Plagued at launch (on PC) with bugs and crashes galore, Jedi Survivor’s tales of poor optimization and performance have hurt the game’s reach. Even today, just over 1 year after launch, you can see Respawn’s poor choices continue to ripple through the reviews on Steam, which at the time of writing, sits with a Mixed 66% rating after 47,000+ reviews. It’s incredible to me that despite the low rating from Steam users, the game “survives”, and continues to be purchased and rated. It speaks perhaps as a testament to the passion players have for Jedi: Fallen Order. It is unfortunate that many wanting to continue Cal’s journey are plagued with these issues, and that hardly anything has been done about them.
I didn’t purchase the game at launch because of the issues pointed out by user reviews. “Mixed” on Steam is a pretty harsh rating in my book, and typically is enough to make me completely disinterested in any particular game. But for Jedi Survivor… I needed to play it. I waited as long as I could, periodically reading new reviews and updates over the course of almost a year, hoping optimization would come around but… it never did. When I saw it on sale for less than 50% off, I was weak, and now, 60 hours later here we are.
Thankfully, perhaps miraculously even, I was able to run the game without issues on my desktop, and never suffered from a single crash. I had to keep the game on low settings, which still had frame dips and looked pretty bad at times, but that hardly detracted me from my overall enjoyment while playing the game. Not sure why I had to run it at low settings: My desktop specs should be more than capable as I’m running 32gb of DDR4 RAM, a GeForce 3070 GPU, and a Ryzen 7 AMD CPU, not to mention it was installed on a pretty fast SSD. The optimization is…. Well it’s just not, let’s put it that way.
It’s a bummer that I need to spend several lengthy paragraphs talking about performance instead of immediately gushing about how much I love this game, but when the PC version has as many issues as it’s had, I’ve got to say something. I was lucky. The way the reviews are skewed, I’d say I was 66% lucky. Your mileage may vary.
Jedi Survivor is one of those sequel games that just outshines its predecessor in almost every way. There are far more enemies to fight, way more weapon skills and stances to mix and match to your hearts content, and a lot more of our favorite galaxy's ground to cover in bigger more open locations. The main quests are bigger, their narrative more gripping, the side quests and beaten paths more rewarding, and there’s so many cosmetics to collect and extra things to do that you might not even be sure what to do with yourself. There was a time I was playing the game where I felt it would never end, and in a good fun way at that, because there is such a massive amount of game here it blew me away.
But eventually with the end of the story, every skill unlocked, legendary beast slain, bounty collected, and force tear completion I could muster (I’m sorry TWO Rancor’s is actually impossible), I’ve found myself at the end of my journey with Jedi Survivor. They did tempt me with a more difficult New Game Plus with new abilities and things here or there… but I think I’ll be good. For those that need more, it’s there.
Let’s talk about difficulty. I played on Grandmaster (the hardest selectable when starting the game). I do not really enjoy the anxiety that comes from souls-like type games. I thought Jedi Survivor was fine. In fact, I think it almost would have been too easy at any other difficulty. I have seen some reviews arguing that the enemy density near the end of the game is simply too much to handle… that is simply not true. If you understand the various tools Cal has in different saber stances and force abilities, you know exactly how to handle huge groups of enemies. For example, even on grandmaster, I can destroy 20 B1 battle droids with one move. You cannot be content with always using your favorite stances. You must adapt to survive. If you do, the vast majority of the game will not be overwhelmingly difficult in any regard.
I think that’s the main difference in Survivor. Fallen Order was structured in a way to emulate growing in power from a simple Padawan into a capable Jedi Knight, each new ability linearly increasing your overall offensive power. In Survivor, you do get more powerful as a Jedi, but it feels almost lateral as it equates to new almost equally powerful moves and different ways to use the force. If you read the combat guide in game it will tell you the most effective means of dispatching any enemy type. It’s that knowledge that lets you extend your growing skillset and adapt to your various circumstances in order to get a leg up on any situation at any given time, whether that’s fighting one single boss dude over multiple phases, or a handful of a bunch of different enemies. Not only will you be able to do this, but you’ll be having tons of fun doing it too, if you lean in to adapting. When it wasn’t necessary though, Blaster and Crossguard were my favorite stances to use.
I really enjoyed the narrative this time around. It has its quirks for sure, and includes some pretty cheap shoe-in cameos but overall I thought it made for a really compelling Star Wars story. I’m very interested with where they’re going to take things next for the finale. I thought they brought in some interesting story beats that I personally was not expecting, which made it really interesting for me to mull over with each new development. There are also a couple breakout scenes and set pieces that just go absolutely over the top and some even tweak the gameplay slightly for some truly exciting moments — those were hype. I couldn’t be happier with how it all weaved together.
Exploring this time around I felt was done much better. In Fallen Order I felt I had done a great job of exploring but only ever found 4 stims (you can imagine how much more difficult grandmaster was for me). Here in Survivor I finished the game with a whopping 14 stims. I’m not sure what changed with Respawns approach to level design but I definitely found it much easier to find stuff, and I felt compelled to do so. Sure, most of the time it’s just a little cosmetic here or there, but sometimes it’s a health or force upgrade, maybe even a skill point. All that exploring had me finish the game with EVERY skill unlocked, at maximum health and force. Despite all those stims, and being a force to be reckoned with, there were some fights I had to do many times before claiming victory.
