Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is an amazing game even with its shortcomings. Being able to partake in a Star Wars adventure is never a bad thing, and this game comes on the heels of Fallen Order, which was highly praised. Barring a controversial release, Jedi Survivor is poised to continue to the path of the Jedi Knight Cal Kestis and allow players to experience events after the Imperial takeover. But no game is perfect, and these are 5 ways Star Wars Jedi: Survivor could be even better.
Performance Right the First Time…or Next Time
The first elephant in the room that needs to be addressed is the performance. The biggest backlash EA faced, and is still currently facing, are the performance issues across platforms, but especially those for PC users. PS5 suffered low frame rates, slowdown, and other graphical issues, even though Jedi Survivor seemed more catered toward consoles, which is disparaging. Patches are being constantly released and promised to be constant until the game is fixed, but in the meantime, players also have to deal with game crashes, buggy cutscenes, bad visual quality, and broken implementation of HDR.
But it doesn’t stop there. PC players who own machines more powerful than the PS5 or Xbox Series S are not free from these concerns either. EA went so far as to release a statement warning that players who have high-end PCs and specific setups will see various performance issues. Players have complained that even with the latest and greatest GPUs, they suffer 4k 30 FPS slowdown, 1440P that cannot hold 60 FPS and low-quality textures.
As gorgeous as the game looks, there should have been more emphasis and priority on smooth framerate and the game working properly the first time around. Bottom line; this game was rushed out and should have been held back until all of these issues were fixed.
More Variety Over Repetitive Gameplay
Another glaring issue with Jedi Survivor is the often repetitive nature of elements within the game. For starters, the basic formula of the game is to button-mash your lightsaber attacks and do parkour throughout the level. Granted, that’s the foundation of Star Wars, and other action games since their earliest beginnings in the beat-em-up genre, but the developers should have taken care to add large chunks of sequences where players have to do mini-games or rely on more creative ways to defeat enemies and bosses, or escape doom.
When it comes to progression through the galaxy, players might also feel stifled. Such a huge part of the story has you going back and forth multiple times between the plant Koboh and the Shattered Moon. You’ll want to spread your X-wings and fly to other planets, but other than a quick mission in Coruscant and a scant offering of other planets, the main story keeps you tied down. And then there’s the fact that you’ll have to fight the boss Dagan Gera three times. Though there is more variety in the third battle, you can’t but feel a sense of Deja Vu unpleasantly.
More Star Wars Immersion
All video games demand varying degrees of immersion, and with properties like Star Wars, there’s an even higher level required due to the lore, movies, and more. One of the biggest missed opportunities here was the lack of extra Star Wars gameplay elements that the lore is known for. As you progress through the game, you’ll see epic spaceship battles and Imperial walkers in the background, but you can’t participate. And other than a few creature mounts and one quick speeder bike ride, players are not treated to the vehicle splendor the series is known for. It would have been amazing to pilot a rebel starship and dogfight TIE fighters and play other similarly themed scenes.
When implementing gameplay elements, care should be taken to make things as thematically immersive as possible to make players feel like they’re always participating in the world of Star Wars. For example, it’s a great addition to allow players to customize Cal Kestis into their own unique Jedi Knight with skins and accessories, but it feels odd and out of place to discover these add-ons by opening a random treasure chest that has an Obi-Won Kenobi beard in it. It would have made more sense to have a droid shop that allows players to choose their cosmetics and earn them over time.
Finally, there’s not much time spent expanding the galaxy with other planets or visiting fan favorites like Coruscant. There’s only a single-story mission on Coruscant, then it becomes an optional planet for the remainder of the game. If Jedi Survivor allowed for more immersion through planet diversity and vehicle gameplay, that would have taken this game to the next level.
Better Plot
Although the plot gets the job done for Cal Kestis and the crew, there are some questionable designs and devices that could have been improved. The main mission story arc has players collect a compass on Koboh to allow them to reach their end destination and navigate the Abyss. A considerable amount of game time and story investment is spent to retrieve this McGuffin.
However, once Cal gets the compass, it’s quickly stolen, and then players discover there’s another way to get to their next destination. This series of events makes the whole concept of the compass feel like a waste of time. This seems a bit lazy on the written side of things and could have been more of an integral part of the plot rather than a useless filler.
Overall, the plot leaves a lot to be desired because there’s plenty of predictability that ruins the tension and momentum of the game. Most players can easily predict either what’s about to happen, or what everything is leading to later on. With knowledge of what’s going to happen later in the plot, things can start to feel sluggish getting to that point, especially if the plot point or the journey there is not interesting enough. Having some foresight is acceptable, but there should be at least the same amount of unpredictability and surprise twists that don’t make the players feel like they’ve wasted time or done things for naught.
More Story Focused
Star Wars will always be a story-driven movie first, and that’s where this series has found its success. Jedi Survivor trudged along on the same path, but can definitely be improved. One suggestion has to do with all the collectibles present in the game. This can be a pro and a con depending on your perspective, but these extras can hinder the story from moving forward. Jedi Survivor has a short story that shouldn’t overstay its welcome, and players should be able to focus on getting through the plot points and story beats to enjoy the experience like a cinematic equivalent. However, with so many collectibles to attain, players might start feeling like they’re forced to forsake the story and spend time grinding, rather than enjoy the game straight through like when they play standard action-adventure games like Uncharted.
The best way to balance this is to add a separate game mode, like an arcade version, with new levels, enemies, and objectives that allow players plenty of time to hunt down the collectibles they want.
One of the last problems has to do with breaking the immersion of the story at the wrong times. For example, towards the end of the game, as the story builds to a climax and players can’t wait to make it to the conclusion, the game hits you with an annoying puzzle that’s not thematic, coming across as just plain intended to slow you down for no apparent reason. This proves to be more frustrating and annoying than anything and ruins the momentum. Puzzles are fine to have, but they need to be put in the right places at the right times. Jedi Survivor should have put most of its puzzles early on in the game to balance out the repetitive nature of the earlier missions and plot.
Jedi Survivor is still an awesome game, and Star Wars fans will enjoy it, along with players who like Sci-Fi action-adventure games — as long as the patches to fix performance issues roll out fast enough. And with these 5 ways Star Wars Jedi: Survivor could be even better, perhaps there will be a third installment to complete a trilogy, much like Star Wars tradition demands.
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