Review of “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” – The almost perfect Star Wars game – with imperfect technology

What’s the matter? In the meantime, the jungle of new Star Wars titles on TV, streaming or gaming has become almost unmanageable. And not all new releases can win the hearts of players. However, we were able to count the action-adventure “Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order” among the positive representatives in 2019. Not everything went smoothly back then, but the story about the Jedi Cal Kestis was particularly convincing. Four years later, developer Respawn Entertainment and publisher EA launched the sequel: “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor”.

Five years have passed in the game. Cal Kestis continues to fight the Empire, but with the stormtroopers outnumbered, he quickly finds that he must seek allies, new and old, to make any difference. Jedi: Survivor is an integral part of the official Star Wars canon and takes place around the time of the Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

Who is the game for? Cal is a Jedi Knight. He wields the Force, wields his lightsaber, and has quite a few tricks up his sleeve. We control the young redhead in the third person through the action-adventure. Along the way, we’ll gain new abilities, learn new Force skills, and even fight in different lightsaber styles: classic, single-sword, dual, or even blaster pistol and lightsaber at the same time. All styles have pros and cons, but mostly come down to player preference.

“Star Wars: Jedi Survivor: Many problems of the predecessor have been eliminated

If you then want to puzzle, immerse yourself in a really well-told Star Wars story and get a taste of that special Jedi fairy tale air, you have a very nice gaming experience. In addition, as we progress through the game, we keep unlocking new skills, which in turn give us access to new level sections – even in areas that we have actually already played through.

How good is the game? “Star Wars Jedi: Survivor” looks very good and has a great sound concept – especially musically we experience nostalgic moments again and again when classic melodies are struck that we know from series and films of the Star Wars universe. The development studio has also worked on some of the predecessor’s problems: In combat, we can react much better to attacks and find the right answers depending on the style. This increases the fun of the game enormously! Even with the climbing and sliding passages, the transitions are more comprehensible and easier to master. In 2023, we didn’t experience any more unfair puzzles or passages like in the predecessor.

A clear minus point, however, is the imperfect technology. For example, we repeatedly experienced significant drops in the frame rate (on the Playstation 5), which resulted in nasty stuttering. The game also crashed every few hours. This is far from unplayable, but we would have hoped for more. Unfortunately, that’s the dark side of the Force in this near-perfect Star Wars game.

Evaluation: 4.5 out of 5 lightsabers.