Looking ahead to what features and mechanics can be iterated upon from Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, it is clear that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor needs to concentrate first and foremost on its performance issues. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s gameplay is fantastic as it blends Soulslike mechanics with traditional action-adventure mechanics, but it is difficult to overlook glaring visual discrepancies as well as audio bugs and physics glitches that frequently occur.
This should definitely be Respawn’s priority when looking at the development of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor if it hopes to have a better launch reception than Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. But aside from performance concerns, there is a singular feature that must also be addressed and included in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor that would instantly make it much more favorable than its predecessor. In Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, all cutscenes are and always have been unskippable, and that should change.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s Unskippable Cutscenes are Egregious
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s cutscenes range from emotional to action-packed, and the narrative is told wonderfully and cinematically through them. But while cutscenes are always a must on a first playthrough for any game, it is particularly egregious to not have any skippable functionality to them.
In many modern games, cutscenes will give players a button prompt they can press if they wish to cancel it midway and skip to the next playable gameplay sequence. Others allow players to pause during cutscenes and access menu settings or put the controller down for a moment before resuming or skipping the paused cutscene. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order lets players pause during cutscenes, but cutscenes are completely unskippable throughout the game.
Even more egregious is the fact that cutscenes remain unskippable in New Game+, and there has not been a patch since Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s release in 2019 that allows for skippable cutscenes. This suggests that cutscenes being unskippable is a deliberate feature that Respawn never intends to rectify because it was purposeful.
Cutscenes in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order can be lengthy, and the fact that they are unskippable extends the game’s length negatively and adds bloat to it in subsequent playthroughs. Of course, while unskippable cutscenes can be a particularly intolerable nuisance, there are many other considerably pressing features that can make a game much more accessible for players, and they deserve to be addressed in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor as well.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Should Consider Other Modern Accessibility Features
In terms of how fluidly players can move throughout Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, there is a lot of openness that the player has access to once they have finished the tutorial sequence on Bracca and landed on Bogano. Not every pathway or area will be accessible right then and there, but there are still a lot of optional crevices and even an optional boss in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order’s fearsome Oggdo Bogdo that players can face if they choose to.
Further, players then have direct access to Zeffo and Dathomir. So while these cutscenes do make for a great deal of time spent watching them without the option of a skip function, there are long stretches of uninterrupted gameplay to also look forward to.
Because a cutscene skip function should be readily easy to implement, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor should also take a page out of the next-gen titles pioneering accessibility, such as God of War Ragnarok. These include visual, auditory, and textual aids, which undoubtedly assist many players to overcome any unique challenges they may have.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order lacked a lot of features in general for accessibility and functionality, but its next-gen exclusive sequel should demonstrate a willingness to improve upon the original and offer players any assistance it can to make the experience better from both a performance and functionality standpoint.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor releases on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X in 2023.