Although its predecessor, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was released on previous-gen systems to favorable reviews, its sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor won’t be on PS4 and Xbox One and will only be available for the current generation’s PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Electronic Arts subsidiary publisher Respawn Entertainment explained why Star Wars Jedi: Survivor won’t be on PS4 and Xbox One in the latest issue of PLAY Magazine, citing hardware limitations, larger maps and a more diverse range of enemies as the primary reasons for the decision.
Game director Stig Asmussen first detailed his experience working on the next-gen update for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and how that was a “good proving grounds” for the development team when it came to making the full transition to the current-gen systems.
“[That version] was a good proving ground while we were considering how to enhance Survivor,” Asmussen said. “We actually considered ray tracing for the new-gen Fallen Order because we were already building it into Survivor, but we ultimately scrapped it because the environment art authoring between the generations was pretty different. But the process did help us define how we wanted to approach ray tracing on our modified version of the Unreal 4 engine.”
Cal Kestis and BD-1 in Star Wars: Jedi Survivor/Electronic Arts
Asmussen added that by making Star Wars Jedi: Survivor exclusive to the PS5 and Xbox Series S|X, the team at Respawn could not only keep in line with what they had achieved with Fallen Order but also take advantage of the faster processors to “evolve/enhance the experience” in myriad ways.
“Bottom line, we learned quickly that we could take advantage of the faster processors,” Asmussen continued, “larger/faster memory, better loading times, etc, to create much larger maps, with more detail, greater density, broader enemy/NPC variety, and overall fidelity. These features aligned perfectly with how we wanted to push the game. We didn’t want to break what we did in the first game because it was well received, but we wanted to evolve/enhance the experience. This new generation allowed us to do exactly that, and I believe it translates to a true new-gen experience in the Star Wars universe.”
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is set to release on April 28th for PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC platforms.
Are you disappointed that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor won’t be on PS4 and Xbox One or do you understand the reasoning behind the development team’s explanation? Let us know in the comments.
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