Spoiler Warning: There will be spoilers ahead for Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order as well as for other iterations of the Star Wars franchise.
Welcome to the final part of my playthrough of Jedi: Fallen Order. Yes, that’s right – this session was the last one as I made it to the end of the game! This won’t be the final piece I write about Jedi: Fallen Order, though – I plan to write up a conclusion/review of the game as a whole at some point soon, so I hope you’ll stay tuned for that. Last time Cal had finally acquired the Zeffo Astrium in the tomb on Dathomir. He defeated Taron Malicos and brought a new ally – Night Sister Merrin – aboard the Stinger Mantis.
After loading into the game, I chose Bogano from the galaxy map on the Mantis and the ship took off. I wasn’t sure what to expect; it didn’t seem as though Bogano would be the immediate end of the game – though the story was approaching its climax – so I was wondering if something might happen en route or upon arrival (this is why I’ve usually been saving before setting course for Cal’s next destination!) Choosing to go to Bogano triggered a cut-scene between the Mantis crew. Cal set the Zeffo Astrium on the table, and Merrin, Cere, and Greez all had something to say.
The moment with Greez was very sweet – Cal and Cere both expressed their appreciation for getting them safely from place to place, and Greez seemed genuinely overwhelmed for a moment. Merrin piped up and offered her opinion on the holocron – is it fair to the children to force them to become Jedi when that will mean the Empire will hunt them the way they’re hunting Cere and Cal? Definitely something to ponder, but at the very least Cal says he needs to keep the holocron out of the Empire’s hands.
The flight was uneventful, as was landing on Bogano. After disembarking, Cere, Greez, and Merrin were all standing outside the ship, and optional conversations with each of them had a definite finality to them. “We’re in this together” was a phrase that came up a couple of times with Greez, and Cere warned Cal that there may be unexpected dangers in the vault. Merrin’s conversation was the most interesting, and in light of what happened later I think should have been a mandatory cut-scene instead of a chat which players could easily have missed or skipped. She asked Cal a very pointed question – whether the children whose names are in the holocron would have even been in danger had he and Cere not intervened. Merrin sowed doubt in Cal’s mind about what to do with the holocron and the children, and also suggests to Cal that taking them away from their families to fight as Jedi may not be their choice.
I liked these optional conversations, but they definitely had an air of finality to them, which led me to believe that the game might end soon after Cal arrived at the vault. Crossing Bogano to reach the vault was no issue, as practically all of the hostile creatures were once again absent, as they had been when we revisited Bogano in search of supplies. The only monster was the large three-eyed mini-boss near the entrance to the vault, but I chose not to fight it this time (that fight was annoying, and I felt Cal was already as levelled-up as I wanted him to be). It only took a couple of minutes, using the unlocked shortcuts and with abilities like wall-running and double jumping, to arrive at the vault.
One thing that surprised me (though it really shouldn’t have, since Cal is the only one who’s been here) is that no one bothered to re-seal the vault after Cal first opened it. Though it’s a tight squeeze to crawl inside, given that Trilla and the Empire are trying to get the holocron too, it might’ve been prudent to lock it down after Cal’s first visit. Inside the vault I was aware of how this large circular room would make for a perfect boss battle arena! I’d been half-expecting Trilla or a squad of Purge troopers to have been there, but to my surprise it was empty. I did take a moment to look around, just in case there was anything I hadn’t seen or any loot to grab, but aside from a spot in the centre of the room to interact with, there was nothing. Pressing the button led to a cut-scene in which Cal seemed to put the Astrium in a spot on the floor. This in turn caused the vault to move – Cal described the vault itself as being akin to a large holocron. Now this is something I don’t understand – for the first time while in the vault, Cal looked up, and there’s no roof! Cere made a huge fuss about accessing the vault, which appears to be just inside the door/crawlspace on the hilltop. Yet once inside, apparently it has no roof!
