Survivor’s combat is a lot more like Dark Souls than God of War, but it’s one of very few Star Wars games since The Force Unleashed that achieves and maintains that enthralling Jedi power fantasy. LucasArts took God of War’s formula and applied it to Star Wars, and for years provided the best Force user power fantasy in gaming. While the aesthetics feel as detailed as Battlefront, the gameplay fantasy pulls more from The Force Unleashed. Players may not visit as many planets as they do in Battlefront II, but each location in Survivor is densely packed with content and immaculately packed with detailed environments and characters that faithfully represent the High Republic, prequel, and Imperial eras. Survivor feels like it has the same keen attention to detail. To this day, 2005’s Battlefront II is my favorite game of all time, not only because of all the great memories that I had with it but also because it feels like an authentic Star Wars simulator where multiple eras, planets, and characters are preserved in incredible detail. Growing up, two of my favorite video games were the original Star Wars: Battlefront II and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Despite technically being a sequel to just Fallen Order, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor feels like the culmination of over a decade of Star Wars games, both released and canceled, that came before. Reflecting on the lost project ahead of this year’s Star Wars Day, I had a revelation about Respawn Entertainment’s latest game. However, the idea of cleverly climbing and fighting across a seedy-looking level of Coruscant during a heist was still realized. Survivor’s Metroidanvia-like level design and Lightsaber-and-Force-based combat are much different than what was promised from 1313.

Instead, I feel happy that at least some fraction of that idea was able to be realized. Playing through Survivor’s opening doesn’t elicit feelings of disappointment about 1313, though. The idea of an Uncharted-like game about Boba Fett fighting throughout the Coruscant underworld is such an excellent pitch that I’ve grieved the loss of a game I never even had a chance to play for over a decade.

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