Star Wars Jedi Survivor shows off slick prequel-style combat and a weird walk

Developer Respawn has released a nine minute clip of the upcoming Stars Wars Jedi: Survivor and, yep, this sure looks like a Star Wars game with a Jedi, surviving. What it does show is returning protagonist Cal Kestis (and his droid BD-1) making their way around a new planet, Koboh, which they've apparently crash-landed on.

Koboh is a lush environment that is host to a Separatist hideout, with various battle droids patrolling around alongside plenty of local fauna, and of course some bigger nasties that demonstrate the game's lightsaber combat. Respawn had already talked about the combat focus of the sequel, with Cal having five "full realised" stances to switch between while fighting

Cal has clearly been in training with new combo moves for his double-bladed lightsaber (this is unlocked near the end of the first game), with the gameplay at various points showing him detaching his weapon into two separate blades, Darth Mauling around groups of enemies and, in one particularly cool moment clipped below, spinning round an enemy and simultaneously stabbing them in the back.

Particularly notable elements are that the environment seems more interactive this time, with bushes reacting to lightsaber swings and Cal force-tossing things like rocks around. The first game saw the player collecting cosmetics in the form of ponchos, but during this sequence we see Cal collect nothing less than a bomber jacket from a chest: So perhaps the jackets are the main cosmetic collectable this time around.

Fans have of course pored over the footage for any little detail, though amusingly enough (as GamesRadar+ notes) a lot have chosen to grouse about Cal's new running animation, which seems fine? I'm not really sure there's a canon for how Jedi should run, but give Disney time I guess.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was recently delayed, but only by a little: it was due March 17, but will now arrive April 28. Director Stig Asmussen says the six-week delay is simply about hitting "the Respawn quality bar" and providing the level of polish fans expect. Personally speaking, the nicest thing about this footage is it shows Cal as he was at the end of Jedi: Fallen Order, without his powers having been reset, which suggests that by the end of this one you really will be the kind of badass that even an Empire would fear.

Rich Stanton
Senior Editor

Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."

Read more
KOTOR remake returns for annual tradition of reminding you it's still alive, but no you can't hear anything more about it until it comes back next year to say it again
Obi Wan Kenobi and Mace Windu fighting B1 battle droids in Jedi Power Battles.
Jedi Power Battles is old-fashioned, weird, and frustrating—but God, I wish they still made Star Wars games like this
Image of Yasuke striking an enemy in Assassin's Creed Shadows
I played 6 hours of Assassin's Creed Shadows, and folks, I think this one was worth the wait
Split Fiction screenshot
Split Fiction's latest trailer shows off its side-stories, which let you fly through space and ride giant desert fish in worlds 'completely different' from the main adventure
Star Wars cosmetics in Destiny 2
Destiny 2 is getting Star Wars cosmetics and I'm kind of tired of these multimedia crossovers but yeah, that armor does look cool
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii screenshot showing Majima with two companions aboard a ship
Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii looks more like a zany RGG take on Black Flag than I dared hope
Latest in Action
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The First Berserker: Khazan review - Blade Phantom
How to claim The First Berserker: Khazan pre-order bonus and deluxe edition DLC
gta 6 trailer
Publishers 'don't want to be anywhere near' Grand Theft Auto 6 when it launches: 'It's proving to be very stressful'
An image of a Helldiver from Helldivers 2 shooting at a red dragon from Dungeons & Dragons.
'Ok, so dragon builds are a thing now': galaxy-brained Helldivers 2 player incinerates a bile titan with a hover pack and a flamethrower
Assassin's Creed Shadows promo image
Ubisoft scores a legendary ratio against Elon Musk on his own platform—which hopefully marks a final end to all the Assassin's Creed Shadows' culture war nonsense
Assassin's Creed Shadows immersive mode - Naoe holding a tanto in her hand as two guards fall to the ground behind her.
Assassin's Creed Shadows' first hotfix addresses stability issues and a photo mode crash
Latest in News
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway
Image of Cersei Lanniser from Game of Thrones: Kingsroad Steam early access trailer
A new Game of Thrones RPG is coming to Steam today with a cast of 'familiar faces,' which is good because it's really the only way to tell it's a GoT game at all
The new Prime Asset featured in the upcoming update for the Outlast Trials.
The Outlast Trials puts its already paranoid players under surveillance for a time-limited story event