Summary
Star Wars Jedi: Survivoris finally in a much different state than it was at launch. Thesequel toStar Wars Jedi: Fallen Orderhas never been free of debilitating bugs, but its rampant performance hiccups have persisted as a baked-in characteristic of it being infamously unoptimized. This was obvious when seeing thatSurvivorhad to load shaders each time it booted up and Koboh in particular has remained a sore spot for stuttering and drastic frame drops. Settings can be tweaked to have it be marginally less inconsistent and yet it has been an unfortunate blemish nonetheless.
This is an issue Respawn needs to prioritize inStar Wars Jedi: Survivor’s sequel lest it endures the same criticisms for threeStar Wars Jedigames in a row. However,Survivorintroduced a new problem as a stylistic choice that a third game must also address. Indeed,Fallen Ordermanaged to be fully cinematic as is, whereasSurvivorchose to adopt a widened aspect ratio with letterboxing in its cutscenes, perhaps as a way to emulateStar Wars’ cinematic aspect likeStar Wars Outlawsrecently has. In doing so,Survivor’s cuts, transitions, and loading screens are more noticeable and disarming than ever.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivorreleased a patch today for performance issues on PC, which specifically targets issues such as “framerate hitching for smoother gameplay” as well as removes Denuvo DRM, and thus some of the technical problems stated about the game in its recent condition have now been relieved.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s Unreliable Performance Takes Away from Its Cutscenes
Almost all transitions from gameplay to cutscenes inStar Wars Jedi: Survivorare a jarring hard-cut with an unmistakable leap to a pre-rendered cinematic. They’re noticeable both naturally and because Cal Kestis is commonly dragged toward the trigger before the cutscene’s letterboxing flattens the screen’s aspect ratio and control of the camera is locked into the cutscene’s scripted cinematography.
The icing on the cake was thatStar Wars Jedi: Survivoralso had abysmal performance issues at launchthat exacerbated transition cuts and made them far more apparent with drastic frame dips, and not much has improved since.
This could be a worrying omen fora thirdStar Wars Jedigameif the same approach to cutscenes is taken with no effort on Respawn’s part to make them more fluid so as to not disrupt immersion. If optimizing a threequel is possible, it would be great to see cutscenes implemented in a way where transitions don’t stretch visuals too much while pulling the camera into a distinct shot, let alone cutting away to something else suddenly with a new aspect ratio—not to mention a 30fps cap, which is more disconcerting the higher a player’s frame rate is normally in-game.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Slams Pyloon’s Saloon’s Doors in Cal Kestis’ Face
Asset loading is also a challenge forStar Wars Jedi: Survivor, at least while players are painstakingly attempting to enter or exit Pyloon’s Saloon and are met with multiple loading screens disguised as slow door animations. This wouldn’t be egregious to have to sit through countless times as players revisit Pyloon’s if not for all the other performance issues they’re grappling with at the same time, compounding all of them in and around Rambler’s Reach’s cantina as well as the Stinger Mantis’ landing pad. Loading screens are inescapable and justifiable, but how dogged they are can hopefully be mitigated in a sequel that will likely launch on next-gen platforms.
Overall,Survivoris a phenomenalStar Warsgame that is bogged down by performance and optimization grievances and it’d be a shame if its follow-up shares the same fate. A third game may not be excusable with the same issues present and Respawn has been fortunate thatFallen OrderandSurvivorare both well-received, though performance has never beena strong suit of theStar Wars Jedifranchiseand it’d be refreshing to see that tradition upended.
