Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – we’ve got a good feeling about this (pic: EA)



GameCentral looks forward to the sequel to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and tries to piece together the clues about its story and gameplay.



You’d think, that after years of virtually no big budget tie-ins at all, that any game based on Marvel would be a licence to print money, but that hasn’t been the case at all. Sony’s Spider-Man games have been huge but Avengers, Guardians Of The Galaxy, and Midnight Suns have all underperformed. EA must now be wondering whether its newly announced Iron Man game was such a good idea after all, but they should have no such fear about their next Star Wars title.



EA’s stewardship of the Star Wars licence got off to a rocky start, as they were criticised for focusing too much on the multiplayer-orientated Battlefront games. Fallen Order changed all that though and was a milestone not just for Star Wars games but for EA in general, as after years of demeaning single-player titles, and insisting that they were no longer commercially viable, it found that the Force was with them after all.



Fallen Order was a surprising game in many ways, as rather than being a gutless tie-in, meant to be beaten without thought or skill, it was primarily influenced by Dark Souls, of all things. With elements of Uncharted and The Legend Of Zelda as well, Fallen Order aimed to be more than just a throwaway licensed game and ended up as one of the best big budget Metroidvanias ever made. It wasn’t without its flaws but if the sequel can iron them out then it will be something very special indeed.



Although it’s out on March 17, in keeping with most other games this year, we still know relatively little about Survivor. It was first teased by showing footage of a mysterious figure in a bacta tank, with fan theories as to their identity ranging from Galen Marek from Force Unleashed to a Palpatine clone. A closer look at the mysterious stranger, in the one and only gameplay trailer, reveals that he has the face and voice of American actor Cody Fern, suggesting it’s a brand new character. Which is interesting but doesn’t really help in working out what’s going on in the game.



One of our main criticisms of Fallen Order is that the story never amounted to much and that most of the heroic characters were rather bland, so if developer Respawn is seeking to address that with new characters and a clearer narrative that’s already a good sign. What the plot of Survivor is remains a mystery, but the game is set in the same year as the Obi-Wan Kenobi series, so there could be some crossover there – especially as that show already ‘borrowed’ heavily from Fallen Order’s finale.



(It’s curious to think how much the Star Wars landscape has changed in the four years since Fallen Order, with Andor gaining wild and thoroughly deserved acclaim but the Obi-Wan series proving to be a major disappointment – neither of which would’ve been anticipated when Survivor was initially developed.)



The other major issue with Fallen Order is its poorly handled backtracking and lack of fast travel but considering how common a complaint that is we’re sure Respawn will not make the same mistake again. For a start, the gameplay footage clearly shows you on some sort of avian mount, like a cross between a tauntaun and an emu, which is no doubt intended to make moving around levels quicker and easier.



Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – who is that? (pic: EA)



Some fans have commented that the game doesn’t seem noticeably better looking than the original, despite being next gen only, but that sort of thing is always hard to judge from a trailer. Certainly everything else seems very promising, not just in terms of addressing flaws from the original but the implied new features.



Cal now wields a blaster as well as a lightsaber, which was leaked earlier by some toy images . According to Respawn, protagonist Cal Kestis has five different combat styles and one of them involves using a blaster and a lightsaber together, which is very unusual for a Jedi.



The others include one for double-ended lightsabers and another for using twin lightsabers, which is featured in the gameplay trailer. At one point Cal can also be seen with a lightsaber that has a cross-guard similar to Kylo Ren, while Cal also uses Kylo’s ability to freeze blaster bolts in mid-air.



Another thing we weren’t entirely sold on in Fallen Order were the Force powers, which worked well enough but were never as fun to use, or as versatile, as similar abilities in other games – especially Control , which came out the same year. It’s hard to tell how much that has changed without playing the new game but the trailer does linger on Cal picking up a Stormtrooper and using its own gun against its comrades, which is a new trick.



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There also seems to be some new co-operative moves going on with a new male character, although who that it is and what size role he has in the game is impossible to say at the moment. He doesn’t seem to be the same person from the bacta tank, but who knows, especially as Cere Junda, Cal’s mentor from Fallen Order, appears to be taking a more sedentary role this time round.



Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is still hiding plenty of secrets but the limited glimpse we’ve had so far seems to be very encouraging and if it is, as assumed, the middle part of a trilogy hopefully it’ll end up more Empire Strikes Back than Attack Of The Clones.









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