Back in 2019 Respawn Entertainment stepped away from the world of Apex Legends to deliver a pretty fun game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Now here we are four years later and back with Jedi Cal Kestis, so the question to be asked, is the force with this one?

The story kicks off some five years after the events of the previous game, in that time the group has disbanded, so Cal is off attempting to take down the Empire, one mission at a time. This latest mission has Cal and his crew attempting to board a senatorial yacht in order to obtain military documents, to help the resistance. Joining the mission are a few folks, the twins, Bode and Bravo and each has their skill sets, with Bode being the one to join Cal the most. While the mission seems to go off to a solid start, an Inquisitor arrives soon after and things go off the rails very quickly. With Cal making his escape, he heads to the planet of Koboh in order to lay low and repair the Mantis, with the help of its owner Greez. It is here that Cal encounters the Bedlam Raiders, a group that are terrorising Koboh and its citizens and while Cal is able to run them off for now, it seems there is more going on than meets the eye. While resting up in a room in the basement, something Greez has put aside for Cal should he ever visit, BD-1 prods the ground and it gives way, leading him to fall into it and Cal to dive in after him. The pair quickly find themselves within a High Republic repository, built by the Jedi Order centuries ago and from there, things get complicated.

There is a lot of story to experience here, some of it is predictable and some of it just is so out of the asteroid field, you won’t see it coming. For the most part Cal is on his own, well apart from BD-1, but there are some missions where he has help, be it Bode, Merrin or others. The main threat, at least at the outset is Rayvis, the leader of the Bedlam Raiders and the one Cal ran out of town, his goal is to locate a key. Cal, being either very lucky or unlucky, discovers the key and the potential prize it leads to, a person immersed in Bacta, Jedi Dagan Gera. From here the adventure expands beyond the planet of Koboh and like the previous game, will have you bouncing all around the galaxy. I won’t say much more for the story, as it is best discovered on its own, but there are some great new faces that mix in with the returning ones, plus a few cameos to enjoy. The real star of the experience is the gameplay.

In terms of what has changed from the first game, there isn’t a lot of new elements, but everything that was in the first has been refined or in some cases, expanded greatly. Cal can still double jump and wall run like before, but now he can dash in the air, use a grapple gun to pull himself to ledges and more. These additional moves, including options for BD-1 mean that he can get around far more easily and reach more unique places than previously. In terms of exploration, there are less locations to visit here, there were five main planets in the first game, compared to the three here, but the ones here are so large that you can’t really compare. The gameplay loop of visiting a planet for a reason, discovering more information and then heading elsewhere is still the same, but with the size of the locations, you won’t feel the need to rush away for something else to do. Sticking with Koboh, as it is the central location for your explorations and acts as a base, there is a lot to do here, and even getting across it will take time.

The game does allow for fast travel via the returning meditation points, but if you go from one side of Koboh to the other, you are looking at a good 30 minutes of traversal. The game does of course provide multiple paths, making full use of Cal’s new abilities, which is also a reason to keep exploring when you do unlock new ones. But the game also lets you tame wild creatures, which in turn lets you make use of their traversal options, for example there is a giant bird like creature, that runs faster than Cal, so you can get around quicker. Beyond the world itself, Koboh is also home to Pyloon’s Saloon, a little watering hole that is owned by Greez. When you first visit, it is fairly dead inside, not a lot going on, but the more folks you interact with or help across the galaxy, the more people turn up there. This means you can add a DJ, gamers, fisherman and more, with each person having stories to tell and that draws in more locales, who are always good for a rumour or two. Exploring Koboh, or other planets, will often reward you with resources exclusive to the location and a few cross-planet ones. These resources will let you buy new looks for Cal, BD-1 and the gear, but don’t worry, those who loved the finding of a random crate at the bottom of a giant hole, that is still there as well.

Upgrading the gear isn’t important in a gameplay sense, it is purely cosmetic, but there are upgrades to the lightsabre in the form of stances. In the previous game, Cal was a single blade user for the majority of the game, until he unlocked the dual-blade option, aka Darth Maul. Here as Cal progresses he begins to unlock additional stances, there is the twin blade just like Ahsoka, the cross guard stance like Kylo Ren and eventually a blaster/lightsabre combination, sadly it is nothing like the lightsabre rifle that Jocasta Nu used. Each of the stances has their pros and cons, some allow for faster movement, others more damage and some allow for easier deflection of blaster shots. You can swap them out at any work bench and you can have two equipped, meaning you can keep the fast and quick dual-blade and the heavy and slow cross guard stance, swapping between them as you go. Each stance also has upgrades that you can unlock with skill points, offering up variations on attacks, new skills with the blades and so on. I found myself getting comfortable with two stances early on and didn’t find a need to change all that frequently, but others might.