Overall, I loved my time in Jedi Survivor. The combat was so fun to master with different stances, the environments and enemies were varied and enjoyable to fight, and the narrative was a pleasure to experience. I’d heartily recommend it to anyone, especially those who loved Fallen Order, as this really is an order of magnitude heftier as its sequel. It’s just a shame that for my PC friends, you may or may not be able to play it due to poor optimization. Besides that as my only gripe, this game is a masterpiece.
Originally posted on Medium
I didn’t purchase the game at launch because of the issues pointed out by user reviews. “Mixed” on Steam is a pretty harsh rating in my book, and typically is enough to make me completely disinterested in any particular game. But for Jedi Survivor… I needed to play it. I waited as long as I could, periodically reading new reviews and updates over the course of almost a year, hoping optimization would come around but… it never did. When I saw it on sale for less than 50% off, I was weak, and now, 60 hours later here we are.
Thankfully, perhaps miraculously even, I was able to run the game without issues on my desktop, and never suffered from a single crash. I had to keep the game on low settings, which still had frame dips and looked pretty bad at times, but that hardly detracted me from my overall enjoyment while playing the game. Not sure why I had to run it at low settings: My desktop specs should be more than capable as I’m running 32gb of DDR4 RAM, a GeForce 3070 GPU, and a Ryzen 7 AMD CPU, not to mention it was installed on a pretty fast SSD. The optimization is…. Well it’s just not, let’s put it that way.
It’s a bummer that I need to spend several lengthy paragraphs talking about performance instead of immediately gushing about how much I love this game, but when the PC version has as many issues as it’s had, I’ve got to say something. I was lucky. The way the reviews are skewed, I’d say I was 66% lucky. Your mileage may vary.
Jedi Survivor is one of those sequel games that just outshines its predecessor in almost every way. There are far more enemies to fight, way more weapon skills and stances to mix and match to your hearts content, and a lot more of our favorite galaxy's ground to cover in bigger more open locations. The main quests are bigger, their narrative more gripping, the side quests and beaten paths more rewarding, and there’s so many cosmetics to collect and extra things to do that you might not even be sure what to do with yourself. There was a time I was playing the game where I felt it would never end, and in a good fun way at that, because there is such a massive amount of game here it blew me away.
But eventually with the end of the story, every skill unlocked, legendary beast slain, bounty collected, and force tear completion I could muster (I’m sorry TWO Rancor’s is actually impossible), I’ve found myself at the end of my journey with Jedi Survivor. They did tempt me with a more difficult New Game Plus with new abilities and things here or there… but I think I’ll be good. For those that need more, it’s there.
Let’s talk about difficulty. I played on Grandmaster (the hardest selectable when starting the game). I do not really enjoy the anxiety that comes from souls-like type games. I thought Jedi Survivor was fine. In fact, I think it almost would have been too easy at any other difficulty. I have seen some reviews arguing that the enemy density near the end of the game is simply too much to handle… that is simply not true. If you understand the various tools Cal has in different saber stances and force abilities, you know exactly how to handle huge groups of enemies. For example, even on grandmaster, I can destroy 20 B1 battle droids with one move. You cannot be content with always using your favorite stances. You must adapt to survive. If you do, the vast majority of the game will not be overwhelmingly difficult in any regard.
I think that’s the main difference in Survivor. Fallen Order was structured in a way to emulate growing in power from a simple Padawan into a capable Jedi Knight, each new ability linearly increasing your overall offensive power. In Survivor, you do get more powerful as a Jedi, but it feels almost lateral as it equates to new almost equally powerful moves and different ways to use the force. If you read the combat guide in game it will tell you the most effective means of dispatching any enemy type. It’s that knowledge that lets you extend your growing skillset and adapt to your various circumstances in order to get a leg up on any situation at any given time, whether that’s fighting one single boss dude over multiple phases, or a handful of a bunch of different enemies. Not only will you be able to do this, but you’ll be having tons of fun doing it too, if you lean in to adapting. When it wasn’t necessary though, Blaster and Crossguard were my favorite stances to use.
I really enjoyed the narrative this time around. It has its quirks for sure, and includes some pretty cheap shoe-in cameos but overall I thought it made for a really compelling Star Wars story. I’m very interested with where they’re going to take things next for the finale. I thought they brought in some interesting story beats that I personally was not expecting, which made it really interesting for me to mull over with each new development. There are also a couple breakout scenes and set pieces that just go absolutely over the top and some even tweak the gameplay slightly for some truly exciting moments — those were hype. I couldn’t be happier with how it all weaved together.
Exploring this time around I felt was done much better. In Fallen Order I felt I had done a great job of exploring but only ever found 4 stims (you can imagine how much more difficult grandmaster was for me). Here in Survivor I finished the game with a whopping 14 stims. I’m not sure what changed with Respawns approach to level design but I definitely found it much easier to find stuff, and I felt compelled to do so. Sure, most of the time it’s just a little cosmetic here or there, but sometimes it’s a health or force upgrade, maybe even a skill point. All that exploring had me finish the game with EVERY skill unlocked, at maximum health and force. Despite all those stims, and being a force to be reckoned with, there were some fights I had to do many times before claiming victory.
Overall, I loved my time in Jedi Survivor. The combat was so fun to master with different stances, the environments and enemies were varied and enjoyable to fight, and the narrative was a pleasure to experience. I’d heartily recommend it to anyone, especially those who loved Fallen Order, as this really is an order of magnitude heftier as its sequel. It’s just a shame that for my PC friends, you may or may not be able to play it due to poor optimization. Besides that as my only gripe, this game is a masterpiece.
Originally posted on Medium