Highlights

  • Traditional Soulslikes don't have the issue of balancing gameplay satisfaction and player progression, but the Star Wars Jedi franchise faces this challenge as a narrative-driven action-adventure game.
  • One way Survivor's sequel could enhance gameplay and combat features is by temporarily taking away Cal's lightsaber, which could be a divisive move but would add dynamism to the game.
  • Cal has proven he can survive without the lightsaber, relying on his Force abilities and a blaster pistol, which could create an intriguing combat experience that requires strategic offensive and defensive attacks.

Each new franchise installment always has a difficult task in making gameplay more satisfying and rewarding than in previous entries while not making players too OP right from the get-go. Traditional Soulslikes don’t have this issue since they all begin with the player experiencing punishing deaths and a lack of resources or equipment, but the Star Wars Jedi franchise has an odd cross to bear being a Soulslike and a narrative-driven action-adventure game, too. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was able to get creative with how it iterated on Star Wars Jedi:Fallen Order, but iterating on Survivor may now be far more difficult.

Respawn might be able to come up with more lightsaber stances following Survivor or perhaps refine pre-existing ones further, and Respawn will deserve an incredible amount of praise for its ingenuity if Cal never turns to the dark side or indulges in newfound dark side Force abilities. However, one way that Survivor’s sequel could make gameplay more dynamic and help accentuate other combat features is if it was to steal Cal’s lightsaber away for an extended period of time. This would be divisive since lightsaber combat is a staple of the franchise, but it could be precisely what Star Wars Jedi needs right now.

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Star Wars Jedi Gameplay Would Be Interesting if Cal Didn’t Have His Lightsaber

Fallen Order’s Ordo Eris Gave a Taste of Gameplay with No Lightsaber

Respawn’s tutorial introductions for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor have both been spectacular, and a common denominator in both is that Cal couldn’t instantly brandish his lightsaber. Fallen Order opened with Cal as a Padawan refugee in hiding on Bracca, and therefore even though he had his lightsaber on his person he didn’t want to expose himself as a Jedi, until he inevitably did so in response to Prauf’s murder.

Survivor, on the other hand, opens with Cal in control of the situation as he and his new crew infiltrate Senator Sejan’s yacht on Coruscant. Here, Cal’s lightsaber is gifted to Sejan as part of Cal’s alleged capture before BD-1 unshackles him and he uses the Force to retrieve his weapon. That said, outside of these tutorial introductions there has only been one significant gameplay sequence in the series where Cal was without his lightsaber, and that was when he is inescapably abducted by the Haxion Brood in Fallen Order and taken to an underground jail on Ordo Eris.

Cal had neither his lightsaber nor BD-1 for a brief period here, where players needed to solve environmental puzzles using the Force in order to make their way out and to the surface before Cal is given back his lightsaber so he can involuntarily take part in Sorc Tormo’s gladiator arena.

Cal Has More Than Enough at His Disposal without a Lightsaber

Now, stripping Cal of his lightsaber again probably can’t be done as a gimmick since that would echo Ordo Eris too much. But if Cal needed to rely on only his Force abilities and a blaster pistol, he’d still have a decent chance against the Empire. It would be exciting to see how combat would look if players couldn’t automatically deflect blaster bolts or parry incoming melee strikes, and instead need to balance their Force meter with strategic offensive and defensive attacks.

The blaster pistol could come in handy for such a circumstance and be a weapon Cal leans on when he can’t wield a lightsaber. But there’s also a valid argument to make for Cal tossing away the inelegant weapon given to him by Survivor’s Bode Akuna, an ally-turned-foe whom Cal killed in front of the man’s daughter—with that same blaster, no less.