Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Stunning. Everything I loved about [I]Fallen Order[/I] is here taken to soaring heights.

The locations are richly detailed and packed with things to do. The story is exciting. The characters are many and mostly memorable. There is thrilling combat (the wonky camera of Fallen Order has been fixed), challenging environmental traversal, and puzzles. Most collectibles are pointless cosmetics but at least it's fun finding them, and boy are there a lot. And it's drop-dead gorgeous, especially with HDR (which was lackluster in Fallen Order). The game world is superbly immersive, too: you'll get loading screens when flying to another planet, but otherwise it's seamless transitions between locations. This is everything a sequel should be: build on strengths, fix problems, and move the story forward.

So why the thumbs down?

Because it is so tragically broken, to the point that many would rightfully consider it unplayable. Even with a high-end PC you will have to pull every trick in the book to get it running decently, including installing community mods (I used Ultra Plus), and even then you will experience major stuttering and frame drops. And will stuttering happen in the middle of a tense battle and throw off your controls? Yes, yes it will. And there are crashes to desktop, too. Every time you start the game you have to wait a few minutes for "optimization", which apparently is not cached. It's all so demoralizing.

Several patches after the initial release and it's still very, very broken.

I have to say, with much sadness, that most people shouldn't buy this. Go for it only if you are willing to fiddle and tinker and have the patience of a saint. You'll still be upset with the results, but if you get it up to your minimum standards for playability, well, you're in for a grand adventure.