Published , by Ozzie Mejia
Published , by Ozzie Mejia
It's a familiar story. There's a major title, maybe one of the most anticipated of the year, one that players have been looking forward to for many years. It finally arrives and it's not quite ready for release. There are egregious bugs. There are crashes. Maybe it barely functions with certain combinations of PC hardware. It's not unplayable and, in some cases, it isn't even bad. It's just not optimzied. This is a tale that has become all too common with games from major publishers. In fact, it even has a name in gaming circles. We've come to call it "Bethesda broken."
We've seen "Bethesda broken" games for over a decade. It's happened with games like Fallout: New Vegas, The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, and a host of others. The idea is that it can release in a broken state, but it'll be patched up over time and become polished thanks to a full user base acting as glorified QA testers. It's a practice that has been adopted by publishers like Electronic Arts, Activision, PlayStation, and a parade of others. We've seen this happen over and over. This is nothing new. However, if that's the case, why is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's launch stinging particularly hard? Why are its numerous problems especially galling this time around?
Part of the reason is that this is Respawn Entertainment and we've come to expect better. Over the years, they have become a standard bearer for quality entertainment, having released generation-defining games like Titanfall and Apex Legends. Survivor's predecessor, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, is arguably the greatest example of why blockbuster linear single-player games can still resonate with a multiplayer-heavy consumer base and sell in today's crowded market.
There's actually a deeper reason and it's because of one of the new "truths" of this console generation. Because publishers and developers are expending greater resources to create games exclusively for new hardware, consumers will have to pay an extra price at retail. It's something that users have increasingly had to come to terms with, even though it's a story that has played out over the course of several years. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has been talking about $70 USD games since the launch of the PlayStation 5. Ubisoft initially resisted, but has come around to the $70 MSRP with the intention of starting with (of all games) Skull & Bones. Electronic Arts and 2K has been boasting about the new limits that they can push their sports games to with new console hardware, which is why Madden and NBA 2K have been launching with $70 price tags on consoles only. Why those versions couldn't also launch on high-end PCs is a question for another day.
Gaming has gradually drifted towards the $70 game for years and players have witnessed the follies that have ensued. The less said about next-generation Madden, the better. The most recent Call of Duty games have received increasingly mixed user reviews, some noting a rushed development cycle, others citing numerous crashes, and that's before even getting into microtransactions. Meanwhile, another $70 game, Redfall, is about to launch on consoles limited to 30 FPS and, frankly, not looking great. And, let me say this louder for the readers in the back, I don't want to talk about Forspoken anymore.
I don't even think Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a bad game like many of those examples I cited earlier. Full disclosure, I'm playing it in Quality Mode on PS5 right now and I'm enjoying it immensely. That doesn't diminish the experiences that other people are having, the disappoint that they feel, or that they feel ripped off. My enjoyment of it on PS5 doesn't invalidate what Digital Foundry is calling the worst AAA PC port of the year so far. And, just for fun, let's hear from a few of our own Chatty posters.
Frankly, it's insulting that consumers are being asked to pay a greater starting price for the same level of broken nonsense that they were getting in the $60 era. What's the difference between a broken Cyberpunk 2077 launch and a broken Star Wars Jedi: Survivor one? The difference is $10 and, in this economy, that means a lot. As the job market starts to crumble and people are preparing to tighten their belts, there's only so much disposable income to spend on frivolities like video games. It is not fair to ask players to put that money down on a broken product with vague promises that it's all getting fixed later.
Going back to that Digital Foundry review, it starts by noting that Survivor is in an even worse launch state than Fallen Order was when it launched. That was four years and $10 ago. If the asking price for games is going up, the standard of quality shouldn't be going in the other direction. I had a similar epiphany back when I reviewed Anthem, which is another game I would very much like to stop talking about. The realization was that players were stuck in a cycle of poor "Day 1" launches, vague promises for the future, and impatiently waiting for fixes that may never come. That was my personal tipping point for "games as a service" titles and I feel like a similar moment is coming for the $70 game. If consumers are going to be asked to pay for more, they should at least expect something more polished than what they used to get for $10 less.
As it is, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor stands as a symbol, not for hope, but for what the $70 MSRP era currently represents. It's the game everyone will think of when they think of rough launches that they're asked to pay additional money to get. It's the most high-profile example of one of gaming's biggest issues at this moment... for now. Let's hope we don't have to revisit this topic again when The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrives next week.