Jedi: Survivor (Spoilers!) - Third-Person Action/Adventure - Video Gaming

Several years after the events of Fallen Order Cal Kestis has to reconnect with old friends and find a new purpose in life.

Spoiler Review

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was very positively received 3 1/2 years ago by gamers and Star Wars fans. Fallen Order was somewhat of a reaction by publisher EA to the very controversial release of Star Wars Battlefront II and its loot boxes, gambling mechanics and insane grind required to unlock popular characters for multiplayer. Fallen Order also followed on the heels of former statements by EA that "single player games are dead". Of course they were wrong. Fallen Order sold very well and reception was very positive. However, and I need to say this before I begin with my review of the sequel, I am one of the few people who have a much worse opinion of Fallen Order. In my opinion it was a severely undercooked game that is basically extremely mediocre and were it not for the Star Wars skin it would probably not have done very well. And sadly, Jedi Survivor, while improved, is bigger, (somewhat) better, but also just more of the same with all the same issues as Fallen Order. So if you expect a glowing review of a game that is once more (outside of severe performance issues, more about that soon) generally well received I have to disappoint. I have a lot of criticisms and I will try to explain in my review why I feel both Fallen Order and Survivor are undercooked games that are essentially very mediocre and vastly inferior to similar games.

I hope you like sand

Let's talk about technical aspects first. I played the game on PC and yes, performance is horrible. Now it is not unplayable (at least on my system), but you get frequent stutters, framerates can drop massively while exploring, depending on where you are, transitions to cutscenes are stuttery, all the time, and on top of that there was also one annoying bug I encountered late into the game. Cal could not jump anymore. I hoped this would resolve on its own, but it didn't. So I quit the game and reloaded. Only to find 20 minutes of progress (the beginning of the level) had been wiped. This was the only more severe bug I encountered, however, other people report corrupted save games that wipe progress entirely. Outside of that some people even failed to properly install the game in the first place. So beware. Even with yet another patch that was released for PC earlier this week performance is still very bad and the bug I encountered was with the patch. Performance on consoles is also very spotty, but the PC port has the most glaring issues.

This is inexcusable and unforgivable for a 70 USD/Pounds/Euro game. Sadly, this is also the new normal. So many recent AAA PC titles had severe technical issues at launch. Jedi Suvivor needed another few weeks at least to iron out the performance issues and bugs... yet they released it anyway. And it works. According to EA sales beat expectations and Survivor sells even better than Fallen Order. As long as people still buy unfinished, buggy games developers and especially studios that determine release dates will not change their tactics. Do NOT buy Jedi Survivor just yet. Wait until there are more patches. Actually, I'd recommend you wait for a sale, because, as I will try to explain, this game is thoroughly mediocre and not worth the 70 USD/Pounds/Euro.

The game does look pretty enough, it's an Unreal Engine 4 game, so it's the usual. Nothing spectacular, but looking really good. It's what you know from countless other triple AAA Unreal Engine titles. That being said Survivor suffers from the same things Star Wars as a whole is suffering, at times extremely monotonous and boring world design, because Star Wars is obsessed with arid desert planets. So expect lots of arid landscapes and deserts here. And lots of sand. I hope you like sand!

Even the main hub world Koboh is mostly arid, rocky, beige terrain with some green sprinkled in here and there at least

Let's quickly talk about world/level design. Jedi Survivor is basically God of War (2018 and Ragnarok) with a Star Wars skin. You get the relatively massive hub world that consists of various interconnected corridors and some more open spaces that give the illusion of a more open world, but it really is not, it's just a glorified corridor level and then you get locations for various main missions that are set in corridor levels. The next largest planet in the game is Jedha, but already considerably smaller, which is yet another combination of more open spaces (that are just empty nothing, it's a desert after all) with some ruins and structures here and there and corridors funneling you to your destination - and all the other planets in this game are just corridors, at times somewhat complex corridors, but corridors nonetheless. Some late game "planets" are very small too, an ISB base you need to visit is a small space station and the end game planet, the one planet you have been looking for all this time... is a short path to a temple that is basically just a battle arena for the final boss fight. In short: it is very underwhelming.

A literal corridor in one of the many corridor levels, this is on the late game ISB base

And world design leads me to one of my major criticisms of this game. It feels fake. Let me try to explain. I prefer games that are at least somewhat immersive. In Red Dead Redemption 2 the Wild West feels like a real place, a real location, an actual world. In Cyberpunk 2077 Night City feels like an actual city where people could actually live in. Not so in Survivor. Survivor feels like a parcours theme park with a Star Wars skin. And this is because of the basic gameplay mechanics that make this game entirely about parcours and traversal. Everything feels fake. Very video gamey. It feels more like Super Mario where he jumps on mushrooms than a video game world like in Red Dead Redemption 2. When I play a game like Survivor I want to believe I am in this world. Especially when it's Star Wars. And not playing a game. Sadly, Survivor (just like Fallen Order before) never feels real at all, it always feels like a video game.

You find these convenienty placed birdlike critters everywhere, they carry you to destinations you can otherwise not reach or serve as a shortcut

What do I mean by that? Since Survivor is all about the parcours and traversal and all about the wall running, grate or vine climbing, double jumping, grappling and rope swinging it means you find these grates, vines, walls and other things that are required to get you from A to B in this game everywhere. You also need the assistance of critters sometimes, there are sequences where you need to fly somewhere, and you do this by holding on to a birdlike creature that is conveniently placed, just waiting for you to come along, so it can carry you to your destination. Those birds also only allow you to fly to one place really, as soon as you try to steer it away too far you will find it will lose its stamina and drop you to your death. How the various walls with telltale scratches (so you know you can wallrun them), grates to climb etc are placed make this world look very video gamey. Not real. Getting from A to B in this game is always a trial, a puzzle, you have to figure out how to wallrun, jump and climb to reach a certain location. That can also include things like a Jawa Sandcrawler, where the local Jawas live. And then you wonder... how do THEY get from A to B or anywhere really? When there is no easy or convenient way to get there or away from there?

And all the critters that are conveniently placed make this even more of a glaring issue. Why would these creatures wait for you at this particular spot? And respawn immediately? Yes, for gameplay reasons, you need to reach a place you have to fly to... but the basic design behind that, hold on to the legs of a bird creature, is extremely unimmersive. It does not feel real, it feels video gamey fake.

