Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is as dense as beskar steel. As Cal Kestis – a padawan who survived Order 66 and went on to become BFFs with the cutest droid in Star Wars canon – you’ll travel the galaxy brandishing a laser sword and pulling off a bunch of high-wire space parkour. If you read the predecessor, 2019’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, the attributes may feel familiar. You’ll just find more: more droids to fight, more planets to explore and, of course, more walls to run on. Here are 12 things you should know before you start.
It’s worth brushing up on the story
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor‘s story takes place five years after the events of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. The sequel technically has a recap of the first game, but that recap is heavy on the atmosphere and light on the actual plot details. (Pop Quiz: Who is Jaro Tapal?) Before you start, take some time to familiarize yourself with the story and timeline of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. It will follow Survivor‘s plot much easier.
Navigation aids — and other tips for getting around
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is primarily an exploration game. As such, you can spend much of your game time trying to figure out where to go between objectives. Navigation help – a setting that adds an icon that shows where to go on the mini-map and can be toggled in the game menu – will go a long way in pointing you in the right direction.
There are other methods to determine your place in the galaxy. Parsing the map reveals more hints than you might expect; green doorways And yellow brackets indicate paths that you can currently pass, while red objects means that you do not yet have the necessary upgrade. You may also see a path in the Architectural View that you otherwise overlooked.
Also pay close attention to your surroundings. White ledges are the start of climbing routes. Many paths are hidden behind barely noticeable cracks in walls. (Yes, Jedi: survivor does the shimmy-load-screen thing.) Pay particular attention to walls with rivets or scratches; you can usually use them to run to a new area.
Always double jump in wall runs
Wall running is an important traversal technique in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Pro Tip: Double jumping into a wall run will give you more height at the start, which will also give you more height when you finish the wall run. This will help you close some of the longer gaps in the early game. (Eventually you get a midair dash ability that makes wall running a breeze.)
Disable fall damage and mess with other settings
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor features an extensive set of accessibility settings. The first one you need to knock out? Disable fall damagebelow the game sub menu.
Eliminating fall damage does not make you invulnerable to damage from height, a fact Polygon has confirmed through many tests. (Sorry, Cal!) It makes sure that when you fall into an abyss during a platforming challenge, you respawn nearby without losing health. There are a lot of cool platform gloves in it Jedi: survivor. You’re going to fall. A lot of. Making sure you don’t lose health every time will save you a whole lot of headaches – including the one where you lose a ton of health because it took you five tries to cross a chasm and then die from an errant blaster shot when you hit the other side.
There are other settings you should also try. Arachnophobia Safe Mode in the game submenu makes arachnid enemies look less like spiders. Skip dialog line allows you to fast-forward lines of dialogue in rote interactions, such as conversations with shopkeepers or searchers. And if you want to tone down the gorier bits, you can deactivate Human dismemberment in the accessibility sub menu.
Lean on your allies
Some story missions pair you with one of several allies (unspecified for spoilers). Activating the special ability of the person accompanying you (R1 + square on PlayStation) stuns enemies, giving you some breathing room to heal or deal damage. It is linked to a cooldown, but that cooldown is short-lived. Cal was a lone wolf for the most part Jedi: fallen orderso it’s easy to forget that he’s not always alone Survivor. Don’t forget to use ally skills liberally!
Your lightsaber is great at blocking
As with all soulslikes, parries are indeed an effective defensive move Jedi: survivor, but don’t sleep on blocking. As long as you have one block meter left (that’s the white one in the bottom center of the screen), you can automatically block most attacks. It’s when your enemy starts glowing red that you have to be careful. These attacks cannot be blocked. Dodging works. However, sometimes you get more distance between an enemy by doubling out of the way.
And to be a flashlight
In dark areas, BD-1 will turn on a small headlight, but it has a limited field for the droid. Pulling out your lightsaber does a far better job lighting everything around. By the way, this is one of the reasons why you should always rock the dual-wield lightsaber stance: you get twice the flashlight power.
Watch for shortcuts
There is another way to reduce backtracking Star Wars Jedi: Survivor – watch for shortcuts. Nine times out of 10, shortcuts are ziplines that connect a sub-region you’re currently in to a sub-region you were in just now about five minutes ago. They are an invaluable resource to return to meditation places to restore (and save) your health before continuing.
Also, if you’re on a zip line, you can press triangle/Y to change direction, in case you decide you don’t want to go back any longer.
Rejoice, you can travel fast in Jedi: Survivor
One of the biggest criticisms of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order was that you couldn’t travel fast. Backtracking was a real pain in the butt. So it’s good that Respawn corrected the course Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. Yes, you can fast travel, but only on the planet you are currently on.
There are other limitations: you can only do it while in a meditation spot, and you can only travel to previously unlocked meditation spots. All the more reason to interact with everyone you see. Also keep in mind that there are some narrative instances where you can’t fast travel. (You’ll know when the option to fast travel on meditation spots is grayed out.)
You will come back to that planet later
Jedi: survivor hinders your progress by dividing your traversal upgrades, meaning you eventually have to double through each planet to cover terrain you couldn’t reach before. You won’t be able to get everything on your first visit to every planet; if you want to explore, you’ll need to come back later when you’ve unlocked more skills.
That said, it’s always worth thoroughly exploring each planet as far as you can before moving on to the next story objective. You can find essences that increase your health or power meters, or give you a free skill point. You can find chests with cosmetics for the case of Cal and BD-1 – or, on rare occasions, a stim bus that increases the number of times you can heal in a row. Different types of local currency are scattered around each planet and can be exchanged for cosmetics at vendors. Databases And Force echoesmeanwhile fill in knowledge through short diary entries.
If you don’t want to miss a thing, check out our guides to finding all the important things on your first travels through Coruscant and Koboh.
Save your skill points
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor contains eight skill trees to dump skill points into. In addition to Cal’s basic stats – health and Force powers – you’ll end the tutorial with three different lightsaber stances, each with its own tree. You’ll be getting two more soon, including one that lets you rock a blaster. Force abilities in the middle of the game (which we won’t reveal here) open up the possibilities even more. If you’re not totally sold on burning precious skill points on upgrades you’re not in love with, you won’t regret saving them for later.
You can regain lost XP in Jedi: Survivor
Collect enough XP in it Star Wars Jedi: Survivorand you earn a skill point. Once you’ve earned a skill point, you can’t lose it. That said, you may lose all the XP you’ve earned for moving on to your next one skill point.
Every time an enemy kills you, you lose all your saved XP. If you want it back, you’ll need to locate the enemy that killed you – usually right in the room you died in. You see them glowing gold. Simply hitting that enemy with a single attack will restore all of your lost XP. (You can easily cheese this from a distance with a blaster shot or lightsaber throw.)
It works a bit differently in boss fights. The enemy will not glow gold. Instead, you see a golden pillar of light where you died. If you run into that, you’ll get your lost XP back – and in some cases, at least for optional bosses like Koboh’s grudge, you can then turn tail and leave the room completely, with your XP intact. Nowhere in the Jedi Code does it say you have to be brave!
Once you get started, check out where to find all the collectibles on Coruscant and the first part of Koboh, or check out all our Star Wars Jedi: Survivor guides here.