At first I thought the lack of roof may have been connected to the vault moving when Cal used the Astrium, but looking back that isn’t the case – it had always been open. Given that, I wonder why Cere needed Cal to access it in the first place. The entryway to the vault didn’t seem to be transporting Cal to anywhere other than a couple of metres along inside the hill, so presumably near to the vault entrance it should be possible for anyone to just jump into it from above. I guess I just found this to be confusing, and aside from Cere at the beginning of the game saying it needed the Force to open, there’s no real explanation of how the vault works. Is it cloaked somehow? Or hidden to anyone other than a Force user? Considering the Zeffo placed a record of their civilisation inside that they wanted someone to find, why would they hide it instead of putting it out in the open? Not for the first time I’m left thinking we needed a little more explanation of part of the game’s story. The vault’s movement opened up a mirror on the far wall, and Cal walked over to it.
Touching the mirror caused Cal to have a vision. Initially he was spoken to by a member of the Zeffo race, who briefly explained that they created the vault to serve as a record of their people, who for some reason were going extinct. I actually interpreted what this Zeffo leader had to say as being cult-like: he said his people had become decadent and strayed from “balance”, and that he would lead them “into the great unknown”, which sounds an awful lot like a metaphor for mass suicide to me. Did the Zeffo drink the proverbial Kool-aid? It wasn’t explained any further. I stand by what I said about the Zeffo looking at least somewhat similar to the Protheans from the Mass Effect games, though.
This vision was similar to the one Cal had of Master Tapal – it was very dark and cloudy, with characters and the environment being blurry and out of focus. This gave it an incredibly creepy feel throughout, and I was constantly expecting to be ambushed and attacked by someone – or something – hiding in the shadows.
Though the Zeffo leader only spoke for a moment, Cal’s vision wasn’t over. Progressing through this level led to Cal seeing the children he hoped to train. Initially he saw their progress as they called him “Master”, but the next section saw their home under attack by Stormtroopers. If this was a premonition of the future, it was bleak. But Cere had warned Cal that he would be tested, and perhaps this was part of the test. None of the characters could be interacted with, and none of the enemies could be battled; these scripted sequences played out as Cal walked through each area, but even if he wanted to he couldn’t do anything.
The vision grew bleaker as Cal progressed. I liked one section which saw him climbing up a wall – the scenery was designed to make it look as though, rather than climbing, Cal was crawling through a trench. It was very well done. Eventually he was confronted by a vision of Trilla, who drew her lightsaber. If Cal surrendered she promised to spare the children’s lives, so he knelt before her. Surrendering saw Cal fall into an Imperial facility of some kind, where the vision showed him the children imprisoned and a very dangerous-looking machine.
Walking further through the Imperial facility saw visions of Stormtroopers and other Imperials, and in this section Cal would walk toward an open doorway only for the door to slam shut. It happened several times, yet still managed to make me jump each time! Ultimately Cal ended up in a small hallway where the lights went out, leaving the screen black for a moment. Cal ignited a red double-bladed lightsaber, and had a vision of himself as an inquisitor, dressed in the same black uniform as Trilla.
After seeing himself in the inquisitor’s uniform, Cal was in a long hallway. At the end of the hallway seemed to be the mirror in the vault on Bogano. I approached it cautiously; there had been no enemies to fight in the vision yet, and I was expecting something at any moment. However, Cal made it back to the mirror, and seemed to stare at his reflection in a cut-scene. One thing that Jedi: Fallen Order has done that I really liked has been to always show Cal in whatever outfit I chose for him, even during cut-scenes. Yet at this moment, for some reason Cal was in his original outfit from Bogano, with no poncho. It kind of detracted from this moment a little, as it was supposed to show Cal – our Cal in the real world – confronting the dark vision of himself. Yet without those customisation elements it didn’t quite feel like our Cal, and the fact that the original outfit was a dark navy colour didn’t provide a great contrast with the black inquisitor uniform either. I would have liked to have seen Cal in the outfit I’d chosen for him in this moment, and because Jedi: Fallen Order has done that in every other cut-scene, I don’t know why it didn’t happen here.
