Twitch streamer andersonjph uncovered something curious while experimenting with Jedi: Survivor this weekend. After double jumping and using a homing attack to reach an enemy across a supposedly impassable canyon, cutting past at least some portion of story content, they received an error message warning of how going off the rails like this could lead to fatal errors in progressing the main story. The game also offers a choice of continuing on and risking some borked progression, or reloading a save to scurry back to safety.
It’s a relatively rare instance of a game allowing, but cautioning against, player behavior of this kind.
The message in full reads:
“Unexpected Error: You seem to have bypassed certain story elements. Continuing to play from this point may encounter issues. If you choose to proceed anyway, loading any future saves from the Title Screen will give you the option to reload prior to this point.“
If you choose to keep going, the game does warn you that “Things will likely be broken.” I gotta say, I think this is pretty clever design—it lets speedrunners do their thing and really press the game while a civilian who accidentally clipped through the wrong wall can press eject and get back to the normal game. A less experimentation-friendly game might just kill you, drop an invisible wall, or maybe have you warp back to the entrance of the room at low health with Cal Kestis scratching his head and going “Huh, better not try that again.”
More than anything else though, I love how much this reminds me of the message you get in The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind if you kill a plot-critical NPC: “With this character’s death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in this doomed world you have created.”
In addition to being great fodder for shitposters to trot out whenever a famous person dies, I love how the Morrowind and Jedi Survivor messages make breaking the game feel like an event, a small accomplishment unto itself. If you’re in a figurative conversation with the devs while playing the game, you just flipped the table and they’re responding in kind. Also? It’s nice to be treated like an adult! I’ll go out of bounds if I want to, say no to out-of-bounds instakills and essential NPCs, we make our own destiny!
