The Impossible Final Boss of Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order

You’ve learned the abilities, practised them endlessly, and have the muscle memory to use them without thinking. You’ve explored every inch of the map, absorbed every power-up, and stuffed every weapon you can find into your backpack. Yes, you’re nearing the end of the game ‒ and you’re feeling fully in control of your character. