Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has arrived! The sequel to Respawn Entertainment's 2019 smash-hit Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order seeks to elevate the series in every aspect, with more customization options, better and deeper lightsaber combat, and a larger and more detailed open world to explore. The adventures of Cal Kestis take place at the height of the Galactic Empire's power, when the Jedi were at their most vulnerable, and players can expect a lot of high-stakes danger as Cal fights for survival and tries to help the Rebellion gain a foothold during the game's 25- to 30-hour campaign.
While critics have praised the gameplay and storytelling aspects of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the game launched with a host of technical difficulties that are hampering the enjoyment of many players. These issues are particularly prevalent on the game's PC version, while the PS5 and Xbox Series X and S have already received a pair of patches to fix up most of those problems. Thankfully, PC modders have leaped into action, producing a host of mods for the game that help resolve some of those technical issues, as well as adding some cosmetic and gameplay features that allow players to truly embody the Jedi of their dreams.
8 Startup Intro Skip
This one should be practically mandatory for anyone playing on a PC. For whatever reason, the intro screens for the development studios behind Star Wars Jedi: Survivor run for a long, long time, and there is no option for players to skip them. It's about 90 seconds of time that really sticks out in the era of SSDs where games can boot up in an instant.
This mod comes exactly as advertised. When installed, it allows the player to skip those intro screens and get right to the main menu. It's not automatic, so if players still want to watch those intros they're free to do so. They're simply granted the option to jump past them with a few button presses.
7 Darth Maul
One of the standout traits of Cal Kestis as a Jedi is that he makes use of a variety of lightsaber stances. Where typically Jedi Knights only master one stance, by the end of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Cal will have mastered five of them. One of those stances, the double-bladed lightsaber, is also used by a legendary Sith: Darth Maul.
With that in mind, why not experience the game's story through the eyes of one of the deadliest Sith to ever roam the galaxy? While Maul will still have Cal's voice, his robes, and famous red and black horned head will be on full display. Once they've beaten the game, players will also have access to a red kyber crystal to change the color of their lightsaber blade to red and bring the costume together when combined with the Darth Maul mod.
6 100% Save File
Speaking of beating the game, while there isn't a ton of content hidden behind the end credits, there are a few features that aren't accessible until players have finished Cal's story at least once. There's the red kyber crystal we mentioned earlier, but also a New Game Plus mode, and a chapter select option.
Some players may want that red lightsaber blade right away, or may simply want to play through the game with all of Cal's skills and cosmetics already unlocked rather than having to go through the unlocking process themselves. For those individuals, downloading a 100% completed save file will save them a lot of headaches and allow them to play the game exactly how they'd like.
5 Invisibility
At its core, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is an action-platformer, but it incorporates a lot of Soulslike elements into its moment-to-moment gameplay. From one-to-one attack animations to checkpoints that restore healing items and respawn enemies, there's a lot of the FromSoftware formula in the mix here.
As with any Soulslike, things can get a bit hairy when groups of enemies start to gang up on the player. One way to avoid that situation is to install the Invisibility mod. While it doesn't change anything about Cal visually, it means that enemies won't notice him until he attacks them. This allows the player to deal with one enemy at a time and avoid being attacked from multiple angles at once.
4 Luke Skywalker
From a legendary Sith to a legendary Jedi, few characters are more recognizable in Star Wars than the hero of the original trilogy, Luke Skywalker. There are several nods to the character in Respawn's latest release, from his iconic green lightsaber to a hairstyle that looks like it was pulled off of a model of young Mark Hamill himself.
One thing that is not available for players is Luke Skywalker's Jedi robes. However, thanks to the quick work of the modding community, those robes can be installed with little difficulty. Throw them on, switch Cal's lightsaber to green, and his hairstyle to Shag, and suddenly he becomes the spitting image of the hero of the Rebellion.
3 Intro Replacer
We mentioned earlier how the intro animations prior to the game's main menu run for a long time. There's the obvious option of just skipping those intros entirely, but there are some alternatives as well. Some in the modding community have designed a variety of intros that can stand in for the ones that ship with the game.
For example, players can instead choose to apply the Disney "Helmets" intro that plays before every Star Wars series on Disney+. There are also options to add a montage of famous scenes from the Star Wars movies, or to simply open on the iconic Star Wars phrase: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."
2 Obi-Wan Kenobi
One last cosmetic mod for players who want to embody perhaps the greatest Jedi in any era. Obi-Wan goes through a lot in his lifetime, watching a Sith kill his master, then losing his apprentice to the Dark Side, and being forced into exile following Order 66. Cal Kestis goes through his fair share of trials and tribulations, but it's tough to compare him to Obi-Wan Kenobi's lifetime of struggle.
Like in the case of Luke Skywalker, Cal has hair and beard styles that pretty closely match Obi-Wan's look in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (the Windswept hair and Long beard specifically). Then, all players need to do to complete the look is change their lightsaber blade to blue and download the Obi-Wan Kenobi Robes mod. They'll look just like the legendary Jedi master in no time.
1 DLSS 3
This mod has been talked about a lot since the release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, in large part because of the performance issues that PC players have been dealing with. There have been issues on consoles as well, some of which a day-1 patch tried to address, but PC modders took the matter into their own hands.
The best of several options as of this writing seems to be "May The Performance Be With You" by modder Glumboi, which boosts FPS and reduces stuttering while only having a minor effect on the game's visuals (less even than the game's own Performance Mode). However, there are a handful of mods available to players that all help the game's performance issues to varying degrees, with all of them making the gameplay experience better than the current state of the game.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was released on April 28th, 2023, and is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.