Despite anticipating a boss battle of some kind during the vision, as Cal confronted his dark self the vision came to an end. Cal had apparently cracked the mirror, perhaps from hitting it or pressing on it while he experienced the vision. Behind him in the centre of the room, above the spot where he’d placed the Astrium, was the holocron. Cal approached it to pick it up… but this seemed too easy!
It was, of course, because the moment Cal collected the holocron, Trilla revealed herself. How long had she been here? Had she just been standing there watching Cal as he completed his vision? Seems a little voyeuristic… Regardless, she ignited her weapon and, in true villain style, thanked Cal for doing the hard work for her. She believed the holocron would “win her the Emperor’s favour”, presumably elevating her position among the inquisitors. A duel was inevitable, and compared to the earlier fight against her on Zeffo, I felt it wasn’t especially difficult.
Trilla had a few moves at her disposal, and as with the fight against Taron Malicos, the hardest part was getting her guard down long enough to land a blow. Cal’s Force powers were mostly useless – Trilla was immune to pushes and pulls, though some of the fancier moves, like the lightsaber throw, did work against her. I wouldn’t rank it as one of the game’s toughest boss battles, though – which certainly should’ve been an indication that this wasn’t the end!
Eventually I was able to grind Trilla’s health bar all the way down. I rather naïvely thought that the fight was over and that Cal could leave with the holocron! A cut-scene triggered which showed Cal knock Trilla’s weapon from her hands. He picked it up – at which point it was clear the fight was over. But Cal has the ability to sense Force echoes from places and objects, and touching Trilla’s weapon caused him to have a vision of what she experienced – all the pain and rage that her weapon had been through had left a powerful impression in the Force. Cal couldn’t control it, and while he was temporarily incapacitated, Trilla stole the holocron.
The Force echo – which we got to see in full this time, not just hear – was interesting. Cal witnessed Cere attempting to draw the Empire’s forces away from Trilla and another young Jedi, as well as Trilla’s capture and torture by the Empire. This culminated in her becoming an inquisitor, putting on her mask for the first time in front of Cere. The vision also showed the beginning of Cere’s escape from Imperial captivity. One thing that was interesting was Trilla’s helmet – it doesn’t allow a very wide field of view (as we might’ve guessed from looking at it). While aesthetically that might look “cool” (if the Sith care about coolness/intimidating looks) it’s hardly very practical to purposefully limit the vision of some of their top soldiers. In addition, the mask seems to give everything she looks at a red hue, which may be useful in dark environments but again can’t be practical most of the time.
When the Force echo was over, Trilla was nowhere to be seen, having fled the vault. After Cal regained his composure he headed back outside, as there was nowhere else to go from here. I took advantage of the meditation spot in case another big fight was looming, and while there was a squad of Stormtroopers outside, they were very easily avoided as Cal retraced his steps to get back to the Mantis. The Stormtroopers were busy anyway; the large monster had also spawned and as Cal snuck past the troopers were engaged in a fight against it.
Once again this had a very “video gamey” feel to it, and the story didn’t seem to have a natural flow. The Mantis was sitting a few hundred yards away, out in the open, yet no Stormtroopers were bothering the ship and crew. In fact, the small squad immediately outside the vault were all the troops that the Empire had bothered to send to Bogano. Trilla had successfully got the holocron, but if the Empire still wanted to capture and/or kill Cal and Cere, they missed a golden opportunity. As it is, Cal was able to gently stroll back to the Mantis, and talk to those on board before taking off.
Despite the fact that Cal had fought Trilla again, and that she had stolen the holocron, the Force echo seemed to be another hint at her possible redemption – a theory I’d been tossing around since she was given a name and backstory when Cal faced her on Zeffo. Upon returning to the Mantis Cal apologised to Cere, not only for losing the holocron but for not understanding what she’d been through.
Cere told Cal that Trilla is her responsibility – she still felt responsible for allowing her to be captured and turned into an inquisitor. She knew where Trilla would take the holocron – the inquisitor’s home base: Fortress Inquisitorius. To me that name sounds like it comes right out of the Warhammer 40K universe, but that’s okay! The fortress was where Cere escaped from, and is where the inquisitors take Jedi and other Force-sensitives to turn into more inquisitors. She was very anxious about going back, but seemed to snap out of it pretty quickly. She used the Force to pull Trilla’s lightsaber to her, and in a scene reminiscent of the knighting of Brienne in the final season of Game of Thrones, knighted Cal, making him officially a Jedi.
This was a real emotional moment in the story for me – Cal had come a long way from hiding out amongst the scrap and dead ships on Bracca. Even though the Jedi Order was all but gone, he had managed to become a Jedi Knight. Cal had been a great protagonist thus far, definitely channelling some of the same energy as Luke Skywalker in the original film. Cal’s journey in some ways parallels Luke’s – a young man from an out-of-the-way planet, thrust into a galactic adventure by events outside of his control. Yet at the same time, Cal’s background as a padawan, his deliberate decision to stay in hiding, and his willingness to confront his own guilt and past make him very different from Luke – and taking steps away from the original films is something Star Wars as a brand needs to do if it’s going to survive and be successful. But we’ve strayed off-topic! After the knighting ceremony, to my surprise I had control of Cal again. At the holotable on the Mantis, all the previous planets – Dathomir, Zeffo, Ilum, and Kashyyyk – were available to travel to. There was also a new destination: Nur.
Nur had two Star Destroyers in orbit on the galaxy map, which looked pretty intimidating! But there was no point going anywhere else. The story had reached its climax; Nur was surely the game’s final level. The galaxy map shows as a percentage how much of each planet has been explored, and how many secrets and hidden chests have been discovered. For every planet I was between 85-90% explored, which I think is pretty good, and I’d found over half of the secrets and about two-thirds of the hidden chests (which contain cosmetics like lightsaber parts, Mantis and BD-1 paint schemes, and ponchos for Cal). As someone who isn’t a 100% completionist, I consider all of that to be pretty decent, especially for the first run through a game. With all that in mind, I selected Nur and the Mantis headed out.
Upon arriving in the system, two Star Destroyers were present in orbit of the moon. Greez told the crew that their usual methods of avoiding detection would not be good enough, and worried about how they’d be able to get to the surface safely. Merrin had a solution – using a spell to cloak the ship. Despite Greez’s initial unease, this worked perfectly, and the ship disappeared from view.
With the ship safely cloaked, approaching the moon wasn’t an issue. Cere and Cal would both be going; Cere planned to disable the fortress’ scanners and defences while Cal retrieved the holocron. This reminded me of Luke and Obi-Wan splitting up during their mission aboard the Death Star, and I didn’t expect Cal to see Cere again. However, it also felt like Cere had finally overcome her fear of using the Force and had embraced her Jedi nature once again, which has been a very satisfying character arc to see play out.
After using the Mantis’ escape pods to land on the moon – which is covered by an ocean, at least in the vicinity of the fortress – Cal was on his own, though Cere would check in by radio. After Cal’s pod splashed down, the area immediately outside the pod was not well-laid out and was confusing to swim through. There was no obvious path through the water, and no landmarks to allow me to get my bearings. Cal also couldn’t swim to the surface, despite the surface being visible only a few metres above his head. And finally, during swimming sections the holo-map can’t be used, all of which contributed to a very confusing few minutes of blindly swimming around.
The fortress itself is apparently constructed largely underwater – the idea being that sections or even the whole thing could be flooded if necessary to prevent Jedi prisoners from escaping. In the aftermath of Order 66, this is the facility the Empire used to hold Jedi, torture them, and turn the survivors into inquisitors. As a concept I quite liked it; it definitely seems like a tactic the Empire might have used. Though it raised the question of how Cere was able to escape a facility with such a permanent and deadly failsafe!
After eventually figuring out where to swim to, Cal made it into the fortress via one of its underwater airlocks. This section contained a few Stormtroopers and little else. In fact the base as a whole – except for the latter areas that we’ll come to in a moment – was mostly uninteresting. There were a few hallways, some of which had windows to the outside underwater environment, but aside from a single puzzle (one of those connect-the-power-cable ones we’ve seen quite a few times) there wasn’t much of note.
Over the radio, Cere made contact to tell Cal she’d succeeded in disabling the fortress’ shields. Cal flooded this section of the base and then swam to the next – fortunately this swimming section was less of an issue than the first. After entering the next dry section of the base, Cal found himself at a training dojo where a couple of Purge troopers were practicing. This room would soon become a battle arena, with several waves of all kinds of Stormtroopers and Purge troopers to defeat – by far the largest fight in terms of numbers in the whole game.
One part of the floor of the dojo opened up to reveal a pit, and though the troopers weren’t hard to fight one-on-one, as with the zombie Night Sisters back on Dathomir, in numbers they were a challenge. The pit in the middle of the room created an additional danger, but was also useful for Force pushing troopers into – a favoured tactic of mine throughout the game! Eventually Cal prevailed, and a meditation spot emerged as a reward. I checkpointed my progress here before heading further into the fortress.
The next room was the prison – though it was lacking any prisoners, as presumably there are fewer and fewer Jedi for the Empire to hunt down these days! Cal also had his first run-in with Cere since arriving at the base, opening a blast door for her and seeing a pretty cool scripted sequence as she defeated several Purge troopers using Trilla’s lightsaber.
Cere was able to unlock a route for Cal to leave the prison and get to the holocron, which was being kept in the heart of the fortress – the interrogation chamber. For some reason – it wasn’t clear why – the fortress was built atop a lake of molten lava. Makes you wonder why the Empire is always doing things like that! It gave this part of the level a weird aesthetic: a mixture of Star Wars’ Empire with a Bowser’s Castle level from Super Mario! One thing I thought as we arrived on Nur was that the fortress (or the part of it above the water, anyway) vaguely resembled Darth Vader’s castle in Rogue One – his castle is similarly built above molten lava on Mustafar, the planet where he lost the fight against Obi-Wan.
The route to the interrogation room was eerily deserted. Cal noticed a turbolift and suggested to BD-1 it could be an escape route. Otherwise he was walking across a long, open-sided bridge that led from the prison room to the interrogation chamber, but there were no troopers or enemies of any kind. Two large, intimidating gun-turrets were silent too; I wondered if Cal would have to battle them on the way out!
After entering the interrogation room, Cal was confronted by Trilla. He made an admirable attempt to get through to her, offering her a chance at redemption and a return to the light, but she attacked him and a duel began. This was the hardest battle in the game, no question. Trilla was 10x stronger than she had been in the earlier fight on Bogano, and landing even a single hit on her required jumping, dodging, parrying, and split-second timing.
Trilla was a difficult opponent, and Cal needed to use most of his stim-packs to survive the fight. The duel also included a couple of quick-time events, which involved mashing the X or B buttons to survive as Cal and Trilla locked blades.
Eventually, however, Cal was able to grind down her health bar, defeating Trilla and ending the duel. As the fight ended, Cere arrived. She spoke to Trilla, telling her that the fight was over and to try to let go of her pain and anger. For a moment, it seemed as though she’d got through to her former apprentice, and Trilla listened, expressing her regret for holding onto her hate for Cere for so long. Before the two could fully reconcile, however, Trilla was paralysed. Out of the smoke behind her, a familiar mechanical breathing could be heard…
I couldn’t believe it at first! Surely we weren’t going to see Darth Vader himself! In a way, it makes a lot of sense that he’d make an appearance. Not only for the story, but because it’s a Star Wars game and players love to face off against one of the biggest villains in the franchise. But I wasn’t expecting it at all, so it was a genuine surprise. The mechanical breathing grew louder, and then Darth Vader himself emerged from the smoke. “This can’t be good,” remarked Cal.
Unlike Palpatine’s return in The Rise of Skywalker, Darth Vader’s appearance here worked very well. It was a genuine surprise – a shock, really – and in the context of the story facing off against a bigger, badder foe makes sense. I can understand why some people may feel that Vader’s arrival at this point in the story seems like a deus ex machina, and perhaps if the game was detached from the Star Wars brand, the sudden arrival of a new supervillain at the last moment could be seen that way. However, this is Star Wars, and given the game is taking place during the years before the original film, when Darth Vader was the Empire’s second-in-command, it doesn’t feel that way to me. Darth Vader, and original trilogy characters in general, can definitely be overused in Star Wars; I would suggest that Vader’s scenes in Rogue One didn’t really add anything to that film’s story, for example. But here it really did succeed, and not just because of a sense of nostalgia. Vader is a terrifying opponent, especially for someone like Cal who barely scraped through the fight against Trilla!
One point I want to mention just before we go on: there was something ever so slightly “off” about Vader’s appearance. The best way I can explain it is that he looked to have the wrong proportions, being slightly broader and – for want of a better word – chunkier, than how he appears in the films. His helmet, too, seemed slightly different, perhaps squashed or just a fraction different in its scale. None of these factors really bothered me in the moment, nor dragged me out of the story, but I thought it worthwhile to mention. I daresay any such minor issues were a result of the game being, well, a game.
The first thing Vader did upon arriving in the interrogation chamber was kill Trilla, whose last words to Cal and Cere were “avenge us!” I’d like to think that, had she survived, Trilla was on the cusp of redemption and a return to the light. Her conversation with Cere seemed to be moving in that direction, and it will be a tragedy for both Cal and Cere that they never got to find out, nor to save Trilla from Vader’s blade. Cere shouted at Cal to run, before making a leaping attack on Vader. Using the Force, he casually threw her aside and she toppled over the edge of one of the platforms – seemingly to her death.
The next part of the game was initially confusing to me, as Vader grabbed Cal with the Force. Though I was in control of Cal, I couldn’t see any way to attack Vader (Cal couldn’t ignite his weapon, nor move) and after being held in the Sith Lord’s grip for a few seconds, Cal was dead. I was initially worried that I’d respawn before the duel with Trilla and have to do the whole thing all over again; luckily this wasn’t the case. On the second go around I figured it out – Cal used the Force to throw a large barrel or tank at Vader, and in the momentary lapse in the Sith Lord’s concentration, made a run for it.
Darth Vader was an unstoppable killing machine – Cal had nothing in his arsenal that could even come close to matching the Sith Lord’s power and abilities. All he could do was run – sprinting back along the bridge toward the turbolift as Vader literally tore the bridge itself apart with the Force. This sequence was the most tense in the whole game, as Cal had mere seconds to run and jump across each gap and over each obstacle, lest Vader would catch him and it would all be over.
Vader gave chase – but at a slow pace, and Cal was able to leap across the wrecked bridge, making it to the turbolift. After bashing the controls to make the lift move, it seemed as though Vader had caught up to him, but despite the Sith’s lightsaber cutting through the doors, the turbolift moved and Cal made it to an upper level of the facility. With the holocron safely in his possession he signalled the Mantis – informing Greez of Cere’s death and requesting extraction. Running down a hallway led to a locked door, which Vader came crashing through!
I loved this next part. As Vader and Cal briefly crossed blades, little BD-1 hopped up onto the Sith Lord’s shoulder. Using the skill he’d acquired earlier in the game he tried to slice (hack) into Darth Vader’s mechanical suit! For a second it seemed as if this might’ve worked, but then Vader grabbed the droid. It seemed like the end of BD-1…
Cal, who had been knocked off his feet, tried to use the Force to retrieve his lightsaber. Vader demanded that Cal give him the holocron; Cal of course refused. Using the Force, Vader held Cal’s lightsaber out of reach, but then activated it and stabbed Cal through the abdomen. The wound didn’t go all the way through, and while wounded, Cal wasn’t dead yet. Things looked grim, however. BD-1 beeped at Cal to get up, but it seemed like Vader had the pair thoroughly beaten.
But that just goes to show that in Star Wars – and in these kinds of stories in general – you shouldn’t trust that a character is dead unless you see their corpse! Cere came roaring back out of nowhere, attacking Vader! Though still outmatched by the Sith Lord, her intervention saved Cal and BD-1. Vader told Cere that her strength with the dark side would have made her an excellent inquisitor. The pair duelled for a moment, before Vader disarmed Cere.
