Respawn Entertainment, Electronic Arts, and Lucasfilm Games finally unveiled Star Wars Jedi: Survivor yesterday, the next epic chapter in the action-adventure series that began with 2019’s acclaimed Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order. A new interview shared on the official Star Wars site with Stig Asmussen has now revealed some of the graphical improvements that fans can expect out of the second game, with Respawn’s director confirming that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will boast ray tracing on not only PC, but also PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles, for impressive real-time lighting effects. One of the more exciting implications here is that lightsaber combat in the game will look more realistic than ever and play off beautifully in Cal’s new surroundings. Asmussen also mentioned that his team is taking full advantage of the SSDs in current-gen consoles, an indication that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will show little to no loading times as players make their way around the galaxy. The game is due in 2023.
StarWars.com: How has the power of current-gen consoles enabled you to expand or make things better in Jedi: Survivor from a gameplay perspective?
Stig Asmussen: So I think the biggest thing is ray tracing, or lighting. That’s allowing us to do real-time lighting, all the time, at a fidelity that’s well beyond anything that we’ve ever produced before. Since it’s real-time, we get to see the changes as we tweak the lights — immediately, essentially. That means that we have more time to polish, that means that we can iterate more, and we can get better results that feel more filmic.
Beyond that, we have these blazing fast drives on these consoles that are allowing us to load tons of content really quickly. I’ve always worked on streaming games — games that don’t have load screens. The fact that these consoles have such fast storage has made it even easier. Those are probably the two biggest benefits. PlayStation 5 has some really interesting haptics on their controller that we’re digging into, and it’s just an easier process in general.
Source: Star Wars