. This is an entirely new planet that was created from scratch for the game, and will be characterized by rugged cliffs, some sparse wildlife and forestry, and plenty of dangers, including creatures, bandits, and droids. Cal and BD-1 will crashland on Koboh in the early hours of the game, though not much else is known about what role the planet will play in the game’s overarching story.
LARGER, DENSER, MORE DETAILED MAPS
Unlike most major AAA games releasing these days, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is going to be a current-gen exclusive, and the fact that Respawn Entertainment hasn’t had to build the game around the outdated and significantly less powerful hardware of the PS4 and Xbox One will reflect in the game’s level design as well. According to game director Stig Asmussen, players can expect much larger maps with greater density and more detail. In an interview with PLAY magazine, he said, “You’ll experience the benefit of the more powerful hardware throughout Survivor. 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. These features aligned perfectly with how we wanted to push the game. We didn’t want to break what we did in the first game because it was well received, but we wanted to evolve/enhance the experience. 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.”
TECH IMPROVEMENTS
As you’d expect, it’s not just level design and density that will benefit from Star Wars Jedi: Survivor being a current-gen exclusive- the game will feature plenty of technical improvements over its predecessor as well. Thanks to the SSDs of the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, the game will feature significantly shorter load times, but probably the biggest of these improvements will come in the form of real-time ray tracing and drastically upgraded lighting. “I think the biggest thing is ray tracing, or lighting,” Asmussen said at the time of the game’s announcement last year. “That’s allowing us to do real-time lighting, all the time, at a fidelity that’s well beyond anything that we’ve ever produced before. Since it’s real-time, we get to see the changes as we tweak the lights – immediately, essentially. That means that we have more time to polish, that means that we can iterate more, and we can get better results that feel more filmic.”
PC REQUIREMENTS
Given the technical leaps that Jedi: Survivor is making, it goes without saying that it’s going to require much more powerful hardware for players to be able to play it, and sure enough, that’s reflected in the game’s PC requirements as well. Minimum requirements are relatively less demanding though- on the lowest specs, the game will require either an Intel Core i7-7700 or a Ryzen 5 1400 along with either a GTX 1070 or a Radeon RX 580 (with 8 GB VRAM), an 8 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, you’ll need either an Intel Core i5 11600K or a Ryzen 5 5600X, along with either an RTX 2070 or an RX 6700 XT (with 8 GB VRAM), and 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need a whopping 130 GB of free storage space.
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