The entire game is held back by the basic design decision to make this game entirely about parcours and traversal and figuring out how to get from A to B. It's so video gamey that the entire world feels fake, or as I said, like a parcours theme park with a Star Wars skin. Other games that are about parcours integrate it much better and manage to make the world still look real. Assassin's Creed is a prime example here. Or the Tomb Raider reboot games. Here Lara has to climb and jump and swing all the time time too, just like Cal, but the overall world design still feels "real". You believe the locations in Tomb Raider (or Assassin's Creed) could actually exist. I never once believed that any of the locations in Survivor could actually exist. Everything feels too contrived and silly at times.

Even God of War, which is basically the same game, only with a Viking theme and a much better story, feels more real and more believable than Survivor.

It would not have to be like this. One easy solution is, for a start, to get rid of the critters flying Cal to remote places he can't reach otherwise. Give Cal a glider like Aloy in Horizon Forbidden West. And if you want to limit the use of the glider make it so it can only really carry you to a faraway place if there is an updraft or strong wind, making sure you can't just fly anywhere, if you don't want that for your game. Fact is, there ARE updrafts in the game you need to activate sometimes for the bird to be able to carry you to your destination. So why not have Cal use a glider instead? Something that is believable?

And overwork the parcours or traversal system, now I believe the focus on traversal is entirely the wrong decision anyway. Survivor is basically an 8 hour game maybe with 20-30 hours of just trying to get from A to B. And in those 20-30 hours you will have to not only try to figure out how to get from A to B in the first place, you then have to time your jumps, wallruns, rope swings and whatnot very precisely or else you have to do it all over again, because you fall and either die or have to go back to the starting point. It's not that it is overly difficult, it just feels tedious and after a certain point, when you realize what rewards you are getting, pretty pointless.

Traversal can be fun in other games of course. There are different approaches. In Red Dead Redemption 2 traversal is a non issue, you ride your horse from A to B, no challenge (unless you ride your horse into a tree and fall off). What makes traversal in RDR2 fun though is that a) you can gather plants on the way that you need for your potions and recipes b) you can come across some wild animal you need to hunt for resources and c) you frequently meet "random strangers", these can be short encounters sometimes and you hear a pretty interesting tale or it can evolve into some kind of mini mission. You also meet the same strangers again some time later (some of them), which means traversal in RDR2 gives you things to do and you never know what to expect, because a random stranger event could completely change your plans. You can even come across secrets, like the wolfman in the forest.

In games like God of War where you have to figure out environmental puzzles as well, climb and jump (again, Survivor is very similar to the recent God of War games) going from A to B becomes interesting because a) the level design is usually gorgeous b) you frequently meet enemies that are fun to fight and c) at the end of your trip you very often find a chest with a meaningful reward, like a new piece of armor that improves your stats.

Yet another approach is the Spider-Man / Batman way of doing things. Where traversal is super, super easy, but also super, super fun. I fast traveled in Spider-Man only once, just to see what it's like (he rides the subway), but other than that I always swung from building to building because rope swinging / web slinging, while super easy to learn, is extremely exhilarating and just plain good old fun. Spider-Man can even perform some flourishes to make it a little more fun even. And Batman gliding above Gotham, looking for criminals, then dive bombing and slamming into the ground never gets old either. It's just good old fun. 

Compared to that traversal in Survivor feels like a chore, like hard work. Traversal is usually very unforgiving, if you do not time your countless wall runs or jumps or other mechanics just right you will fail. Which means you need to try again. But after a while you learn how to do it and it's not that difficult really. But still bothersome. Now this would not be THAT much of an issue if at the end of your trial you would be rewarded. Only you are not. Not really.

Sometimes a nasty surprise waits for you while exploring

So let me talk about loot for a brief moment. Loot is mostly pointless in this game. The only traversal rewards that matter are skill points, perks and perk slots and health/force upgrades, but the overwhelming majority of loot you find is cosmetic stuff like outfits, outfit colors, lightsaber, droid and blaster pieces. And none of the parts or outfits you find do anything. Even worse... many times you find beards and hairstyles in crates (which is yet another extremely unimmersive gameplay feature). Compared to a game like God of War this is thoroughly underwhelming, here your gear has stats and finding better gear can be extremely rewarding, or finding talismans or just upgrade materials for your gear etc. But since Survivor is NOT an RPG and has no gear system it means everything you find is just cosmetic stuff. Imagine my joy for finding a horribly looking 1970s pornstar moustache in a crate after trying to reach it for some time.

And the developers apparently know how annoying their traversal system and incessant parcours is. Because once you master one traversal challenge you immediately unlock a shortcut (a door, a zipline, an elevator, anything) that allows you to circumvent the challenge if you need to return, and you need to return a lot in this game. The map will also be eventually covered in fast travel meditation points. And yes, meditation points are still Dark Souls bonfires, resting respawns all enemies. On death you also lose all your current XP to the next skill point you need to retrieve again from the place you died or from defeating the enemy who defeated you.     

Which brings us back to world/level design and how unimmersive and bad it is: if you encourage players to never bother with going from A to B again, because it is usually such a chore and hassle, and instead offer shortcuts immediately after finishing one challenge in addition to dozens and dozens of fast travel points then your basic world design and overall traversal mechanics are just bad. Compared to the traversal in games like Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man or even God of War the traversal in Survivor is tedious and unrewarding, because at best you may find a skill point, at worst you will find a pornstache...

So either make traversal easy and fun... or make it rewarding when it's challenging, In Survivor it's neither.

Don't even try this optional traversal challenge if you value your life

The epitome of unimmersive bullshit traversal is one optional force tear (it's never explained what it really is, it just transports you to a combat or navigation challenge you can complete to get exactly one skill point) with a parcours challenge in space. If you think it looks like a hot mess in the screenshot, then yes, it is a hot mess. I gave up after 20 minutes. Yes, the "git gud" crowd may lap it up and feel good about themselves when they manage it after the 50th attempt. I have no time for this. At least this parcours challenge is entirely optional.

But let's return to the unimmersive nature of this game. It's not just that the game feels like a parcours theme park with a Star Wars skin, the characters that populate this world feel like theme park animatronics that only come to life if a photoreceptor senses your approach.

