Watch the SPOILER review on YouTube
A strong follow-up to “Fallen Order,” “Survivor” keeps everything that worked, fixes some things that didn’t and adds some cool new features and characters. Unfortunately, multiple glitches and bugs hold the game back as of this writing.
While you don’t need to place the first game in this series, it helps tremendously in understanding the characters and the basic gameplay. Since Cal starts off with most of the abilities he learned in the last game, there’s quite a bit at your fingertips to start off this game. And since the games doesn’t do much to explain all the character relationships and backstories, some of the stronger character moments may be lost on new players.
The story is good, continuing threads from the last game for both the main plot and the character arcs. There’s plenty of twists and some emotional moments as a result. However, the conclusion isn’t all that satisfying and it’s a bit vague.
The gameplay is solid and offers even more variety that the last game. New force abilities have been added to truly help your character feel like an actual Jedi. Lightsaber combat has been enhanced by weapon stances, giving players a choice of five options that fits the most with their playstyle. Players can also customize their experience through the use of perks. The combat is basically the same as the first game, but there is a learning curve for newer players who may want to just run in and hack away at their enemies with a lightsaber, as the gameplay favors defense over offense. Combat can be unfairly balanced at times, with multiple enemies at once attacking up close and from a distance, striking so fast that there isn’t time for the player to heal themselves. Like the last game, dying can be a major setback, as players may find themselves repeating time-consuming and dangerous climbs to get back to where they died. Once all the meditation points and shortcuts are unlocked, this isn’t much of an issue, especially with the new fast-travel feature. While exploration is encouraged, many areas can’t be reached until Cal unlocks certain abilities or equipment, so you may end up in the same locations multiple times trying to find everything. I would recommend not worrying too much about searching for hidden items. Most are cosmetic and at various points later in the game there’s a way to add their locations to your map, saving you the headache of repeat visits. A few of the fights, especially the boss fights, can be pretty tough, but the difficulty can be changed at any time. Probably the most challenging part of the game is the optional Force Tears, which feature combat or extremely difficult obstacle courses. While they can be unbelievably frustrating, the skills you master here make similar parts of the main game a piece of cake.
The game looks great, with well-designed environments ranging from the expansive new planet of Koboh to familiar places like Jedah. Cal’s appearance can be greatly customized. Between lightsaber parts, outfits, haircuts and facial hair, few players will end up with identical looking Cals. The sound design is well done, with in-game sounds and also the game’s score both complementing gameplay and solidifying the Star Wars motif. The voice acting by the leads is great, with the animation capturing the nuances with their performances. (Although most of the NPC acting is mediocre and includes a lot of accents that sound more from Earth than from a galaxy far, far away.)
Despite all it gets right, the game has some serious bugs. As of now, an entire sub-section of the game featuring bounty hunting is either unavailable or can’t be completed due to numerous bugs. This seemed like a fun aspect to the game, and it’s frustrating to just have to wait for a patch.
**** out of *****
Update: A few days after this review, a patch came out that fixed the bounty hunting bug. It ended up not being as interesting as I hoped. A bit repetitive, with the same annoying enemy-types over and over. But it did add some variety to the overall game and it might have been more fun if I could’ve spaced it out with the regular gameplay instead of all at once. (I also thought the new ammo types were pretty helpful.)