I’m usually one of the fortunate ones when it comes to getting day one issues with games.

Sure, we’ve covered games pre-launch and seen games in a variety of states, some awful, some good, some pretty healthy. But for the most part, when I see floods of issues come in, nine times out of ten, I’ve never had to deal with them.

Which is why when I lost my four hour save file for Jedi Survivor and had to restart all over again when preparing coverage for the game or when I couldn’t use a shortcut because there seemed to be an invisible wall preventing me from climbing, I was surprised. And sad.

I’ve been looking forward to this game for years. I adore Star Wars. I loved Fallen Order, and I’ve been eager to see what Respawn can do with this franchise. And it is a testament to just how good the game is that I’ve stuck with it at all.

Which is why this isn’t a full overview – yet. Not just because we received our copy on launch day so haven’t had a full chance to explore everything, but because this game still needs a patch or two to get it where it needs to be. Where it deserves to be.

And here’s the kicker, this happened on a launch PS5 and not PC where people have been having most of the issues. Consoles are absolutely not free of problems either. The good news is Respawn are already on the case.

Even in performance mode on PS5, the game still has a bunch of graphical glitching, texture pop in, and random glitches and bugs popping up. I fell through the world numerous times and sometimes there were delayed animations resulting in death.

An oversized enemy disappeared during a battle on numerous occasions, and one time they’d got the killing blow on me so I was able to get all my Life and XP back without even hitting them.

I mentioned the shortcut issue, but basically there was a point where I decided to take the long way around because A: everytime I launched up the rope, I was getting bounced off the higher ground and B: enemies were already well aware of me after trying twice before, so going up there was too risky.

There were random instances of Cal just standing over the Workbench table for a good 30 seconds after I’d interacted with it not doing anything. Then suddenly it would just start working. Same with character interactions.

I even had the cutscenes unexpectedly playback on speed 1.5, whizzing through the scenes and dialogue with no way of stopping it.

But the worst one, as mentioned, was having a broken save file. I’ll try to avoid spoilers as much as possible here, but there’s a point where you go underground, meet a new ally and have to escape using a lift after solving a series of puzzles.

I had solved the puzzles, brought the new ally to safety and gone back up to the surface. Shortly after, I had to turn off the game to make dinner but when I came back, I’d spawned back at a Meditation Point down in the cave but the story had still progressed. So the ally was gone, the puzzles were solved but the lift was at the surface and I couldn’t call it down.

I wasn’t allowed to fast travel from the Meditation Point either and there was no other way for me to climb back up. I was essentially trapped. I realised after about an hour the save was absolutely screwed and I had no choice but to either pack it in or restart.

Honestly, for some games I probably would have thrown the towel in there. But I’ve been loving Jedi Survivor. The combat is a definite improvement over the original, it feels tighter, more responsive.

And where the original was being compared to a Souls-Like, I absolutely feel that more with Jedi Survivor. It’s more challenging, there’s more of a need for timing, for parrying and dodging as opposed to just flat out flailing. I love that.

It’s absolutely stunning to look at, the views of iconic Star Wars planets, of locales that feel right at home in this universe and even facial expressions during line delivery. We’re not talking Horizon Forbidden West quality, but the detail is still incredible to behold.

Plus there’s so much to do, lots of rumors / side missions where you recruit people to help out at Greez’s bar and to populate it / making it feel more alive. You can go off the beaten track to discover all sorts of treasures, and visit temples that feel directly ripped out of Breath of the Wild to expand your perks and force abilities.

There’s even a rooftop garden, massively expanding upon the original game’s idea of a small preserve on the ship and actually letting you place plants where you want them, letting them grow over the course of the game.

Where people have been saying this is a bigger, better Fallen Order, they truly mean it. And now I’m past my original save file again and getting deeper into the story, I’m back to appreciating the game again and really enjoying it.

Which is why I don’t feel like I’m in a good spot to give a final verdict yet, though I’ve played enough to give you my initial impressions. Bare in mind, I have also been playing this from the Day One Patch.

Fortunately, I am also confident most of these problems can be ironed out from a patch or two and the game will play and look even better for it. That’s the point of this article, to encourage you to maybe wait a week or two (on PS5, at least) while EA and Respawn get things figured out.

Because this is a good game, a great one, in fact, and has real potential to be a Game of the Year contender for me. But issues like this can put people off permanently, particularly at the hefty price point and I’d prefer everyone to have the best possible initial experience.

Like I said at the top of this, these issues rarely happen to me and even I’ve been caught out by them. Which was frustrating considering how excited I’ve been for Jedi Survivor but certainly suggests there’s a lot going on under the hood right now that needs maintaining.

We’ll be coming back to this once new patches are pushed live to give a proper verdict, but initial impressions are there’s a fantastic, enjoyable game hidden underneath all the bugs, problems and negative press it’s getting. In fact, it’s shaping up to be the most fun I’ve had in this universe since Knights of the Old Republic, which is in my all time top 20.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see where this one eventually lands, but one thing is abundantly clear, whether you’re EA, Star Wars or any other developer, making games is very hard and it doesn’t matter how much budget you have behind you or what resources, bugs can happen to anyone.