She is dead inside

Just like in Fallen Order the NPCs in this game have no routines. Which means they sit or stand still and do basically nothing unless you approach them, then they spring to life for a brief chat with you only to return to their vegetative state once you leave. In fact most NPCs even stop blinking their eyes outside of conversations with Cal. I observed not just the Twi'Lek named Toa, but countless NPCs... Cal just stood there and did not activate them by talking to them and none of the NPCs even blink once. They feel like zombies. Once Cal does talk to them they blink. And then they stop blinking again. Suvivor places the NPCs in somewhat different locations here and there each time you return after a mission, at least in the cantina. But otherwise characters can remain in one place forever. They do nothing. They just stand there. This is atrocious NPC behaviour that even more emphasizes the fake video gamey feeling the world has. Nothing feels real. Even major NPCs like Merrin are lifeless automatons outside of conversation. And even Merrin did not blink. However, after the most recent patch Merrin has suddenly started blinking, but not the minor NPCs. So maybe it is yet another bug. But blinking or not, the NPCs in this game never really feel real, they feel like quest givers only (if they even have a quest for you, which is most of the time just a map marker for a place you can find on your own). This is a far cry from a truly immersive experience like in Red Dead Redemption 2 where even minor unnamed NPCs have routines or a story driven RPG like Mass Effect where companions have meaningful interactive conversations with you.        .

Even main NPCs have no routines and just stand or sit there, at best with some basic idle animations

Another thing about the world is that your traversal mechanics are extremely limited at first. For the most part of the game the main hub world, Koboh (you will spend most of your time there), feels like a Star Wars parcours theme park where 80% of all attractions are closed for maintenance. You feel a certain disappointment. You see, traversal mechanics that are essential are locked behind story progress. And you only unlock all the mechanics you need close to the end of the game. They apparently want you to finish the story first and to explore after that. I am no fan of that. The number of barriers you can't pass or environmental puzzles you can't solve is staggering. The useless holomap does at least highlight all doors and other barriers you can't pass in red. Your map will have many many red elements.

And this is another major issue. There are so, so many doors you can't open or barriers you can't pass through and so many other gadgets you can't activate that it is quite likely that you won't bother with exploration anymore at all after realising so many areas are inaccessible and instead beeline your way through the story, so you can finally go everywhere you want to go. Survivor is dangling all these passages and areas you can't access in front of your nose all the time. But you can't reach them. And this can be very frustrating. So why bother exploring before you have all the upgrades and skills needed? But when you do have them all the game is almost over. Of course you can explore what the game allows you to explore... but expect to find a door with "no entry" (figuratively speaking) every 10 meters or so. In my opinion this is very bad level design. Let's compare that to a game like God of War, both the 2018 release and Ragnarok. Here too certain areas or regions are locked behind story progress, but in God of War it is implemented in a way that not only feels more immersive or natural, it is also much, much less frustrating. Because while you do find the occasional chest you can't open yet or a conspicuous rock you know you can probably crack open, but need the right tool for it, most of the time you unlock inaccessible parts of the world in a much smarter way. In fact, many times you may not even know there are inaccessible regions, the game does not constantly dangle things in front of your nose you can't reach.

In God of War you unlock major regions or areas not by learning new traversal skills, but by changing the environment through story progress. In the 2018 game you will at first never know that the major hub world (Midgard) has so many more things to explore, because at first the water level of the central lake is pretty high. But as the story progresses you will lower the water level, revealing completely new areas you never even knew existed. In Ragnarok you come across a crater region and here too certain passages are blocked or inaccessible. But again, you don't need any new skills really, what you do here is you learn (through story progress) how to access certain shrines that (magically) change the time of day, i.e. at night certain plants retreat that otherwise create barriers when it's day. This is much less frustrating than how things are done in Survivor where you may as well stop exploring altogether and postpone it until you are done with the story. Unless you just love backtracking three or four times to the same places again and again.

A quick word about the map and finding your way... the map is mostly useless for that. You can place map markers, but those are not displayed while exploring. What this game lacks is an optional pathfinder option, some Jedi sense, that shows you the direction you need to go to find a beacon, map marker or other place. In Ghost of Tsushima subtle enviromental clues will lead the way on demand, the wind blows, leaves are blown by the wind etc, all in the direction of where you must be headed, without pinpointing the exact location, but at least you know where to go. This is one of the most immersive pathfinding systems I know. In Hogwarts Legacy you can have your wand create a golden thread that will help you navigate the confusing Hogwarts corridors. Now if you hate those navigation aids, don't use them, but offer them for people who want them. This game can be very inaccessible at times and needlessly complicated. If the map was better this would not be so much of an issue, but sadly, it is still mostly useless.              

Another thing this game fails to do is to properly communicate if you do lack an essential traversal mechanic required to solve one of the countless traversal challenges or puzzles to unlock certain things. At one point I wanted to get to the Jawa Sandcrawler that was clearly visible a short distance away, maybe 50 meters or so... and I had to jump to yet another grated wall, but a fan was blowing between Cal and the wall he had to jump to. And it turns out the fan blows Cal to the side, making it impossible for him to reach the wall. A better game would then make it very obvious that you lack a certain skill. In God of War your companion will usually comment and say that you probably lack a tool to solve some puzzle, in an immersive way. Other games have the protagonist talk to themselves. Here it is never made entirely clear if a) you are doing it just wrong or b) if you need to find a way to maybe turn off the fan or c) if you need an ability. It is of course the ability you are lacking, you need the dash ability you only learn later. Cal merely comments that with the fan blowing he can't reach the other side. It does not say that you need a skill and not just find a way to a button or so that disables the fan, which would be a plausible way to solve this certain environmental puzzle. And this happens way too often. Since traversal in this game is so incredibly finicky and wrong timing will let you fail you sometimes don't know if you are just doing it wrong... or if you are missing something. The game should always make it obvious you need a skill if you can't progress. Because at times it looks as if you should be able to jump here and there... and you barely reach the other side or the object... and you wonder if you just need to time it right. But no. You need a new skill/gadget. But the game never tells you this. This is bad game design, in my opinion. What it does better than other games is that puzzle hints are only on demand. Many other games have the characters blurt out the hint almost immediately, as if you are an imbecile who does not understand what the game requires you to do (sometimes this happens of course, but not all the time). Here, if you get stuck, the game will eventually ask you if Cal should give a hint by talking to himself. You can say "no, thanks" and keep figuring it out for yourself. 

The game has very, very imbalanced gameplay. In story missions, i.e. when you need to reach a story location, the gameplay consists of maybe 80-90% traversal and maybe 10% combat. There is surprisingly little combat in this game. In free roam you do encounter enemies more frequently, but sadly, even then it's often little fun.

