Preview: ‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’ is ready to suck fans back in with its impressive opening hours

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The first few hours of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor are equal parts familiar and foreign. On the one hand, the follow-up to 2019’s Fallen Order isn’t looking to reinvent the wheel completely — you’ll still spend most of your time exploring strange new planets, dicing up enemies, and using the world’s two most versatile tools: Force Push and Force Pull. But, while Jedi: Survivor treads recognizable ground, it also surprises with its many additions and changes, giving players more freedom to tackle Respawn Entertainment’s next adventure as they see fit.

Picking up… (consults notes) five years after the events of Fallen Order, Cal Kestis is on a new mission to do… something. We aren’t allowed to talk too much about the story, and if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t want to. If the section of the game we played is any indicator, Cal will come across both old and new characters on his journey, and these moments are best experienced on your own. For the purposes of this preview, I can say that Cal and BD-1 are on the hunt for parts to fix up their damaged ship, and along the way, they reunite with Greez, the cantankerous yet lovable four-armed pilot fans got to know and love in Fallen Order.

As welcome as this reunion was, what really caught my attention was the shift in level design. While Fallen Order certainly had side paths and optional objectives, Jedi Survivor is upping the ante with more open environments, which can be explored and navigated as you see fit. In many ways, it’s very reminiscent of Uncharted: Lost Legacy — at its core, it’s still a linear game, but one that offers some flexibility in tackling it. Of course, it’s worth noting that, during our hands-on time with Jedi Survivor, we only came across one of these more