Game Production in the Time of Pandemic: Respawn’s Jedi Survivor Breaks the Mold and Delivers in Just Three Years. Pandemic has brought numerous challenges to game production.
Rising costs and increased expectations for bigger, better games have combined with the difficulties of working remotely to create a perfect storm.As a result, the creation and release of many games is taking longer. In this context, Respawn’s achievement with Jedi Survivor is all the more impressive.
The sequel to Fallen Order, Jedi Survivor took just three years to produce. Given the present state of game production, this is a remarkable achievement.We investigate how Respawn accomplished it and what lessons can be drawn from their accomplishment.
Jedi Survivor’s fast turnaround is due to a number of factors. For one thing, the game began production in March 2020, right as the pandemic was beginning to take hold. While this may seem like a disadvantage, it actually helped the team to stay focused and unified.
According to Blair Brown, Respawn’s senior producer, the fact that the core Fallen Order team was able to stay together and make a “true sequel” was key to the game’s success.With Fallen Order, we had to build the team as we’re making the game as well, Brown said.This time we had the team ready.We knew the touchstones of the last game. We had a very clear sense of what we wanted to improve and what we wanted to explore further in terms of the lost opportunities based on player feedback and our own feedback.customization,lightsaber stances, side exploration, things like that.
This focus on continual improvement is evident throughout Jedi Survivor. The team looked for opportunities to improve the game by listening to both player and developer input. This led to improvements in customization, lightsaber stances, and side exploration, as well as the addition of new force abilities and combat options.
Jedi Survivor’s fast turnaround is not just impressive in its own right—it also offers valuable lessons for the future of game production.