Cere was able to use the Force to paralyse Vader, using a move that looked like he was being crushed. Cal intervened before she could go too far, and by breaking a window in the underwater facility, the trio were able to escape. Vader, whose mechanical suit is – I assume – vulnerable to water, was left holding the torrent back with the Force, unable to pursue.
Cal gave Cere his breather (the small device that allows for breathing underwater) and attempted to swim to the surface. A combination of his wound and exhaustion meant he was struggling, however. At the last moment, Merrin intervened, diving into the water. The screen went dark…
Cal awoke aboard the Mantis to see Greez looking over him. Cere was fine, he was told, and so was BD-1 (thank goodness!) After struggling to his feet, Cal joined the others in the Mantis’ main cabin. Cal and Merrin shared a hug and a touching moment – a budding romance, perhaps? Then he sat down with Cere to look at the holocron.
Cere told Greez that her contract with him was up; Greez said he was planning on sticking around. This was another sweet moment, as the curmudgeon had fully softened after all of his adventures with Cere and Cal. The crew gathered around the holocron, and Cal opened it to access the list inside. Cere reiterated her mission statement from the beginning of the game: they should use this to rebuild the Jedi. She did note, however, that doing so would forever change the lives of the children as the Empire would hunt for them.
Cal had other plans. Evidently swayed by what Merrin had said about the children having no choice, and that Cal may have been the one putting them in danger, as well as the visions he had on Bogano of their capture and torture, he suggested that the fates of the children “be trusted to the Force”. Implied in that is that if their destiny is to be Jedi, they would be found and be able to train. If not, they should be left alone. With a silent Cere seeming to give her blessing with a look, Cal destroyed the holocron, preventing the Empire from ever finding the children.
This was the end of the game. Cal asked the crew where they should go next, and then the credits rolled. I have to say that I liked this ending, and the idea of trusting the will of the Force and not forcing the children into a life on the run. However, I think it will be controversial with some fans. The objective Cal and especially Cere had was to use the list to find Force-sensitive children and raise them to be a new generation of Jedi. Even at the last moment, this was Cere’s hope. Cal had one mandatory conversation with Merrin in which she sowed a seed of doubt, and one further optional conversation. He also had the vision in the vault. Those two things changed his mind, and while it was more than enough motivation from my point of view, and I regard keeping the list out of the Empire’s hands as a solid victory, it wasn’t the original mission which had been at the heart of the game for most of its runtime, and for that reason I expect some fans may not have enjoyed the ending.
So that was it. Jedi: Fallen Order. As with many games, it took me a little while to get around to playing it – it was released in November last year – but I’m glad that I finally did. After a very disappointing experience with The Rise of Skywalker, it was nice to genuinely enjoy a journey in the Star Wars universe again. And this is also the first Star Wars project since Rogue One that I went into unspoiled. I got to enjoy the story as it unfolded, allowing the surprising moments to be genuine surprises, and that was a good feeling too.
Cal’s journey has been amazing, and it seems as though the ending of the game has been careful to leave the door open for a potential sequel. Rumours abound that it may even be scheduled for a 2022 release – but we’ll wait and see on that! All in all, Jedi: Fallen Order took me just shy of 20 hours to complete – and having looked online that seems about average. I enjoyed myself for most of that time – though there were a couple of frustrating sections and some unnecessary fluff. As I mentioned at the beginning, I’ll be doing a retrospective/review of the game at some point soon, before my memories fade too much, so I hope you’ll come back to see that. For now, all that’s left to say for those of you who’ve been following this playthrough is thank you! I hope you enjoyed this format of a written playthrough illustrated with screenshots; I certainly feel like I learned a lot since I made my first entry in this series, and I’m keen to try again with another game. I already have several possibilities in mind!
So until next time… May The Force Be With You!
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is out now on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is the copyright of Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts. The Star Wars franchise is the copyright of Lucasfilm and Disney. This article contains the thoughts and opinions of one person only and is not intended to cause any offence.
Trekking with Dennis 