Highlights
- Star Wars Jedi: Survivor successfully expands the franchise's gameplay and shows that it can explore new horizons in gaming.
- The success of Survivor suggests that Star Wars should take even greater deviations in future games, including delving into expansive and full-blown Souls-like releases.
- A potential Star Wars Souls-like game could feature a single unexplored planet, incorporate blaster and lightsaber combat, and offer a variety of builds for the protagonist.
The recently released Star Wars Jedi: Survivor did well to bring the massively popular franchise to new pastures while maintaining the core tenets of the IP. While a lot of Star Wars games have remained quite rigid in what framework of gameplay they explore, this release proved that the franchise can broaden its horizons in games.
Following the success of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the IP may be more comfortable in taking even greater deviations from what it has already explored in the gaming medium. With this in mind, it might be time for Star Wars to take a brave plunge into the world of expansive Souls-like releases even more than Fallen Order and Survivor already have.
The Unique Gameplay of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Of course, the recent Star Wars Jedi: Survivor maintained a lot of the same core gameplay as its predecessor, Fallen Order. These titles showcase a much more grounded approach to controlling a single Jedi, removed from the more bombastic elements seen in the likes of The Force Unleashed.
Because of this, Fallen Order and Survivor have a greater level of consistent difficulty, offering some of the most challenging sequences for the IP in gaming. Like its predecessor, Survivor features boss battles and open areas that can be explored at a pace set by the player. These areas can be explored numerous times, with enemies respawning upon fresh visits to a location, having a lot of similarities to the winning Souls-like games by FromSoftware.
The combat of Survivor is also quite unique for a Star Wars game, blending a mix of blaster and lightsaber combat within a single character if players chose. With the more grounded nature of the title's overall combat requiring a greater level of focus in the way of parrying and timing attacks, this formula could easily be tweaked in the pursuit of an ambitious and fully dedicated Star Wars Souls-like.
What a Full-Blown Star Wars Souls-Like Could Look Like
The Souls-like genre is becoming increasingly popular in the mainstream gaming space, with releases like Elden Ring dominating the industry. While the formula of the Jedi games is a good launching point, some tweaks are needed for a more comprehensive and faithful Souls experience. Respawn's two Jedi games have an incredible amount of Souls-like mechanics that clearly categorize it as one, but it still leans more toward a traditional action-adventure genre due to the other features that make up its gameplay loop, such as platforming.
A Star Wars Souls-like could be set on a single planet, perhaps one that has been largely unexplored in other media for the franchise. This would allow a thorough amount of lore to be put into the game's chosen location, with implicit world-building being a major element of the Souls formula. Of course, combat in a Star Wars game such as this would have to be even harder, with a kind of forgotten Sith planet being the perfect location to foster these kinds of enemies.
If this potential project maintains the same blaster combat of Survivor, then it could boast a unique blend of Dark Souls and Bloodborne elements, with lightsaber combat of course still taking center stage. The protagonist of the release could start off stranded with no equipment, having to scavenge the ancient relics of the planet for rudimentary lightsabers and armor before finding more efficient gear. In Elden Ring fashion, the planet could also be open world and the player could choose from a multitude of varied builds that may not even include a lightsaber.
A lot of Star Wars media runs the risk of sharing too many similarities between one another, despite the franchise fostering such a wide range of eras and stories. With this in mind, a Star Wars Souls-like seems like a logical game-changer for the IP given the groundwork that has already been laid by Survivor.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with PS4 and Xbox One versions in development.