So let's talk about combat: we all have certain ideas about how lightsabers work. We see it in the movies and shows. Forget about all that, Cal's lightsaber is an entirely different thing: a) it barely makes any damage b) it cannot cut through doors and there are countless silly "only opens from the other side" shortcut doors in this game you absolutely should be able to cut through, Qui-Gon Jin melted his way through a massive blast door even in The Phantom Menace. In this game, like in Fallen Order, even basic animals often require more than one hit before they die, they mostly die easily still, but why would I even have to hit some worm thingy three or four times? Well, because the devs think one hit kills may be boring, so they make everyone and everything somewhat resistant to lightsabers.

Of course you also get cannon fodder, basic stormtroopers and small annoying critters that usually go down after one or two, three strikes, but most enemies are much more resistant to the saber. This becomes absurd in boss fights where you hack and slash and hack and slash and leave countless marks on your humanoid opponent... and they don't go down. Yes, this is a video game, I know. But I feel the fundamental approach is wrong here. Lightsabers should be extremely lethal. One solution: get rid of all the annoying small critters that are no challenge whatsoever, have your enemies be sentient beings or droids and make it so that they have weapons that can block your saber attacks and they only have a stamina bar, that would function as the life bar here. And once the stamina bar is depleted your single successful hit kills the target. To make it more like a lightsaber in the movies works. Here enemies have both stamina and health bars. You need to whittle away the stamina bar, then you can make some damage by actually hitting your target with your saber, the stamina bar miraculosuly resets for the enemy, rinse and repeat. This feels very, very wrong and I genuinely dislike how lightsabers are handled in this game. Just make it so you duel or fight someone, the enemy can block or dodge everything or deflect it and once the stamina is depleted you land the killing blow.

NPCs idle at their assigned place in the cantina until you approach them for a two or three sentence non interactive quick conversation, sometimes you get a new map marker with a rumor after the exchange, but you can find all these places on your own too. NPC behaviour is about on the same level as in ancient titles like KOTOR

Also, this game has severe issues with difficulty scaling. You see, combat is either super annoyingly easy, small critters, normal stormtroopers, B1 battle droids, a mild inconvenience when you encounter B2 droids or the more advanced droids or some mid level human baddies and then it gets impossibly difficult when you encounter either a legendary enemy or have to endure a boss fight. There is nothing inbetween. So combat is either braindead easy... or annoyingly, stupidly difficult.  

In games with the Batman Arkham combat style, Batman, Shadow of Mordor or Mad Max you can get into a flow, combat is fluid, intuitive, easy to understand but somewhat challenging to master, but always extremely satisfying. In God of War, where enemies are usually a lot tougher than in the Arkham style games, combat too eventually becomes very fluid, very intuitive and you can, once you are in the flow, defeat waves and waves of enemies with fun combos, skills and abilities.

And in Jedi Survivor? Combat is either over after 10 seconds or degenerates into a hectic chaotic mess, you never ever reach this zen like flow like in Batman or God of War or even Ghost of Tsushima, everyone shoots at you from all angles, the melee enemies rush you, there are NO indicators for incoming enemy fire or incoming enemies at all, there are NO parry or counter indicators, this game wants to be too much Dark Souls when it would be much more fitting if it took cues from God of War (which is, again, basically the same game, when we talk about gameplay mechanics and combat), Ghost of Tsushima or even the Batman style combat.

Also, Cal has very poor crowd control. His force powers feel woefully weak. It takes a long, long time before Cal even "remembers" how to use lift and slam. So for the longest time you have bullet time slowmo effect (only good for one or two hits though), dominate mind (making enemies fight for you for a short time), push and pull. And sadly, push and pull do very little on most enemies. Yes, you can push basic enemies over a cliff egde, which is fun and never gets old, but anyone who is not a basic grunt is usually somewhat resistant to push and pull. Even droids. Which makes no sense. You do get a strong version of push and pull... the issue here is... this only works early, when the enemy is not rushing you like crazy. The strong versions have an enormously long wind up period and one single hit by an enemy will interrupt it.

Once I had lift, I tried the classic force lift / force push combo. And even that is woefully underpowered. Or lift and slam. Basic grunts will die easily, usually, but most enemies either only lose a tiny portion of their stamina or at best a little bit of health. Also, Cal can push enemies only a very short distance, even if they hover in the air. And several enemies he can hardly push or pull at all. 

The sad truth is that a bionic character in Mass Effect is a more fun and better Jedi than an actual Jedi in a Star Wars game. Mass Effect has powerful bionic (and other) combos, when you lift an enemy here and then push him he gets yeeted to the next solar system. As it should be. Combat in Mass Effect, especially in ME 3 and Andromeda, is very much fun. Using bionic powers feels satisfying and combat is still not super easy most of the time, but feels very satisfying. In Jedi Survivor the force powers feel pathetic and weak in comparison. There are no combos really, you can't prime enemies with elemental effects, even the classic lift and then push or slam does very little. If you are lucky you can push enemies over a cliff, if no cliff is near... you may as well not bother with the combo.

The game also has a new feature, lightsaber stances, these offer fundamentally different fighting styles. A good idea. You get the classic one lightsaber stance, the double lightsaber stance, the heavy broadsword stance, a stance with a lightsaber and blaster combo etc. And all these styles feel fundamentally different. Good! This makes things interesting. But then the game limits you by only allowing you to equip two stances at a time, and you can only do so while meditating. Why not give Cal access to all stances all the time with different stances better against certain enemy types?

Ghost of Tsushima, another game that is very, very similar to Survivor, has all that. You can change stances on the fly, and you have to, because stances are more effective against certain enemy types. Combat is of course also much more fluid here, even if hectic at times.

Then there are unimmersive nonsense combat mechanics that make no sense. In the blaster stance your blaster only has 6 or 10 bullets. For gameplay reasons only of course. But how do you recharge your blaster you ask? The ONLY way to recharge the blaster is by attacking an enemy with your lightsaber. Somehow, through magic or so, lightsaber attacks transfer energy to your blaster... I don't get it why the developers decided to make the game so unimmersive. If you want to limit blaster use make it so that the thing overheats after firing a certain number of shots, introduce a cooldown period, basically what Mass Effect did in the first game. Come up with ANY mechanic that makes actual sense, in-universe. It needs to be plausible at least. And lightsaber attacks charging a blaster are not it. It's the single worst option you can come up with.

