Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has made a splash on PC and current-gen systems recently for a variety of reasons. Apparently the game is excellent, assuming you aren't playing it on a platform where it is completely broken (which is most of them).
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However, prior to its release, something else stood out to me about the game. In an interview with Gamesradar+ the developers stated that the game, unlike its predecessor Jedi: Fallen Order, would have fast travel to help players get across its Metroidvania world.
Many fans of the first game, including people I know personally, were keen to see this feature added. Despite this, my first reaction to this announcement was unease and, seeing as people are waiting for the game to actually be playable, I thought it might be fruitful to discuss it now.
To fast travel or not to fast travel
One reason why I felt uncomfortable with the announcement of Jedi: Survivor's fast travel was the fact that it was giving in to fan demands. Don't get me wrong, I'm a great believer in responding to feedback and being aware of one's audience. However, at the same time, I also think games should have some kind of artistic vision behind them.
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On one planet, they opened up new traversal options with air-vents that altered the game's platforming. Later on, bounty hunters had a chance to randomly appear in your path and attempt to capture you while you travelled around. My worry was that these experiences wouldn't be possible in the sequel with fast travel letting you skip past them.
As such, my first reaction to this decision was a negative one because it smacked of a AAA game sacrificing its artistic vision in order to appeal to the broadest possible audience. I thought that the game would lose some of its identity in favour of appealing to people who lacked even the tiny amount of patience that it took to indulge the game's tangents.
On reflection, though...
You may have noticed about five paragraphs ago that I used the words, 'my first reaction'. Since I first read the announcement, I have had the chance to find out more about Jedi: Survivor's fast travel system as well as stroke my cat a few times. As a result, I have calmed down a bit.
Something that the developers were quick to clarify was that the game has been designed, 'without fast travel in mind' (Gamesradar+ again). This put to rest some of my concerns about artistic vision. The system allows players to only travel between checkpoints, not from wherever they wanted. This is the same system used by the Dark Souls games from which Jedi takes gameplay inspiration.
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The benefit of this approach is that the kind of story and gameplay moments I was harping on about a moment ago would be preserved for all players to experience, even for those that prefer fast travelling. It meant that, despite the option being there, fast travel would function more like an accessibility option than a mechanic.
This raised an interesting question. What is the point of fast travel? For me, it's all in the name, the point is to travel quickly. But when you frame it in those terms, all of a sudden, fast travel starts to feel more like an accessibility option, which is odd when it is often treated like an important gameplay mechanic.
How not to fast travel.
My feelings on fast travel are mixed. When used as an accessibility option for players to make additional exploration more convenient, it feels like a sensible inclusion. However, not every game does this. While Jedi: Survivor and Dark Souls only allow you to fast travel from checkpoint-to-checkpoint, many games allow you to fast travel from anywhere to any marked location on the map.
Ubisoft games love this approach with their Far Cry and Assassin's Creed games but other developers like Bethesda aren't immune to the practice either with Fallout and Skyrim. It's here where my trepidations about fast travel creep in again as it is no longer an accessibility option, it is a gameplay mechanic. You use it so often that it becomes part of the gameplay loop, and a bad part at that.
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Let me illustrate my issue with two examples. In Dark Souls there were numerous occasions where I was trapped in an area with low weapon durability and very few healing items. In these situations, I had to wrestle my way through the area, tactically dodging and killing enemies where necessary to make it back to the checkpoint where I could fast travel to safety.
By contrast, in Far Cry, I have, many times, been in a similarly awkward situation. However, rather than battling and sneaking my way to safety, I simply walked a little further than spitting distance away from nearby enemies and teleported away to anywhere I wanted to go with my magic main character map.
Fast travel systems become a problem when, like in the Far Cry example, they stop being about accessibility and removing wasted time, and start removing gameplay instead.
When you can fast travel instantly from where you are to wherever you need to go for the next mandatory gameplay section, there is no reason to explore anything in between. As a result, you only end up seeing each bit of the map once in Assassins' Creed and Far Cry because you only need to visit a place once before you can fast travel there all the time. That's a lot of open worlds that aren't being properly explored.
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There has been backlash to open world games a lot in recent years with many being too large and too full of pointless rubbish to do. This feels like an under-acknowledged part of that equation. After all, the point of an open world game is exploration. Unfortunately, fast travel systems like these are spoiling them by removing any reason or incentive we have to explore and get into the scrapes that provide unique and tense gameplay experiences, like the Dark Souls example earlier.
As such, I feel like Jedi: Survivor has really highlighted some of the issues that exist around fast travel as well as how to do it well. For me, the key is about using fast travel for accessibility and to speed up the process of exploration, rather than removing it entirely. Perhaps, if more AAA franchises could follow its example of creating an exciting open world that doesn't rely on fast travel and that does not try to undermine itself with its own systems, the onset of open world fatigue could be pushed back just that little bit longer.