As a fan of Star Wars, Soulslikes, and big-budget single-player action games, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was a game that spoke to me on multiple levels. It successfully merged the risk/reward elements of From Software’s Souls series with the power fantasy that inherently comes with being a Jedi. That said, it wasn’t a perfect combination. Backtracking without any means of fast travel was annoying, exploration was rewarded primarily with underwhelming cosmetics, and I couldn’t help but wish I could do more with my powers than just push, pull, and slow.
I say all of this because my main takeaway from roughly five hours with the upcoming sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, is that it felt like I was systematically crossing off the issues I had with Fallen Order. Survivor feels grander without ever letting the burgeoning scope compromise the exploration and sense of discovery that serves as its heart.
My preview time was broken up with me spending about four hours on the planet Koboh, a gigantic and wide open planet that largely serves as Cal’s home away from home throughout the course of Jedi Survivor’s story, and then about an hour on a moon planet to showcase some more traditional combat and platforming encounters that fans have come to expect. Let’s start off with Koboh, because it represents the biggest change in Jedi Survivor versus Fallen Order: A vast open world that sprawls out in every direction, with interesting encounters and rewards everywhere you turn.
Koboh Let’s Go
We’ve already shown you 9 minutes of Koboh gameplay as part of our IGN First coverage, but what we haven’t really gotten to point out is the fact that most of that footage covers only the introduction to the planet, which is a fairly traditional linear portion that guides you through caves, valleys, and mountain trails, but then opens wide up once you get to the Southern Reach – in a moment that brought to my mind the very first time you step out onto the Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild.
My main goal throughout this entire section was to reach the Cantina to find someone to repair my crashed Mantis ship, and I could’ve just booked it over there to get on with the story, but if I did I would’ve missed out on so much meaningful exploration. Off in one direction there was a hidden cave that housed an incredibly tough (and incredibly cool) boss battle that I’d be remiss to spoil for you here, off in another direction there was a Bedlam Raider camp with Stormtrooper armor on spikes and a nasty surprise waiting for me in a trap door that led underground, and if I took another path I’d eventually find a Jedi Chamber that housed a gigantic puzzle room. Other paths still were closed off to me until I found a particular upgrade.
Even better, all of these excursions felt appropriately rewarding. Most offered me skill points for my trouble – which are much more valuable in Survivor due to the fact that there are now individual skill trees for each lightsaber stance, your force powers, and for flat health and force upgrades – and even the treasure chests that offer cosmetic items have vastly improved rewards due to the fact that you can find entirely different outfits for Cal to wear (as opposed to just different designs of ponchos). In addition to that, you can even find new hairstyles to equip Cal with. My personal favorite so far was a bandana that made him look a little bit like Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid.
Koboh is massive, but thankfully, I never felt lost thanks to some truly excellent map features, like automatic markers that highlight passageways that lead to unexplored areas, symbols that let you know what areas you can’t access yet with your current abilities, a trail that marks the way you just came, and of course, fast travel. Thank Yoda for fast travel. Even better, Cal eventually also gains the ability to tame beasts so he can use them as mounts or as ways to traverse large gaps. All of these additions, on top of just stellar art design, all add up to make the act of exploring Koboh a joy.
Another thing that struck me as I was playing through was how good both the level and enemy design was at setting up opportunities for you to use your force powers in fun ways. Miniboss arenas are full of objects that could be force pulled and thrown to deal big damage, rolling mines are both a constant threat and a constant blessing when you can send them back at pursuing foes, and there were plenty of opportunities to end a battle before it even began by force pushing foes off a ledge. My favorite interaction is when I tried to force pull a staff wielding enemy towards me. He would try to plant his staff into the ground to stop himself, and when that failed, he’d let himself go and attempt to slash while he was pulled towards me. The first time I tried this, he got me, but then I found out that I could parry his desperation attack, which allowed me to still turn the tide in my favor.
Koboh is also not a one-stop shop. It’s a planet that you’re meant to return to many times over the course of Cal’s adventure. Aside from the aforementioned locked passageways that Cal won’t be able to progress through until he gets a specific upgrade, the Cantina and the town it resides in, Rambler’s Ranch, doubles as a sort of home base for Cal. There are vendors to purchase new customization options, colorful NPCs to talk to, and everytime you come back, you can be certain there will be something new to check out.
Fly Me to the Moon (Planet)
The second area I got to play was on an unnamed moon planet that Cal and his companion Bode visit sometime later in the game. In comparison to Koboh, this felt like a much more traditional style of level that would’ve been right at home in Jedi: Fallen Order. That isn’t to take anything away from it though, because it was a ton of fun – with a healthy balance of both death defying platforming challenges and challenging combat encounters.
The thing that most stood out about this level was there was almost a horror theme to it. Turns out that the enemies were expecting Cal, and thus most of them were lying in ambush. The beginning was very tense as it seemed like enemies were hiding around every corner waiting to get the jump on me. Respawn even played to this expectation a few times and would have a harmless droid suddenly come out through the fog, which I totally bit on and sliced the poor innocent bot in half.
Even in a level that was much more linear, there still were plenty of goodies hidden off the beaten path, including Jedi: Survivor’s take on a DMC-like challenge room. In it, I had to face off against wave after wave of what seemed like hundreds upon hundreds of B1 droids that would all go down in one or two hits, but could very easily swarm and overwhelm me. It was an absolute blast – and surprisingly tough as well – once they started mixing in some droids that would self-destruct if I didn’t force push them or otherwise get the heck out of the way in time.
I loved this encounter because it’s something that wouldn’t have made sense within the context of the actual level, but in a sealed-off space where anything goes, it was the perfect kind of combat test. I hope there are a ton more of these and I’d happily search every nook and cranny to find them.
I could go on talking about the Jedi Chamber puzzle rooms, the fun new force powers, the exciting story beats that took place after I stepped foot into the Cantina, or some of the awesome boss battles that I had to overcome, but it’s all stuff that’s probably better experienced for yourself once the game comes out on April 28.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit