Major Spoilers AheadStar Wars Jedi: Survivor pushes and pulls Cal Kestis in interesting ways with regard to how he connects to other characters. Not a lot of detailed context is available for fans to understand precisely what Cal’s relationship was with his new crew seen on Coruscant, for example, but his reactions to their sudden deaths say all fans need to know. Still, Cal always leans more toward an empathetic nature on the light side of the Force, though he is nearly pushed to the dark side on multiple occasions. In this regard, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor bears a unique similarity to Sifu.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor belongs to an enormous IP canon, and that could insinuate that multiple endings or an alternate ending with branching paths in gameplay are implausible. That is because the game needs a scripted conclusion that the rest of Star Wars’ continuity can acknowledge. However, if Star Wars Jedi: Survivor did elect to have an alternate ending, it could have taken inspiration from Sifu and had an option not to kill story-related bosses, which Cal seems reluctant to do throughout the game anyway.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Shows Cal Kestis Wanting to Spare His Opponents
Cal demonstrates an unwillingness to kill most characters and shows them an outstanding amount of empathy despite the circumstances. Cal draws his lightsaber to confront Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s Ninth Sister after he realizes Gabs has been killed, for example, but after their eventual fight, Cal attempts to appeal to her inner self and refers to her by her former name, Masana Tide.
Likewise, Cal does not wish to kill Star Wars Jedi: Survivor’s Rayvis during the Gen’Dai’s proposed trial of combat, but does so to honor the antagonist’s wishes. Bode Akuna kills Jedi Master Eno Cordova and flees to Tanalorr, but once he is finally subdued in front of his daughter, Kata, both Cal and Merrin give him a last opportunity to turn a new leaf.
This results in Cal and Bode in a blaster standoff, but Bode’s blaster is empty. Cal resolves this situation by shooting him multiple times after having learned that Bode cannot be redeemed, but the important part is that he did indeed still try to empathize with Bode before having to kill him.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Should have Had Sifu’s ‘Spare’ Option for Bosses
Sifu has a ‘true’ ending that players can earn by ‘sparing’ each boss. Sparing these bosses consists of defeating them by successfully breaking their Structure bar in the second phase without performing the prompted finisher animation. This breaks the cyclical nature that the game revolves around. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor does not deal too much with hateful revenge and how that could have plagued Cal, but it would have been interesting to see how cutscenes and an alternate ending could have played out with this in mind.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor would have worked well with this mechanic as an influence on its own gameplay due to bosses having their own block meters that players can whittle down to a guard-break opening, but breaking their block meter is much easier than breaking a boss’ Structure bar in Sifu. Block meters in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor can commonly be broken down with a string of attacks, parries, or Force abilities, and therefore it would need to come up with a slightly different means of being able to defeat a boss without killing them.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
