Star Wars Jedi: Survivor begins with the kind of movie that is de rigueur for big-budget video game sequels: a recap of its predecessor that barely summarizes anything.
Jedi: survivor‘s summary of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order‘s story and characters can jog your memory if you’ve played the 2019 game in the past, say three weeks. If you haven’t already, the in-game recap of Fallen order will come across as little more than a misty supercut of snapshots and voiceovers. Seriously, it doesn’t even cover That the character’s death. And it barely mentions the weird space Rubik’s Cube!
Here are all the important story beats from it Jedi: fallen order that you need to know for the sequel. Keep it handy while you play Jedi: survivor.
[Ed. note: Spoilers for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order follow.]
When will Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Survivor take place?
Jedi: fallen order takes place five years after the events of Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. The Star Wars timeline is generally filtered into years before the Battle of Yavin (BBY), as seen in Star Wars: A New Hopeand then (ABY). Fallen order usually takes place during 14 BBY.
By the time Fallen order running around, Order 66 has resulted in the government-sanctioned extermination of the Jedi. But because galaxies are quite large, some Jedi survive. You play as one of them: Cal Kestisa padawan trained by Jedi master Jaro Tapal (who did not survive Order 66, as described by flashbacks in Fallen order).
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor takes place about five years after the events of Fallen order – So, 9 BYY. These places Jedi: survivor between the prequel and the original trilogy, set in the same year as Obi Wan Kenobi and roughly around the same time frame as Andor. You might want to check those out before you dive in Jedi: survivor. Who knows what expensive cameos Respawn wrestled for the sequel.
What characters are in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order?
Beyond Cal, Fallen order contains a lot of ex-Jedi knight Cere Junda and pilot Greez Dritus, commanding their starship, the Stinger Mantis. Their trio is accompanied by the Real star of the show: BD-1essentially a puppy in droid form.
Image: Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts
The primary villains of Fallen order his two inquisitors: the Second sister and the Ninth sister. (If you’ve seen the Disney Plus show, that should be a movie Obi Wan Kenobi, you recognize the Inquisitors. Reva, the main antagonist of that show, is one – the Third Sister.).
However, the most complicated character is Merrya night nurse.
Who are Merrin and the Nightsisters?
Executed during the Clone Wars, Nightsisters are Force-sensitive people from Dathomir (fun fact: Darth Maul’s home planet!). Their special taste of the Force is called “magic.” And yes, it is connected to the dark side – like most corpse summoning magic in fiction.
Merrin is probably one of the last Nightsisters. She starts out as an adversary, but over time comes to trust Cal and his friends.
So what happens in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order?
Fallen order opens on Bracca, a shipyard planet where Cal works a day gig as a scrapper. One job goes awry and Cal uses the Force to save a friend from dying, eventually drawing the attention of the Second Sister and the Ninth Sister. The Second Sister kills Cal’s friend. Cal is rescued by Cere soon after and Greez.
Image: Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts
The crew flies to Bogano, a half-mapped planet full of cliffs and swamps (thanks, Star Wars naming conventions), to search for a vault of the Zeffo, a pre-Jedi civilization. Along the way, Cal meets BD-1. Turns out BD-1 belonged to Cere’s former Jedi master Eno Cordova, who left one of those lovely droid messages revealing that the vault contains a Holocron – basically a cube-shaped registry of Force-sensitive children across the galaxy. The Holocron would give Cal and Cere a chance to rebuild the Jedi Order. But to open the vault, Cal must find an ancient artifact.
First Cal goes to Dathomir, home of the Nightsisters (a clan of Force users skilled in the dark side). He is driven back by Merrin. Rejected, he visits Zeffo, the Zeffo homeworld. That reveals a clue Kashyyyk. While there, he teams up with the well-known anarchist Gerrera seen to free a captive contingent of Wookiees from the Empire.
To wait. Have you seen Gerrera from Rogue One?
Yes!
Did Gerrera see Fallen Order and Survivor?
Saw Gerrera is all the rage Fallen order, and is played by its IRL actor Forest Whitaker, which should give you an idea of how much budget this series has. Cal’s first trip to Kashyyyk is quite a bust, so he heads back to Zeffo and gets another clue about a key that will open the Bogano vault. (The Star Wars Jedi games are nothing but exercises in backtracking.) There he also encounters the Second Sister, real name Trilla, who reveals that Cere was her former master. You know, classic Star Wars stuff.
Cal narrowly escapes Trilla, but is captured by members of the Haxion Brood before he can leave Zeffo.
What is a Haxion offspring?
“Who Are the Haxion Brood?” is what you should to ask. Introduced in Fallen order, they are a criminal organization operating on the edge of the galaxy. You can just call them “bounty hunters.” They force Cal to take part in a Thor: Ragnarokbattle arena, but Cere and Greez save Cal and take him back to Kashyyyk, where they arrive another lead on the key to the Bogano vault. Also, Cal fights and defeats the Ninth Sister – though for the record you don’t see her die.
Image: Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts
Cal follows Kashyyyk’s lead and heads back to Dathomir, where he is pretty sure the key to the Bogano vault is located. Merrin tries to stop Cal again, he runs into an ex-Jedi named Taron Malicos. Malicos, having turned to the dark side, is doing the whole “join me and we can rule the galaxy.” While escaping, Cal breaks his lightsaber and goes to Ilum to find a kyber crystal (the shiny rocks that make a lightsaber a lightsaber). He returns to Dathomir with a beautiful two-edged saber, but is stopped by Taron. However, he was aided in the fight by… Merrin? Certainly! Merrin, who has come to trust Cal (and who also expresses a desire to explore the galaxy), joins his merry little band of rebels.
How does Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order end?
Now equipped with the vault key, the crew returns to Bogano and takes the Holocron from the vault. Trilla shows up, steals the Holocron, and escapes to the Inquisitor’s Fortress – the giant spire in the middle of the sea that appeared in an episode of Obi Wan Kenobi. Cal defeats Trilla and recaptures the Holocron. But then!!! Darth! Crazy! Vader shows up, kills Trilla, then rips the fortress apart in an attempt to capture Cal. Next to the credits stinger of Villain One, the sequence is arguably one of the more visceral displays of how strong Vader is. It rules.
Cal escapes, but barely, and entirely thanks to a rescue from Merrin. Safe in interstellar space, Cal destroys the Holocron.
Seems like a vacuum sealed ending, but Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Orders finale was largely colored by the context in which it came out: between the release of The Last Jediwhich suggested that Star Wars could be a story about more than one dynastic family, and The Rise of Skywalker, which basically undid everything posited by its predecessor. For some, the Holocron is in Fallen order suggested the same “anyone can be anyone” thesis of Last Jedi — a post and cliffhanger similarly challenged by The Rise of Skywalker.
Star Wars is in a very different place in 2023 than it was in 2019. Over the past four years, Disney has released a number of character-focused TV shows (with more to come), detailing plans to expand into the High Republic era , and even gave Baby Yoda a real name. You better bet they’re forcing Star Wars Jedi: Survivor to tie it in one way or another.