Summary
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s world was too large for its Metroidvania-style design, creating imbalance.
- The next Star Wars Jedi game needs to implement more meaningful backtracking to avoid tedious exploration.
- The balance between scale and structure must be perfected in the next entry to ensure engaging gameplay.
Respawn Entertainment’s Star Wars Jedi series has gone down as two of the best Star Wars games ever made, with Jedi: Fallen Order leading the charge and Jedi: Survivor continuing the story of Cal Kestis and building on the foundation laid by the first game. However, while Star Wars Jedi: Survivor did make some improvements to the first game’s formula, it simultaneously threw some things out of balance by increasing the size of its world in comparison. Now, the next game in the series, currently untitled and unannounced, needs to ensure that balance is renewed.
Very little is currently known about the third entry in Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi series, but it may be even larger than Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Should it truly end up taking this approach, though, and offering players a more sizable world than its predecessor, it will need to find a way to balance its size with its Metroidvania-style design, as Jedi: Survivor saw the two characteristics working against each other. The size of Jedi: Survivor‘s world wasn’t necessarily the problem, as there have been plenty of open worlds that are much larger. Instead, it was Jedi: Survivor‘s willingness to continue Jedi: Fallen Order‘s Metroidvania-style design that ultimately brought the size of its world out of balance with its gameplay.
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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s World Was Too Large for Its Metroidvania-Style Design
One of the most exciting aspects of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor ahead of its release was its expanded exploration in comparison to Jedi: Fallen Order. With larger, more open environments like Koboh, players were promised a more rewarding exploration experience overall, with plenty of surprises to be found scattered about. However, as enticing as a much larger space was, Jedi: Survivor suffered from a disconnected world design that felt out of balance with its size, particularly when it came to its Metroidvania-style approach.
It was Jedi: Survivor‘s willingness to continue Jedi: Fallen Order‘s Metroidvania-style design that ultimately brought the size of its world out of balance with its gameplay.
At the end of the day, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s world was simply too large for its approach to Metroidvania-style level design. It’s not impossible for the two concepts to coexist, so long as they take one another into consideration. Unfortunately, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor seemed to have increased the size of its map without reworking its Metroidvania-style design to complement its larger world. With a more sizable area to explore, Jedi: Survivor obviously encouraged exploration more than its predecessor, but backtracking felt more tedious than rewarding, with ability-gated areas turning out to act more like roadblocks than natural parts of the game’s world.
The Next Star Wars Jedi Game Should Implement More Meaningful Backtracking
Much of the flaw in this design came down to Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s semi-open world structure, especially after Jedi: Fallen Order‘s linear approach made backtracking feel much more purposeful. When players revisited areas in Jedi: Fallen Order, it was often for more than simply unlocking areas that they couldn’t previously, with clear objectives or story progressions there to accommodate their return. In Jedi: Survivor, on the other hand, players were frequently required to remember where each gated area was so they could return to them later, since the story and side quests would rarely take them back to those areas.
This made backtracking in Jedi: Survivor feel more like busywork than anything else. As such, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s sequel doesn’t necessarily need to have a smaller world, so long as it has a more meaningful approach to its Metroidvania-style design. In other words, instead of simply unlocking a door that was previously inaccessible, returning to a location in the next entry should be relevant to the game’s narrative, whether that be the main quest or a side story. It could also feature new enemy encounters to make returning to the area feel like a fresh challenge.
The next entry incorporating even more valuable rewards than what Jedi: Survivor offered would be another great way to make backtracking feel purposeful.
If Star Wars Jedi 3 wants to retain the series’ Metroidvania elements, it arguably needs to ensure that exploration remains an engaging part of its gameplay rather than a chore. A larger world isn’t inherently a problem, but if the next game wants to build upon Jedi: Survivor’s foundation, it should make revisiting locations feel like a natural part of the journey rather than an obligation. Whether through more meaningful story integration, new enemy encounters, or genuinely rewarding incentives, the next Star Wars Jedi game has an opportunity to perfect the balance between scale and structure.
Action-Adventure
Soulslike
Sci-Fi
- Released
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April 28, 2023
- ESRB
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T For Teen due to Mild Language, Violence
- Publisher(s)
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Electronic Arts
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