All that weapon talk though does make a nice segue into the combat that you can undertake, a lot of which will feel quite familiar to returning players. The game doesn’t hold back either, for those less experienced with action combat, there are easier difficulties, but even on the medium setting, prepare to have your butt kick. When engaging a single enemy, Cal can lock onto them and if they have their guard up, attacking will not do much damage but it will eventually wear down their stamina. Once that is gone, they will be open to some serious damage and depending on your attack or lightsabre stance, you might be blessed with a quick take down. Enemies can however deflect your attack, which can leave you open to a counter attack, but the same can be done to them. The most dangerous attacks are indicated by the enemy charging up and glowing red, when this happens dodging is your only option.

You can interrupt the attack with the use of your force powers, but its not going to be successful on all enemy types. As the game progresses, you will discover more deadly enemies, as you go from basic stormtroopers to scout troopers, then onto flame troopers and finally purge troopers. There are also a handful of reactivated droids from The Clone Wars in use by the Bedlam Raiders, with the basic B1 droid the common one, but the B2, the BX and more do start to appear as you progress. What all of this boils down to is combat is no joke and boss fights are even less of one, but they are not your most deadly enemy. There are rooms that you can enter, where you might find two high level enemies and two epic level enemies, just chilling out, which is exactly what happened to me and it took me dozens of attempts to get past, as no enemy just waits their turn. Those who are here for the story might want to engage the story mode setting, those seeking a challenge should go for the medium and those who are sadists might enjoy the highest difficulty option. But no matter what you choose, you can change it at any time, which is a nice inclusion.

Moving out of combat, let us talk about the games presentation, as there is some good and bad to discuss. The first is the good, the game runs and looks a treat from the first shot of Cal on Coroscant to the final moments, before the end credits. There are times when you will venture into new locations and discover a moment of utter beauty, the team at Respawn have done an incredible job capturing the wow of Star Wars. Koboh might look like a dust trap, with its dry landscape and there are times when it looks just like that but venture out into the mountains or off into the jungles and the planet feels like its an entirely different place. Coroscant, at least the portion we can visit is dirty and falling apart, but there is enough neon in the skyline to give the illusion of hope. The closest we have come in the movies/shows is an opening shot in Chapter 22 of The Mandalorian. There are other locations that look even more impressive, the game is a visual treat.

Much like the locations the characters that inhabit are mostly decent and I say mostly, because there is a clear level of effort difference in the critical characters and those who live in the background. Early on, one of the faces in Cal’s team on Coroscant stood out as one of those characters and I honestly thought they were not loading in right, but nope, they died almost right away and it made sense. The problem is that entire feeling carries across, when you spot a face that looks last-gen, compared to Cal and the other mains, it feels like the lack of importance to the story was emphasised by the lack of effort in their creation. Sadly if that was the only visual issue, it wouldn’t be so bad, but the game had a number of problems. The most common one was textures loading in very, very slowly when landing on a new planet or fast travelling around one. Given I played on the PlayStation 5 and had it set to performance mode, this shouldn’t have been an issue, but it was. Another one that popped up a few times, were characters either not moving correctly, like sliding into place or out of place. There was one boss fight, where the enemy just slid out of the shot and in the cinematic, Cal was just fighting nothing. In addition I have had parts of Cal vanish when changing outfits and a number of crashes. Now there is a day one patch, which might correct some of those issues, but I can only talk about what I experienced and those issues mar things.

On the sound side though, there is some good to make up for the above bad and a lot of that comes down to the score. Of course, each of the characters, even the ones with the weird faces, were voiced very well with Cal and Merrin being the standouts to me. The pair often have some great interactions, but there is an especially touching scene and you can hear the emotion in their voices. The rest of the main cast also sound great and there are a few characters that feel like they should be in more Star Wars. Now we can’t talk about anything Star Wars and not mention the music, of which there is a lot, there are small touches of familiar motifs about the place, but a lot of it is new and exciting. Those who know me, know that I love Star Wars music and hearing some of the orchestral tracks fit right up there against some of the classic pieces, makes me smile. Hearing the DJ dropping some great tracks in the saloon, which made me think of my time in Oga’s Cantina in Batuu, also helped immerse me in Star Wars.

Star Wars Jedi Survivor is a great game, is it perfect, no it isn’t. The gameplay on offer is a very welcome refinement of the original game and has an Assassin’s Creed 2 glow-up feeling about it. A number of technical issues do mar the experience and while combat is fun and challenging, it might be to much for some players. The inclusion of the High Republic is nice, but it also feels a little forced, as if they are trying to retcon the existence into the world we know, so take that with a grain of salt. The story has some surprising turns and features a cast of characters that are quite fun to interact with, couple that with planets that offer a lot to discover, there is a lot to enjoy. Star Wars Jedi Survivor might just be the best Star Wars game to date, as the force is clearly with it.