Following the news of Respawn skipping previous-gen consoles for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, its Game Director explains the reason behind the decision. Since its announcement, fans have questioned EA's rationale for skipping the Xbox One and PS4 for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, one of the most-anticipated titles in 2023. Now, Respawn has offered some answers.
The latest entry to the Cal Kestis story follows a well-received Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order from 2019, a title that managed to cross 10 million players within months of its release. On the heels of the success of Fallen Order, fans first got a glimpse of its sequel back in January 2022. Although Respawn's project was initially slated to hit the stores on March 17, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has since been delayed to release on April 28 with the studio claiming the delay would help with debugging and optimization matters for the game.
Now, with less than three months away from launch, Respawn has gone on to share a more detailed overview ranging from story elements to combat and traversal features in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. In a recent interview with PLAY magazine, Game Director Stig Asmussen specified why the studio decided to skip the Xbox One and PS4 at release. According to Asmussen, the idea is to take advantage of faster processors, larger/faster memory, better loading times, and other similar features from the current-gen consoles to incorporate into Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. This translates to larger maps with more detail, broader enemy/NPC variety, greater density, and overall fidelity. Through these features, the studio hopes to push the game's capabilities to offer a "true new-gen experience in the Star Wars universe."
The interview also stated that Respawn considered adding ray tracing to the new-gen version of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order since the feature was already being worked on for the sequel. The idea was eventually scrapped since "environment art authoring" between the generations varied notably, says Asmussen. Though the studio claims the process enabled Respawn to better approach ray tracing for Survivor on the studio's modified version of Unreal Engine 4.
It may not be welcome news for fans sticking with the Xbox One and PS4, but the fact that the studio is looking to utilize the capabilities of current-gen consoles would come as an encouraging sign for the franchise in the long term. While the next phase of Cal's story is a little over two months away, Respawn has already showcased a nine-minute Star Wars Jedi: Survivor gameplay trailer to emulate what those current-gen performance enhancements may look like in the game. Either way, it will be interesting to see how the new Star Wars title will fare when it eventually hits the stores.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor releases April 28 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: PLAY magazine (via MP1ST)