Highlights

  • Coruscant in Survivor served as an excellent tutorial set piece but lacked substantial content thereafter until late in the game. A sequel could expand and flesh out the planet for players to explore.
  • On the other hand, Survivor's sequel could invent a new bustling planet for Cal and his crew to explore, wiping its hands clean of Coruscant. The choice to revisit or forget Coruscant is up to Respawn.

The Star Wars Jedi franchise has blossomed into quite a rare piece of Star Wars lore and media nowadays, not only in how it blends Soulslike tendencies with action-adventure gameplay but also in how it doesn’t ever feel the need to harp on IP iconography as much as its counterparts do. This is true of which characters appear throughout Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor alike, as well as in which planets are featured.

In terms of which planets have been explorable thus far, the Star Wars Jedi franchise really hasn’t indulged in that many incredibly iconic planets. Choosing instead to concentrate on brand-new planets such as Bracca, Bogano, and Koboh, Survivor did have a cinematic introduction on one of Star Wars fans’ favorite plants, Coruscant. This planet lived up to the bustling, neon-soaked nightlife that it’s famous for, but Survivor arguably didn’t give players many reasons to hang around there afterward and a third game could rectify that.

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The Star Wars Jedi Franchise Should Spend More Time in Coruscant

Survivor’s Coruscant Wasn’t an Open World, But It Could Be

Survivor’s Coruscant didn’t play a huge role but instead made for an excellent tutorial set piece filled with emotional beats that lead up to the death of the Ninth Sister. There are a few bits of optional content players can indulge in there, but the more substantial content is locked and mysterious until much later on in Survivor once certain abilities have been learned, contributing to its Metroidvania elements.

The map is also incredibly linear despite several shortcuts and trekking back through it is only advisable if players know they have something they can actually achieve once they’ve made their way back through its scattered rooftops. Not many planets are that satisfying to explore until more of the main story is progressed for this reason, but Coruscant being as claustrophobic and linear as it is truly makes for a more tedious experience when players want to head back and see one of Star Wars’ most iconic planets again.

Still, it serves its purpose as an introductory set piece planet, and it’s up to a sequel to decide whether Coruscant is worth revisiting. It would be terrific to explore Coruscant’s streets, for instance, and brush past hundreds of NPCs of different races. There could be a cantina or two, bounty hunters to meet, and a bunch of vices to partake in if Respawn wanted to flesh it out more than it had in Survivor, let alone simply expanding the planet for players to see more of it and find more collectibles.

Star Wars Jedi Could Easily Move on and Forget Coruscant Now

On the other hand, Survivor’s sequel could wipe its hands clean of Coruscant and perhaps even invent a new, similarly bustling planet for Cal and his crew to explore. It wouldn’t make sense for Coruscant to be revisited for familiarity’s sake, and going back would have to mean that Respawn had opened it up further to allow for more exploration, hopefully somewhere on a scale close to Koboh.

Respawn deciding to make Koboh expansive was likely an experiment in how it could transition a third game into being a fully open world with travel between immense planets, but that would probably be a huge undertaking and could be detrimental to Star Wars Jedi’s popular Metroidvania design. Either way, there’s no shortage of planets Respawn hasn’t already featured that can be potential settings for its third Jedi game, though Coruscant may have been undercut a little and deserves to have a reason for Cal to go back.