At times you do get companions in the game who help you fight. Either Merrin or new character Bode. Sadly, as with almost anything else, this is severely undercooked and underdeveloped. The companions are strong enough, they can kill enemies on their own, they also never seem to go down, but you only get very, very basic commands for your companions, you tell them to attack a certain target, that's it. You can't activate abilities or skills or anyhing.

Compare that to a game like God of War, where Atreus may be annoying at times, but he can be pretty useful in combat (or Freya as a companion in Ragnarok), by drawing enemies away from you, priming them for combos etc. Or the pretty great Guardians of the Galaxy game where you had full command over your squad and could ask them to use abilities and skills and it worked beautifully in tandem with your own skills and weapons. Not so here. The companion system is super basic in Survivor. At best they very occcasionally help you with traversal or by taking out an enemy, there is no complexity here. You also never get go choose a companion, only some missions or worlds will give you companions and the game always picks the companion for you. What Survivor would need is a more complex companion system like in God of War or like your squad mates in Mass Effect or Guardians of the Galaxy, where there is synergy, where your companion(s) can prime enemies for combos, Merrin would be a perfect fit here with her Nightsister powers, but none of that is ever used.

At times you are not alone and have a friend by your side, here Cal is with his space witch waifu Merrin

The game is also guilty of a pretty common gaming sin... defeat by cutscene. In various boss fight sequences you can even be the most skilled player in the world and dodge all incoming damage and mop the floor even with Darth Vader. Only to get defeated in a cutscene, because the plot demands it. Survivor is not the only game which does this, but it's still super lazy and very annoying.

This late game duel between Cere and Vader is ultimately pointless

In a late game sequence you must play as Cere who encounters Darth Vader. And you already know what that means. You cannot win. At best you can expect a draw. Yet the game requires you to bring down Vader's health bar and once you have removed a sufficiently large chunk a cutscene is triggered. Rinse and repeat a few times. And the final cutscene results in ultimate defeat. This follows almost immediately after a similar boss encounter for Cal where he is defeated by cutscene. Why game devs still do this is beyond me. Again, a game like Ghost of Tsushima does it a lot better, here you duel the main villain very early in the game, but so early in the game almost no one will be able to beat him, naturally, you are not defeated by cutscene, but because you simply lack the skills and abilities required. Funny enough, you CAN defeat Khan in the game, but he doesn't acknowledge it, granted, the average normal gamer will never ever beat the boss here. So the basic gameplay mechanic is far superior. When you get defeated you are defeated because you lack the skill or power... not because a cutscene demands it.

Merrin and Cal ride a "spamel", yes they named the Dali inspired space camel a "spamel" in this game, hilarious

Another very annoying aspect of combat is that from small critters to all the bigger threats the enemies have way too many unblockable attacks. While it is somewhat believable for more massive monsters it's utterly ridiculous when it's space chicken. Yes, in this game space chicken can kill you, because the second they see you they become aggressive and rush you with an unblockable charge. You can dodge of course. But the very concept of space chicken with unblockable attacks is just silly.

Half a dozen stormtroopers are no match for a couple of space chicken who kill them all, I guess it's supposed to be funny

The countless unblockable attacks, announced by a red glowing enemy, mean you will hectically dodge a lot. You can get a skill that interrupts even unblockable red attacks, but you need to have your timing perfected for that. Normal attacks can be parried or countered, and timed right you can stagger enemies even. But overall combat is either braindead or a hectic, chaotic, uneven mess. Enemies are either entirely too easy, or entirely too difficult or tedious. Survivor should not try to be Dark Souls lite.

Let's talk about companions and story... and sadly, things are undercooked here too. In the beginning of the game all of your old friends are gone, for whatever reason, the game never truly explains in detail why you all went your separate ways. Merrin wanted to see the galaxy, Cere wanted to do her own Jedi thing, Greez left... still don't know why... to open a cantina on Koboh. So you have an all new crew early in the game. Only one of the new characters, Bode, will stay by your side for the rest of the game (more or less). Everyone else dies during the first mission. The game wants you to feel something here, but since you never even knew the characters and have no connection to them from any previous game their demise felt pretty hollow, it did little for me.

The one new main companion is Bode Akuna, who is someone who works for Saw Gerrera, Cal works for Saw too, trying to help the cause, but we never meet or see Saw in this game. Bode has a jetpack and at one point Cal wishes he had one too... not just you Cal, because a jetpack would mean I could spare myself the hassle of getting from A to B in this game.

But eventually all your old friends return, you are reunited with Greez first, then a bit later you are finally reunited with everyone's favourite space witch: Merrin. And Cere is met not much later.

The characters in the game are interesting, in theory. Cal is of course the most developed character here and his inner struggles with life after the Jedi Order are pretty well written. The companions are still pretty good, but sadly, there is very, very limited interaction with them in the game. What do I mean? Proper RPGs like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, even action RPG games like Cyberpunk give you long and detailed conversations with companions, you can choose from dialogue options and learn about them in great detail. Not so here.

Character cutscenes are usually pretty short and not all that much is said. When Merrin and Cal reunite there are short, sweet moments when they have to camp and Merrin rests her head on Cal's shoulder or gently takes his hand when they fall asleep, but there are very, very few of these moments. And then only in cutscenes really. Outside of cutscenes interactions with characters are just woefully pathetic. Even a major character like Merrin will do the same thing any other NPC does... stand in one place. Either the cantina on Koboh, the ship, the archive on Jedha, whatever... Cal can then approach her and activate a conversation. That conversation usually consists of one sentence, maybe two. And that's it. if you are lucky Cal will reply which results in another short sentence by the NPC. No interaction exists here, usually.

Survivor would be in dire need of a proper dialogue system where, if you want to, you can engage your friends and potential love interests in somewhat longer and deeper conversations. If you played Cyberpunk think of the character side mission Pyramid Song with V and Judy when they explore the bottom of a reservoir and find Judy's old sunken neighbourhood. And the very long conversation they have and the moments they share. Judy feels real, the friendship or romance, depending on player choice, feels actually somewhat deep and real too. Not so in Survivor. Yes, all space witch waifu fans can rejoice, because Merrin and Cal become a couple in the game. But in the most shallow way. At one point Merrin kisses Cal in a cutscene out of the blue (no interaction required). Quite a while later Cal can approach Merrin and try to talk about it, which results in a six word reply or so (she does not want to talk)... much later again Bode will tell Cal to live a little and to go for Merrin... and then Cal will, again, in a cutscene, no interaction required, tell Merrin that he wants to be with her and she says "took you long enough". Which is all the reply you get. And voila... you are a couple now. There are maybe three cutscene kisses in total in the game between the two. That's your romance. There really is no cute or romantic banter between them outside of missions (or at all). This felt so incredibly underwritten and underdeveloped... like almost everything else in this game. Compare that with the romances in Cyberpunk, Witcher, Dragon Age or Mass Effect.

