Why Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's Delay Is a Good Thing

2023's current video game slate is an extremely exciting one, and one of its most anticipated releases is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. A direct sequel to the surprise 2019 hit Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Jedi: Survivor continues the space-faring adventures of Jedi Knight Cal Kestis and his adorable droid companion BD-1. This time around, it seems as though Cal is forging new friendships, taking on bigger enemies, and going up against an even stronger Empire, with Respawn Entertainment seemingly making this sequel much more ambitious than its predecessor. But with that ambition also comes time and effort, and Respawn needs just a little more time before Star Wars Jedi: Survivor releases.

Announced yesterday, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has received a six-week delay, moving its original release date of March 17 back to April 28, 2023. While this news is sure to disappoint a lot of fans eager to dive back into Cal's story as soon as possible, this delay might actually be the best move for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, with Respawn and EA seemingly confident that it's in the best interest for all parties.

Delaying Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Is the Best Move

When Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order released back in 2019 it was met with a decent critical reception, with scores mostly hitting the 8-9 range. However, Fallen Order's biggest setback was its vast swathe of technical issues. Clipping through walls, pop-in textures galore, hard crashes, and more littered Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order on release day, and reviewers couldn't pretend that they didn't affect the experience in a major way. These technical issues led to some rough reviews for Fallen Order and stopped it from hitting those higher scores, which in turn, likely affected the game's sales in its first few weeks.

Before the game had even released, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order had a reputation for being a buggy mess despite the game underneath it being genuinely great. And even though Respawn went back and fixed most of the game's technical issues, the damage had already been done, and that initial reputation has stuck around it awkwardly ever since, even after the next-gen versions of the game were released.

Simply put, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor cannot repeat the same mistakes as its predecessor. While fans are willing to put up with technical issues if a game is good enough, they still massively affect a game's reception, and both EA and Respawn can't let that happen this time around. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is EA's big tent pole release this year, and it's presumably betting big on the hope that it'll do extremely well in the sales department. It's actually quite nice to see EA allow Respawn to delay Jedi: Survivor by a few weeks, as the publisher is infamous for shipping unfinished games and caring little about the user experience.

On the whole, it's a good thing that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has been delayed. While fans will have to wait a few more weeks to play it, they've already been waiting this long, and they'd likely much prefer a polished, finished product as opposed to a half-baked, disappointing buggy mess of a game. In its statement, Respawn confirmed that all of Jedi: Survivor's content is finished, which means that these next few months will be dedicated solely to ensuring the game is polished to perfection. From Respawn's perspective, this delay should hopefully reduce the amount of crunch time for the team, and help to reduce general stress. From EA's perspective, delaying Jedi: Survivor is also a pretty smart move anyway, as April has very few big-name releases, with Minecraft Legends and Dead Island 2 currently leading the pack. Hopefully this Star Wars Jedi: Survivor delay ends up being worthwhile for everyone involved.