About an hour into my time with Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Cal Kestis, the game’s protagonist, reunites with Greez Dritus, the cranky pilot from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The two embrace after five years apart, one of Greez’s four arms now replaced by a robotic prosthetic. It’s a moment that encapsulates how I felt playing the upcoming game at a recent preview event Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment held in Los Angeles. Playing Jedi: Survivor feels like reuniting with a friend you haven’t seen in a few years.
Right from the start, Jedi: Survivor feels like a more refined Jedi: Fallen Order. The preview began on Koboh, one of the first planets players will visit when they get their hands on the game later this month. Exploring Koboh is immediately compelling since Cal has all the abilities he rediscovered by the end of Jedi: Fallen Order, plus a new grappling hook for quickly traversing across some gaps. Cal also feels more satisfying to control, as there’s more weight and precision to his movements. When he jumps, he doesn’t float the way he did in Jedi: Fallen Order. In combat, Cal feels more deadly and proficient with his lightsaber.
“Cal has a bit of swagger now, and that was intentional. We wanted the player to feel that,” Game Director Stig Asmussen tells me during a break from the preview. “Keep in mind [Jedi: Fallen Order] was the first time for us,” he says. Before Jedi: Fallen Order, those who worked at the studio were best known for creating first-person shooters like Titanfall and Call of Duty. “We were learning while we were making that game – we’re still learning – but as we were building it, we got better at building it.”
Respawn Entertainment / EA
Asmussen and his team have also hit a comfortable stride in executing the specific demands of the series they’re building. Take Koboh, for instance. I can safely say it is larger and more intricate than Zeffo, Jedi: Fallen Order’s most fully realized planet. Asmussen recommended those of us at the event stick to the game’s critical path to see as much as the preview had to offer, but I couldn’t help but get sidetracked by all the optional content I found on Koboh. One of my favorite discoveries involved an ancient ruin with a particularly devious puzzle inside that had me stumped for a few minutes. Another highlight involved investigating an abandoned mine that it turned out was home to a…