Today marks the one-year anniversary of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the sequel to 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order by EA and developer Respawn Entertainment. The final installment in the Jedi trilogy is already some ways in development and won’t be expected until as far down as 2027 (via Comic Book). Considering that Star Wars month is also about to begin this Wednesday (and Star Wars Day on Saturday, May 4), this is a perfect time to take a look back at the reveal and release for Jedi Survivor. As we do so, I’ll be giving some of my personal thoughts over the game’s road to release and beyond.
The Reveal
The World Premiere Trailer for Jedi Survivor was held on the evening of December 8, 2022 at The Game Awards. The reveal trailer opened up with a view of a mysterious one armed figure floating inside a bacta tank before the new character was shown waking up and being freed by the game’s main character Jedi Cal Kestis (played by Cameron Monaghan) and his droid companion BD-1. Following this intro shot, viewers were greeted with new characters such as Magna Guards and other battle droids, the crime syndicate known as the Haxion Brood and Imperial Stormtroopers, along with returning characters including Cal’s old Jedi Master Cere Junda. In fact, I remember watching The Game Awards when this trailer premiered, and getting caught off-guard when the trailer started, as I thought the new character in the bacta tank was a physical prop at the show’s stage.
Without getting into too much detail over the game’s story, Jedi Survivor does take place several years after 2019’s Jedi Fallen Order. Considering the new enemies that Cal Kestis faces in Jedi Survivor, it’s needless to say that his fight against the Galactic Empire continues in the sequel. Much has changed during the years since the events of Jedi Fallen Order, and not just judging by Cere Junda’s new Jedi outfit in one brief shot of her reunion with Cal. The World Premiere Trailer does demonstrate quick shots of the new locations the game explores as well as some new gameplay/combat mechanics (again, not getting into too much detail). Towards the end of the trailer, the game actually had a different release date as opposed to the April 28 launch day (more on that coming in a bit).
Jedi Survivor’s reveal trailer ended with a March 17 release date (yep, St. Patrick’s Day), but that’s not all. Right as the trailer ended, Cameron Monaghan himself gave an exciting live appearance at the Game Award stage, accompanied by the game’s main theme melody and showing off Cal Kestis’s lightsaber. Cameron would then give a short speech to excite the audience in anticipation of Jedi Survivor’s release a few months away. What a live entrance indeed, Mr. Monaghan!
A Slight Delay
As mentioned above, Jedi Survivor didn’t make it’s March 2023 release date. So what exactly happened? On EA’s official website for the game, the announcement was made on January 31 that Jedi Survivor was being given a six week delay to April 28:
In order for the team to hit the Respawn quality bar, provide the team the time they need, and achieve the level of polish our fans deserve, we have added six crucial weeks to our release schedule – Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will now launch globally on April 28th.
Thanks to EA and Respawn for giving us the time to deliver the best experience for our players, and to all of you for your understanding.
May the Force be with you.
Not to worry, right? It was only a month and a half delay. This was alright with me, as the delay bought me several extra weeks to save up my $70 for the game. Surely the six week delay would give the devs extra time to iron out some any extra glitches that they may have been facing at the time. Though looking back, I recall that The Mandalorian Season 3 premiered on Disney+ at the beginning of March and the same with The Bad Batch Season 2 soon wrapping up around Jedi Survivor’s original intended launch day. So, especially for The Mandalorian Season 3’s premiere, could this have been a secret cause for Jedi Survivor’s delay… or was this just pure speculation (or a coincidence)?
I Sense A Disturbance In The Force
Around a few days or so before the April 28 launch day, I pre-ordered my copy of Jedi Survivor on PlayStation 5. I was excited to await my pre-order being delivered, and it did get to me not too long later on April 30. But before then, Jedi Survivor was finally released on April 28. Long story short, the sequel was given a lot of overall praise for the gameplay being a large improvement from Jedi Fallen Order. Though depending on who you ask (The Verge is one example), the game’s story may have been a weaker point to a certain degree.
But despite the overall positive reviews Jedi Survivor has garnered, launch day held one major disappointment — performance issues. Jedi Survivor was yet another example of modern video games with broken launches, especially for the PC port, in this case. The game launched with a plethora of performance issues, such as game crashes and unstable frame rates that not even the Performance Mode option could completely fix.
Personally, these glitches weren’t as severe on my PS5 copy of Jedi Survivor. While I did experience the unstable frame rates and game crashes, at least the latter were fewer and more spaced out. Some frame tearing was noticeable when panning the camera and some levels, such as the Shattered Moon, had worse framerate than others.
I still overall enjoyed my playthrough after getting my copy delivered. Yet, this was the start of the road of needed patches. While I could only imagine how much worse Jedi Survivor’s launch could have been if the six week delay never happened, it’s unfortunate that the delay didn’t fix even more of these performance issues. To avoid such a broken release, Respawn and EA should have given the game an even longer delay, perhaps releasing the game closer to November 2023, similar to how Fallen Order was released back in November 2019.
At least Star Wars fans had an extra something to help hold them over while they hope for the patches to ultimately stabilize the game’s performance. For the Star Wars Day 2023 celebration, Mark Hamill (best known as Luke Skywalker himself) teamed up with Cameron Monaghan in this May 4 promotion for Jedi Survivor:
Stable Frame Rates At Last
Jedi Survivor did receive several updates in the following months, gradually fixing the glitches and improving the in-game frame rates throughout all platforms including PC. Some patches were major, while others were minor updates. But finally on September 5, Patch 7 finally made Jedi Survivor run with solid 60 FPS, particularly on Performance Mode. I was so hyped to finally able to play the game with smooth and stable frame rates.
Final Thoughts
Not too much has happened with Jedi Survivor since Patch 7. Only a couple of newer patches were made so far since September 5, with the latest patch released earlier this year on January 11. However, it was surprising news to hear that EA has eventual plans for last -gen ports for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One (according to IGN), but no official announcement for a release date has been made, as of yet. Perhaps their release dates will be announced next month during all the Star Wars celebrations?
Up until this point, I’ve only pre-ordered a few games, but Jedi Survivor’s buggy launch did make me think twice on pre-ordering any more in the future. This also includes reconsidering pre-orders of comparably smaller games from reputable franchises or developers. The latter has eventually been proven thanks to (for the upteenth time) the broken launch of Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection. To be quite honest, I haven’t even bought my copy for the Classic Collection, as I still am waiting for further fixes before I can think of finally making my purchase.
In fact, it’s been quite a while since I played Jedi Survivor. The start of Star Wars month will soon give me a perfect opportunity to jump back into a Galaxy Far Far Away once more with Cal Kestis and crew. Good thing all the major fixes give me a much more enjoyable time playing Jedi Survivor, compared to how my experience could have been had I bought the Battlefront Classic Collection since its launch week.
What do you think of Jedi Survivor a year after launch? How was your experience with the game like? Let us know below!