Or think of super fun companion quests in Red Dead Redemption 2, at one point you and Lenny go to the local saloon and get royally pissed and it's not just a great bonding experience, but also incredibly funny, especially when a super drunk Arthur tries to find Lenny. So his eventual death hits home much more. All of that is completely missing here. The game feels very barebones at times, as if it is a mid budget game with AAA veneer.   

An actual romance in Star Wars... between a man and a woman... a rare thing these days

Interactions with Cere are also rather limited. Merrin gets the most screen time, then Bode, the two also are your only companions who sometimes are by your side in either combat or free roam. Sadly, there is not that much banter when you are with them. The interaction with Bode (a cutscene of course) where he tells Cal to live a little and to go for Merrin is one of the few moments where we have some meaningful conversation while with a companion.

Interactions with characters basically boil down to this... most will be on the cantina on Koboh. You do a mission, you return, a super unimmersive pop up window informs you that new conversations wait for you (imagine the same in Red Dead Redemption 2 when you return to camp, you KNEW there would be conversations, the game made if blatantly obvious and no pop up text boxes were required)... you approach all the NPCs, including Merrin etc., in the cantina. They give you their short replies, with usually zero dialogue options for Cal, rinse and repeat. And most of the tales you hear are very, very boring or pointless even. Or you endure the entire backstory of a former smuggler, as a reward he will give you access to his storage room in the cantina... and what do you find? Anything awesome? No. You find one music track for the DJ he can subsequently play for you. This after 10 or so conversations with the former smuggler.

I suspect the game does give you the text box because NPC behaviour is so non-existent in this game that there are no visual or audio clues in the cantina that an NPC has a new conversation. Whereas the camp in RDR2 was a place where people did things, they ate, and you decided to join them for dinner and you had a chat, they sat around the campfire and someone told a tale or played a song on the guitar, you always knew where there would be (new) dialogue or interactions with characters.    Some characters approached you even, engaged you in conversation. Not so here in Jedi Survivor. None of those things exist in this game. Talking to NPCs in Survivor does not feel organic like in almost any other game, but like a checklist. And if you never talked to anyone... you would not miss a single thing. Other than the occasional location of a rumour aka side mission (kind of). You merely get a map marker for a place that has a moustache or hobo outfit for you in a crate. After endless traversal or environmental puzzle solving of course.        

If you played Guardians of the Galaxy you know what an excellent conversation system can also look like or how fun and engaging banter while on missions or exploring can be. Survivor feels like a pale copy in comparison. Again, I feel Respawn chose an entirely wrong genre for their Star Wars games. It should be an (action) RPG with a dialogue system like in Mass Effect or Guardians of the Galaxy. And imagine the cantina was more like the camp in Read Dead Redemption 2. Sadly, the characters feel paper thin here. And they never do anything really.

Still, it is a pleasant surprise that the game made Merrin and Cal a thing, especially in light of books/comics that turned Merrin into a lesbian (of course) at first and later into a "pansexual" (of course) even though Fallen Order already gave off VERY strong Cal/Merrin vibes. None of that stuff you can find in books or comics is even hinted at here, it does not exist. It's never mentioned. Or even remotely implied. Merrin immediately comes across as someone who wants to be with Cal from the very moment they reunite on Jedha. And Cal is also apparently very much in love with her, but in denial for a bit, because he's a "Jedi" who don't do attachments... but he changes his mind of course. Who wouldn't when it's Merrin.

The villains in this game are a mixed bag... the game has two false villains who are not really THE villains. A High Republic Jedi who was in a bacta tank for 200 years and who immediately turns dark side upon awakening. He is super angry because back then he was involved with getting to the fabled planet, even managed to do so, but then the Nihil came, the Order abandoned everything and the villain felt sour about that and this made him evil. Whatever... Then there is his henchman, some alien who can regenerate and is the boss of the local raiders. The basic motivation for the enemy is rather weak, he wants to return to the planet that is inaccessible because of a space anamoly. And he wants to use it as a base to train new warriors and to defeat the Empire so he can have his own little Empire. Whereas Cal and the others want to use the planet as a refuge and safe haven for the countless refugees and Jedi survivors. But late in the game you learn that those two were not the real villains, no the real villain is... drumroll... Bode... yes, the game of course has a twist... Bode is kind of an antagonist. And why is he at odds with Cal? Well, Bode has a daughter and he wants to use that fabled planet as his secret home so the Empire can never find him or his daughter again. It turns out Bode was a Jedi once, but after Order 66 he was captured, he cut a deal with the ISB who use him as a secret agent for their own purposes. The planet was Bode's way out. None of which would mean he should be at cross purposes with Cal and his friends really... were it not for the fact that Bode does not want to share the planet with the "cause", he does not want Cal and the others to use the planet as a haven for refugees, because he fears this will only attract the Empire who may find the planet eventually. This is his entire rationale for betraying the team and for killing Cere and the old Jedi Master Cordova from the first game.   

The difference of opinion here felt pretty weak and rather contrived. Bode himself is a pretty good character overall, he is somewhat believable, at least as far as his concern and love for his daughter are concerned. But his extremely antagonistic reaction to Cal's and Cere's idea to use the fabled planet as a haven for refugees comes across as a bit overblown and silly.

A word about the story... for quite a while I waited for the actual story to begin, until I realized what I am getting IS the story. There is no sense of urgency or immediacy this time, no threat really, nothing. Cal learns about a fabled planet hidden behind a space anamoly. You need a special compass to get there. And the entire game is then about acquiring a compass and getting to the planet. And how the baddies also want to get there to use it as their base of operations instead. Until Bode is revealed as the one who wants to use it as his new family home (the wife was killed by the Empire years ago, so it's only him and his young daughter). As a central conflict this feels very, very underwhelming. Not everything needs to be a Reaper threat maybe or the search for a cure to prevent certain death like in Cyberpunk, but here the premise feels... boring.

