Jedi: Survivor looks like a much more graphically enhanced version of its predecessor. So a question amongst the community of fans arises whether Star Wars Jedi Survivor has been developed using the same engine as before or there is a new engine at play here. Let us dive into this query and answer it for you.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has been developed using Unreal Engine 4. It is the same engine that was used for Fallen Order, albeit with upgraded graphics. It feels more fluid this time around.
Let’s discuss the engine which was used to develop the latest Star Wars AAA game, Star Wars Jedi Survivor, and why.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Engine
Jedi: Fallen Order had an amazing graphical presentation and still holds up to this day. The sequel i.e. Jedi: Survivor, began its development right after the success of the previous entry. Considering the development timeline and some confirmation from the team behind the game, we can confirm that Jedi: Survivor is, in fact, developed using Unreal Engine 4.
Unreal Engine 4 was the same engine used in developing the prequel, Jedi: Fallen Order. Yet, the previous game didn’t have all the graphical bells and whistles like Ray Tracing included in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. This triggers curiosity about why the game doesn’t use the latest Unreal Engine 5.
Why Not Unreal Engine 5?
Looking at the gameplay and graphical enhancements, many people were wondering whether the game has transitioned to the newer Unreal Engine 5. However, the latest engine was released fairly recently, and this game began its preproduction quite a while back.
It is a known fact that switching engines mid-development is not an easy task. On the other hand, Unreal Engine 4 is still a very capable engine and has been significantly updated since the development/launch of the previous game. It now boasts all the aforementioned graphical features.
When asked about the next installment in the series by IGN, the Game Director, Stig Asmussen replied:
“I always wanted to see this as a trilogy”
“A third game most likely would be built using Unreal Engine 5 instead of Survivor’s Unreal Engine 4. I think it’s a pretty safe assumption.”
“I’m not going to say it’s going to be easy. I mean, we have a lot of proprietary things that we’ve warped the engine into doing what it does for Jedi right now, and we would have to retool some of that to get it to work on any new engine.”
The developer hinted that if Jedi: Survivor is a success, then we can expect the next game to be developed on Unreal Engine 5. Looking at the raving reviews of this entry, we can safely say that this will soon be happening.
As of now, the game runs on Unreal Engine 4. The developers will have to move to the newer engine since the PC port of the game is terribly optimized at launch, and this might be because of Unreal Engine 4’s somewhat dated ray tracing implementations.
Time will only tell. We can only say, may the force be with Respawn Entertainment, and hopefully, they keep spawning such awesome games.