The sequel to 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is mere weeks away from release, and Respawn Entertainment has been keen to showcase the new title’s numerous improvements over the original.

In an interview, Technical Director Jon Carr and Lead Producer Paul Hatfield have described Star Wars Jedi: Survivor as an evolution of Fallen Order’s concept and mechanics, with Hatfield stating that Survivor seeks to upgrade Fallen Order’s systems to “110 percent.”

• Related Reading: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Story Trailer Features Cal and Crew Reuniting, New Screenshots Released

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor visibly maintains the core experience of Fallen Order while improving in certain areas such as the RPG elements, world design, and navigation. Carr and Hatfield explain that the differing choices made during the development of Survivor are not necessarily seen as “changes,” but rather a long-desired expansion of the systems they developed in Fallen Order:

[Hatfield:] So we don’t really use the term changes too much when we talk about the game. I think one of the first things we talked about when we started on the second project, a lot of the points put across to the team were very rooted in what we developed in the first project, but essentially polishing and expanding and bettering all those systems. So, you know, the first game was our first project as a team, and we learned a lot of stuff. And we also have a giant bucket list of if we had unlimited time, we wish we could do all these things. So that’s what this project is to us, let’s find that bucket list of all those things we wish we could have done on the game. Let’s evolve as much as we can, and also take the systems that maybe we had to 80 or 90 percent up to 110 percent.

[Carr:] I think there’s also a narrative element to it, where Cal has evolved over the course of a couple of years since the first game, and he’s developing more of his abilities as a Jedi. And so part of what you see in the demo you’re playing is that you get access to more combat moves and stances, and I think that all kind of speaks to that narrative.

Hatfield and Carr further illustrated this with the refinements made in Survivor to the series’ customization system and in-game environments, with Carr stating that the tech they built for Jedi: Survivor is being pushed to its boundaries.

[Hatfield:] [Customization] was something with the first game where I say we took something to maybe 80 percent, that’s something that we felt as a team we could have done better if we’d had the additional time. And so with this project, day one we knew we wanted to expand it, and that’s exactly what we did. I mean, I run around with a mullet all the time when I play. [Laughs] It makes it so much more Star Wars to me that you can kind of make your own Cal; he still obviously is a protagonist, and he has a personality, but when it comes to player expression, that’s a huge thing and I think people are really gonna like that.

[Carr:] We’ve also pushed the boundaries in terms of, like scope and capability of the tech that we’ve built. The environment is much larger, we’ve put a lot of time into more advanced lighting systems, the texture and fidelity throughout the environment is pretty robust. And so there’s a lot of kind of pushing forward the tech that we’ve got to achieve a lot of it.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor deploys April 28, 2023 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Though the Fallen Order sequel has not yet launched, director Stig Asmussen is already eyeing a third title in the series.

Source: Screen Rant