The fabled planet everyone wants to find... looks more impressive than the level actually is, this is not Skyrim, you can't go to that mountain

Also, I cannot believe they copy pasted one of the central plots of The Rise of Skywalker... to find a compass/wayfinder so you can navigate to a planet. Why would they do that???? And even worse... at the end it is revealed you don't even need the McGuffin because some array on Koboh can fire magical space beams that will guide your way to the planet... so why did I chase after that silly compass again this whole time? This too is straight out of The Rise of Skywalker.

So the basic plot is pretty boring. There is no real villain, Bode is a kind of villain, but his motivations make little sense, at least it should not result in this extreme reaction where he would rather die and leave his child orphaned than listen to Cal and join them. The fake villains are pretty generic power hungry baddies just because.

So what should Survivor have made better to be a truly great game?

Survivor is a wannabe Dark Souls / Metroidvania game, where combat is, sporadically, stupidly difficult, most other times mindnumbingly easy though, the game wants you to backtrack to the same location over and over and over again when you unlock a traversal skill, yet traversal in this game is so bothersome and tedious that the devs immediately offer you shortcuts and fast travel points once you have passed any of the countless navigation trials. The plot is nothing to talk about and the characters, while likable or even interesting, are never developed enough, you can't have longer, more meaningful conversations, they have no side missions, there is virtually no dialogue system. Sporadically Cal can choose between two replies, but it's a fake choice. In mind control situations both options always work, in the rare conversation with choice your reply is meaningless. In fact, conversations with most NPCs are mindnumbingly dull and boring in this game. The tales of the various cantina patrons range from "meh" to "please, stop". Only exception maybe is Turgle, a froglike alien. He is hilarious. A better game would give you a mission with him. In fact, a better game would offer companion missions altogether. In Ghost of Tsushima you get a character that is virtually the same as Turgle, a well meaning and mostly harmless character who always gets in trouble or involves you in his schemes... and you get various side missions with and about him. A proper "tale" as the game calls it. Not so here... the NPCs just offer pointless dialogue about almost nothing.

Worst offender here is the tiny Scottish fisherman alien Skoova who catches fish for your fish tank in the cantina. You meet him in the most unlikely places and in the cantina of course. And he spins this unending tale about his adventures with space pirates etc and I could not care less. Also, using real Earth dialects is something Star Wars should avoid, make up fake alien accents. At least the conversations are always optional and you can also completely ignore him. But that Skoova has more dialogue than Merrin is just preposterous.

One of the very few fun free roam activities... petting boglings

But what should be different? Easy, Fallen Order or Survivor should be either like Mass Effect, i.e. a proper RPG with a proper companion system and deep and meaningful dialogue system with actual choices that matter... or like God of War, which is basically the same game already, only much superior in all regards.

Traversal should not be a chore. And if it absolutely has to be, then make the rewards satisfying, beards, hairstyles or cosmetic items are not it. Combat should be much more fluid and less hectic, powers should be meaningful, at no point did I really feel all that powerful in Survivor, whereas in a game like God of War you do eventually feel very, very strong, until you meet the super strong next opponent, of course, but generally speaking combat in that game is much more complex, you have combos, awesome and useful area of effect crowd control abilities, and once you master it fighting arenas like Muspelheim become almost a zen like experience, when you dispose of waves and waves of enemies. Never too easy, but never boring or entirely too difficult. In Survivor combat against the small annoying critters, basic grunts and droids feels entirely pointless. It's just a nuisance really. And against the more powerful enemies with countless unblockable attacks just bothersome. And some optional legendary enemies are only for people who hate themselves or want to die 50 times in a row before they master the challenge. The "git gud" crowd may enjoy it. I don't. At least the really bullshit encounters are optional. But you can accidentally stumble upon them without you knowing it... and then you will be very unhappy. You can of course abandon the fight.

And to make the game better the world should be more immersive, feel more real, instead of a theme park. NPCs should have proper routines, overall world design should at least be somewhat believable and not consist of parcours hurdles everywhere, like Fallen Order Survivor feels like that one moment in Galaxy Quest where the captain wonders who put this completely useless deathtrap contraption on the ship they have to somehow navigate to make it from A to B. And stop dangling inaccessible areas or passages in front of the player's nose. Make it more like God of War where inassessible areas are often entirely hidden from you and changes in the environment, not skills, unlock them. Only treasure or other smaller things are sometimes locked away by Kratos (or Atreus) lacking a skill.   

The lightsaber should feel powerful, not like a tickle stick. Make attacks about stamina instead... with the moment you break through the defense the death blow.

The game has a very undercooked and half-hearted companion system, take some cues from God of War or Guardians of the Galaxy or any other game with a companion system. Companions should be able to properly assist you in battle and environmental puzzles. They only do so very, very sporadically in this game. Like almost everything else the companion system needs more development.

The game is in dire need of choices and/or a proper dialogue system. The game makes all the choices for you. In one pivotal moment the game commands you to embrace the dark side, whether you like it or not. At one point one of your skills is also irreversibly transformed into a dark side ability. This is, in my opinion, atrocious game design. Maybe I don't want to embrace the dark side... give me a choice. This is supposed to be a game, but it is more of a movie on rails.

Not all is bad of course... basic design is pretty good, i.e. it looks like Star Wars. The main characters are likable, too bad they rarely get any moment to shine, this game is in dire need of companion quests. The flair dialogue by stormtroopers or droids is very hilarious and funny. Basic exploration once you have all the necessary skills (basically 10 minutes before the game ends, more or less) can be fun, too bad you are never rewarded with anything meaningful. Some combat encounters can be fun when you use dominate mind on enemies who then fight each other, while you watch the spectacle, yeeting enemies off cliffs also never gets old and force pulling and then either stabbing or making the enemy fire his gun at his comrades is also something you will always enjoy. You can also have critters fight each other.   

Also, I want to briefly talk about one thing that highlights the world design issues. Depending on where you explore on Koboh you will quickly learn that you need not bother with green energy barriers, you can't pass through them. But eventually I found yet another of the countless green barriers.. with two stormtroopers behind it. Should I even bother? You are not at fault to assume that this barrier will be impenetrable like all the others. But when you approach the troopers a short conversation unfolds and eventually Cal can dominate mind one of the troopers into lowering the barrier, then Cal has to kill them both. You get a skill point or so as reward. But how many people missed this interaction because the game teaches you not to bother with the bazillion green energy barriers? Another thing: the game never ever tells you about zipline controls. Of course this game has a million ziplines... and the game only tells you that using BD-1 as your means of transportation on the zipline can switch lines by jumping and reverse the travel direction. The game fails to mention to you that BD-1 can also accelerate and slow down your movement. Would have been nice to reveal that important factoid maybe. I learned it from Reddit.

