‘Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’ story and ending, explained

This article contains major spoilers for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor was highly anticipated and ended up being worth the wait. The long-awaited sequel to 2019’s impressive Fallen Order picks up five years after the original game ended, delivering a bombastic new Star Wars adventure heavily steeped in lore from movies, TV shows, books, and comics.

The story has some unexpected twists and turns, delivering on the promise of showing Cal Kestis as a fully-fledged Jedi Knight battling the Empire nine years before the events of A New Hope.

If you’re here you probably want to know how this story goes down but, for one final time, we’ll warn you that the following is a complete rundown of the game’s story, who appears in it, and where this story may go next.

Opening chapters

The game begins in Coruscant, where it appears Cal has been captured by Imperial Senator Sejan. He’s pleased to have a prize to deliver to the Emperor, but the tables are almost instantly turned when Cal breaks free and his captors are revealed to be his comrades in disguise.

Cal and his new buddy, hunky jet-pack warrior Bode, set out to secure his ship. Soon the senator is himself captured, with Cal using a Jedi mind trick to retrieve some key information on Imperial positions for Saw Gerrara.

Very quickly it all goes south. The Ninth Sister Inquisitor arrives with a fleet of attack craft, killing off practically everyone in Cal’s team except Bode. After defeating the Ninth Sister Cal flees Coruscant, though his ship the Mantis is damaged in the process. Repairs are needed, and who better to reach out to than four-armed Fallen Order pilot Greez?

Greez is running a saloon on the planet Koboh, and on a trip into caverns below the bar’s basement Cal discovers an ancient droid named Zee. She hails from the High Republic era seen in books and comics (roughly 200 years before The Phantom Menace), was formerly the property of Jedi Santari Khri, and is holding a crucial key that unlocks High Republic tech.

This leads Cal on a quest to locate the mysterious and inaccessible planet Tanalorr, which is hidden within a nebula that destroys any ships that venture within.

Reawakening the lost Jedi

While exploring some mysterious ruins Cal comes across a strange figure floating in a Bacta tank and receives a Force vision of him and Khri as Jedi Knights. Believing that this Jedi could be a vital ally Cal awakens him, only to quickly discover that he’s not exactly on the side of the light.

This is Dagan Gera, who helped construct a Jedi Temple on Tanalorr during the High Republic, only to find the planet invaded by the Nihil (see the High Republic books and comics), with the Jedi Order ordering him to retreat and abandon the planet.

Gera refused. Now he has a huge bone to pick with the Jedi and wants to reclaim Tanalorr. After dueling Cal, Gera flees with the aid of his second-in-command Rayvis, an ancient alien who spent centuries imprisoned in a Jedi prison before the Order’s fall released him.

Needing advice, Cal decides to contact his old Fallen Order friend Cere. She’s joined up Jedi Master Eno Cordovo, Nightsister Merrin, and a cult known as the Anchorites on the moon Jedha (as seen in Rogue One) where they’re preserving what remains of the Jedi Order’s archives.

Realizing that Tanalorr could be the one place in the galaxy the Empire can’t reach, Cal sets out on a mission to retrieve the lost compasses that chart the way through the nebula.

The path to Tanalorr

Cal and Bode promptly set out to track these compasses down, taking them to the Shattered Moon base and back to the ruins of Koboh, though neither trip proves fruitful. Along the way, Cal and Merrin defend an ancient temple that’s being attacked by Imperials, with the experience drawing them closer and leading them to kiss.

Cal returns once again to Koboh to discover that ancient droid Zee has been kidnapped (droidnapped?) by Dagon’s sidekick Rayvis, leading to another team-up with Bode as they explore a crashed Trade Federation Lucrehulk packed with battledroids and raiders.

Their rescue mission succeeds, with Cal and Bode squaring off against Dagan Gera for a second time before escaping with Zee. Though Rayvis seizes the High Republic key.

Pursuing him to the Shattered Moon station, Cal duels with and eventually bests Rayvis, with the ancient warrior choosing to die with honor. Meanwhile, back on Koboh, Dagan Gera has assumed command of a flying fortress and is engaged in a pitched battle against the Empire, who he considers so weak it’s embarrassing the Jedi were ever beaten by them.

