Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is out now, and true to Respawn Entertainment’s promises, it’s a much bigger and denser game than its predecessor. From combat to exploration to the abilities that you have at your disposal, there’s a lot more going on. So to make your entry into Cal Kestis’ sophomore outing a bit smoother, here, we’ve compiled a few handy pointers that you should keep in mind while you play the game.
COMBAT STANCES
With five separate combat stances, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor offers way more variety and options in combat than Fallen Order did, and though you will, of course, be tinkering with all five to see how they work and what they biggest advantages are, we’d recommend locking in on your your two favourites early. You can only equip two at a time, so having two stances with unique strengths and weaknesses that gel with your play style is something that you’re gonna want to do as soon as you can.
BLASTER STANCE
One new stance introduced in Jedi: Survivor is the Blaster stance, which, as its name suggests, lets you use a blaster and a lightsaber at the same time, and it can be quite useful in how multifunctional it tends to be. The blaster provides you with some range to pick off enemies from a distance, but its ammo is refilled by getting in hits with your saber, which means it strikes a nice balance of uses across both ranged and melee encounters.
QUICK DRAW
There’s plenty of skills to unlock in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor across several trees (more on that in a bit), but if you do end up using the Blaster stance a lot, one in particular that you should unlock as soon as you can is Quick Draw. This allows you to target and fire at multiple enemies in a flurry, and can come in quite handy in encounters where you’re facing a larger crowd.
BLOCKS AND DODGES
On lower difficulties, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is generally a pretty easygoing experience, but if you’re playing on normal or higher, it’s not a game where you can stop paying attention. Getting the timing of your blocks and dodges right is key, as you’ll know if you’ve played Fallen Order, so make sure you get into the groove of things on that front quickly. Jedi: Survivor does, of course, have a parry mechanic similar to its predecessor, and once again, it can be a powerful tool in combat- so make sure to practice its timing window.
KEEP TALKING TO NPCs IN YOUR HUB
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will introduce Cal and BD-1 to a hub location of sorts fairly early in the experience, and you’ll be returning to this town – situated on the planet Koboh – time and again. Every time you do return, make sure you speak to all the NPCs in town. The characters present in the town frequently have new things to say and even optional activities to point you toward, and while the game does let you know when new NPC conversations become available, it doesn’t tell you which of them have new things to say to you- so just go around and talk to everyone.
SHORTCUTS
Like Fallen Order, Jedi: Survivor is a Metroidvania game, which means paths are often looping in and around each other, and often littered with roadblocks that you may not be able to get past until later in the game. Environments are also much bigger and denser now, so keeping an eye out for shortcuts is even more crucial than it ordinarily would be. From vines and ziplines to elevators and more, shortcuts can take a number of different forms, so make sure to survey your surroundings carefully.
SURVIVAL SKILLS
Progression mechanics in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor are more fleshed out than they were in the first game, and across several skill trees, there’s a lot of useful skills to unlock. The Survival tree, for instance, is your bread and butter, where you can and should focus on increasing Cal’s max HP. Another handy upgrade to work towards early on is for your Stimpacks, enabling them to heal more of your HP with each use.
STIMPACKS
Speaking of Stimpacks, finding more of them to increase your total capacity should also be high on your list of priorities. You don’t start out with a lot of Stimpacks, and it goes without saying that having a healthy reserve in your pocket (or BD-1’s in this case) can make or break a combat encounter. Many of these will be found along the critical path, but several others can also be found by tracking down rumours and exploring off the beaten path. An early one that you should keep an eye out for can be found at Pyloon’s Saloon on Koboh.
ESSENCE CRYSTALS
There’s plenty else scattered throughout the game that’s worth tracking down beyond Stimpacks. Essence Crystals, for instance, are particularly useful items that can upgrade either your health bar, your Force meter, or how much XP you have. There’s quite a few of these that can be found throughout several locations that you’ll visit, and given the significant boosts they provide, it’s highly recommended that you seek out as many as you can.
FORCE METER
As you’d expect, using your lightsaber is only one part of the combat in Jedi: Survivor– the other being your Force abilities. And given you much you’ll often rely on them during encounters – Cal is a Jedi, after all – there are some Force-related skill upgrades that are worth working towards as well. Increasing the speed at which your Force meter regenerates should be a priority, while upgrading your Force Push to be able to push enemies off ledges can also come in very handy.
CONFUSION SKILLS
Confusion skills are a new introduction in Jedi: Survivor, allowing Cal to use the Force to mind control foes and get them to attack each other, and given how effective that can be as a strategy, investing skill points in your Confusion tree is most definitely recommended as well, especially as you get a little deeper in the game and have your base stats upgraded enough.
SKILL POINTS
Yes, there’s quite a bit of skills in the game that are worth unlocking (many of which we haven’t spoken about here), but it’s worth keeping in mind that, if you’re willing to invest the time, you can earn as many skill points as you want. There is no level cap in Jedi: Survivor, which means you can keep killing enemies to farm XP and earn as many skill points as you need. This is also worth keeping in mind if you ever hit a roadblock and feel the need to grind to get a little stronger.
LEGENDARY BEASTS
Like Fallen Order, Jedi: Survivor has plenty of stronger optional enemies to track down and kill. Known as Legendary Beasts, these are some of the toughest fights in the game- though especially as you get deeper into the game, hunting down Legendary Beasts can yield notable rewards, including perks, Stim containers, and Essence crystals.
SCANNING
Just like in Fallen Order, in Jedi: Survivor, BD-1 can scan the remains of any and all enemies that you kill, among other points of interest in your surroundings, and as fans familiar with the first game will know, you should be scanning everything you can. Not only can this reveal new lore or even new information on enemies that you can make use of in combat, scanning also provides small XP gains, and those do add up more than you’d think.
BD-1 HINTS
Cal might be the protagonist of Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi game, but he also has a constant companion in BD-1. And just like in Fallen Order, you’re going to want to pay attention to the little droid during gameplay. From providing hints for puzzles you might be stuck on to discovering hidden paths and secrets, if you ever hear him beeping and booping over something, it’s best to hear him out.
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