Respawn Explains Why Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Isn’t on PS4, Xbox One

Authored by mp1st.com and submitted by Lazy-Enthusiast16

While Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order saw a release on the PS4 and Xbox One, that won’t be the case for its sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. If you’re wondering why, it’s not because EA ordered it, but rather, it’s more to do with gameplay.

In the March 2023 edition of PLAY magazine, game director Stig Asmussen explained why Star Wars Jedi: Survivor isn’t appearing on last-gen consoles.

[PS5 ALLOWS US] TO CREATE MUCH LARGER MAPS, WITH MORE DETAIL, GREATER DENSITY, BROADER ENEMY/NPC VARIETY, AND OVERALL FIDELITY.” “WE DIDN’T WANT TO BREAK WHAT WE DID IN THE FIRST GAME… WE WANTED TO EVOLVE/ENHANCE THE EXPERIENCE. Jedi: Fallen Order was a fantastic upgrade that really brought the game into its own. “[That version] was a good proving ground while we were considering how to enhance Survivor…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. You’ll experience the benefit of the more powerful hardware throughout Survivor. Bottom line, we learned quickly that we could take advantage of the faster processors, 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.

Well, there you have. Mind, this makes perfect sense since forcing the game to work on both last-gen and next-gen platforms would probably gimp the one running on more powerful hardware, thus affecting the overall gameplay.

For the latest gameplay look at Jedi: Survivor, head on over here.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was recently delayed, and is now set for launch on April 28 on the PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PC.

OldManTurner on February 16th, 2023 at 11:43 UTC »

So is next gen finally starting for real yet or what

Chiefranarr on February 16th, 2023 at 11:08 UTC »

over two years into the new generation. They no longer want design to be restricted to hardware that is more than ten years old.

More AAA games are likely to follow suit.

Nearly 30 million PS5 units have been sold. There are about 20 million Series X/S.

To keep playing the newest and biggest games, it's time to upgrade.

L2-46V on February 16th, 2023 at 10:34 UTC »

I don’t even have a PS5 yet and I’m totally okay with this. This kinda thing is one of the reasons I don’t have one. Seems like “next gen” so far has mostly consisted of optional ray tracing, higher frame rates, faster loading times, all stuff that amounts to essentially the same game so it can still ship on both consoles. I’ve been waiting for the games that truly do new things that last gen can’t do.