Cal and Bode team up once more to fight their way to the top of the fortress, where the pair battle one more time with Dagan Gera.

This time Cal and Bode triumph, with the pair uniting to kill the powerful fallen Jedi and retrieve the last key to Tanalorr. They return to Cere’s Jedi Archive on Jedha and celebrate, with Bode and Cal bonding over a drink as the hunky warrior opens up about the young daughter his rebellious missions prevent him from visiting.

Cal and Merrin smooch a bit more, everyone sits around a campfire drinking tea, and the future is looking bright. Until…

Betrayal!

At the moment Cere finally makes the decision to officially move the Jedi base to Tanalorr, Bode pulls out a blaster, blows Cordova away, and flees with the key. Bode is a spy!

A panicked Cal chases him through the base, then the pair mount speeder bikes and rocket through the desert as AT-ATs close in on the Jedi base. Cal catches up with Bode, only for him to pull out a lightsaber and do battle. Bode is a Jedi!

Bode easily beats Cal and tosses him off a cliff. Control then switches to Cere as she and the Anchorites defend the base from endless waves of Stormtroopers and AT-ATs. Cere then ushers Cal’s allies into the Mantis and returns to the archive to copy vital data on their hidden network before the Empire finds it. Enter… Darth Vader.

Cere battles Vader amidst the burning Jedi archive, with the Sith Lord one of the most powerful enemies in the game. For a brief moment, it even appears she’s triumphed, though Vader impales her with his lightsaber and kills her.

Cal comes to and rushes to the archive, finding Cere’s body and vowing vengeance on Bode for betraying them to the Empire.

The Mantis crew tracks his craft, which lands at an Imperial ISB base on Nova Garon. A furious Cal fights his way through the base to Bode’s quarters, where he meets his daughter Kata. Bode arrives and the pair have a tense exchange before Bode literally turns the tables on Cal (by throwing a table at him) and escapes through the base. Cal pursues, is faced with countless Stormtroopers, and embraces the Dark Side.

Cal brutally carves his way through the remaining Imperials only to find that Bode has fled to Tanalorr. Imperial Commander Denvik arrives, with a furious Cal force-choking him, only for Merrin to plead with him to return to the light. Cal does, though from now on in combat he can enter a rage-fuelled Dark Side mode.

The ending

With the help of Zee, Cal figures out a risky way to get to Tanalorr, though all very nearly die in the nebula. Cal and Merrin find the ancient Jedi temple and meet Kata, who’s not exactly enthused about spending the rest of her life with her Dad on a spooky deserted planet.

Cal and Merrin are both orphans and don’t want the same fate as Kata, so they and Kata try their best to talk Bode down and convince him to surrender.

But at this point, there’s no turning back for Bode, and he brutally fights Cal and Merrin with a combination of lightsaber skills, Force powers, and ranged weapons. Cal gets the upper hand and tries one more time to convince his friend to give up, though Bode grabs Cal by the neck and begins Force-choking Merrin.

Cal escapes, Merrin tosses a knife into Bode, and Bode finally tries to shoot Cal only for his gun to malfunction. Cal then repeatedly shoots Bode with his blaster, killing him.

The pair then take Kata in as their own and burn Cere, Cordova, and Bode’s bodies on funeral pyres. Cal vows to make Tanalorr a sanctuary for those fleeing the Empire, with Greez already planning a new saloon for the planet.

What’s next in the Star Wars Jedi series?

A sequel to Jedi: Survivor would inevitably focus on Cal gathering any remaining Jedi, Jedi texts, artifacts, and refugees and keeping them safe on Tanalorr. As the game ends he’s talking about tracking down any remaining Anchorites and bringing them to Tanalorr.

It also seems likely that Kata will play a major role in the next game. This timeline still has nine years before A New Hope, so we could see her as a teenager and, as the daughter of a Jedi, we wouldn’t be at all surprised if she became Cal’s padawan.

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