You find these two early in the game when you first reach the settlement, they just stand there, doing nothing. They still stand there, doing nothing, 20 or 30 hours later....

So who will enjoy this game? If unimmersive Star Wars themed parcours theme parks don't bother you and you absolutely love wallrunning, jumping, double jumping, dashing, swinging from ropes and climbing walls then Survivor will be a blast! If you also enjoy trying to beat the same boss 20, 30 or 40 times before you do not die then this game is right up your alley. But be aware that those bosses are rare and most other things are cannon fodder. If you always fast travel in your games because you can't be bothered to enjoy the gameworld then this game is also for you. The story, sadly, is pretty boring, but if The Rise of Skywalker is your favourite Star Wars movie and you just love chasing McGuffins required to show you the way to Avalon that are revealed to be utterly meaningless then Survivor will not disappoint.

Avoid Survivor if... you want a gameworld that feels immersive and real, that has fun combat that is never too easy, but has powerful combos, skills and other abilities that make controlling even large crowds manageable, without ending in hectic dodge events. And absolutely avoid Survivor if Metroidvania style jump and run games with insane amounts of backtracking that are all about finding out how to get from A to B only to then offer you shortcuts and fast travel points so you never have to bother with that nonsense again, is nothing you enjoy. And if you want a game to have an actual companion system or which at least gives you meaningful sidequests for them... look elsewhere.

I am aware that my opinion is a rare outlier. Most people love this game. Maybe they have different expectations or philosophies when it comes to gaming. I absolutely hate the undercooked Dark Souls lite approach here.

I still hope for a proper Star Wars game in the mould of Mass Effect or maybe God of War or Ghost of Tsushima. As it is, being a bionic in Mass Effect gives you more of a Jedi feeling than being a Jedi in Survivor. Which is sad. Only the lightsaber is missing in Mass Effect, but it is mostly useless in Survivor anyway. When it should be this super lethal weapon.

In the end Jedi Suvivor is a game with potential, but held back by undercooked elements and dubious gameplay decisions everywhere. It has all the proper ingredients... but the final meal is bland. Companion system? Yes... we have it... only it sucks. Interesting companions? Yes, we have them... only you hardly ever get any meaningful dialogue interactions with then, and then only in short cutscenes really. There is a, in principle, interesting combat system with a lightsaber, single, dual or double-bladed, with blaster on the side... but then the combat is a janky, hectic mess that is either super easy and over in 10 seconds or makes you pull your hair out when this stupid (optional) Oggdo or Spawn of Oggdo or that stupid Rancor can kill you with one hit and even space chicken have unblockbale attacks. And some traversal challenges in this game are a war crime. If at least the reward was awesome. But one lousy skillpoint is not worth it. You also get the Red Dead Redemption / GTA style random strangers events.. kind of... you can meet people on Koboh in obscure places... but not even once does that really result in a mission or fun encounter, instead they are just characters you recruit for the cantina after 20 seconds so they can tell you their pointless story about something that is of no interest. The game also has a mini game, some kind of holo battle chess. Only the mini game is utterly boring since it is not based on skill, you merely need to place troopers on your half of the board that you think can defeat the enemies put on the board by your opponent... and then the battle auto resolves without any input by you. Gwent this is not! Your rewards for winning are cosmetic iems or so, so pointless like all the other loot in this game. You also get a version of the God of War or Ghost of Tsushima talismans/charms in the form of perks... but the perks are mostly underwhelming, whereas in God of War the perks/talismans can fundamentally change the combat, Survivor really should have taken a lot more cues from God of War, since it's basically the same game anyway, only much worse. The charms you find in Ghost of Tsushima are also much more useful and transformative. And you can change them on the fly. Here you always need to meditate to change your perks, now there are a bazillion meditation points, but why not let the player change the perks on the fly whenever you want? And why the game limits you to two stances at a time is puzzling.

So while Colin, who reviewed Fallen Order, loved the game, I find both Fallen Order and Survivor extremely mediocre. Add the technical issues and you really, really, should wait if you want to really be the most underpowered Jedi in history. Buy it when it is on sale is my recommendation. The game gets the basic Star Wars look right, it IS Star Wars, characters are likable, Merrin is the perfect space witch waifu and she could probably be lots of fun as a companion, if they gave her more things to say and do, Cal, the main character, is a pretty good main character you can easily identify with, but level design ranges from annoying to boring to outright disappointing (you jump through all these hoops to get to the fabled planet and then it is one short linear path to a battle arena? Really?), combat is a mess, immersion does not exist and so many other elements feel like from a game developed 30 years ago. Including enemies who lurk behind corners to ambush you. It gets old very quickly.

I can see you! They do this all the time... it gets old after the third time. These enemies have no life, their sole purpose in life is to wait for you behind corners.

But as I also said... most other people love the game. It is therefore entirely possible I am just too critical. And of course my deep dislike of the basic genre Survivor tries to emulate (a weird mix between Dark Souls and Metroidvania) does impact my opinion. That being said Elden Ring was a much better experience than this. And I did enjoy it for what it is. But a Star Wars game should be more like Mass Effect, at least in my opinion. And that game also had pretty good combat in later titles. In fact, the ancient Knights of the Old Republic is a better Star Wars game than Fallen Order or Survivor. There will certainly be a sequel. But I have little hope Respawn will change the basic formula. But again, chances are you may thoroughly enjoy the game. If you love wallrunning parcours and enjoy being a member of the "git gud" squad. But even that does not make up for the unimmersive world design, unimmersive NPC behaviour or copy pasted Rise of Skywalker plot. If none of that bothers you Survivor can be fun. As usual no one should tell you whether or not to play or watch something. Make up your own mind. Maybe watch some gameplay footage on YouTube to see if you like it. But even if you love the gameplay, please, wait, this game needs a few more patches before it is actually in a decent enough state to be played. There can be game breaking bugs, like the savegame bug that erases ALL of your progress. Don't pay 70 bucks for the game as it is now.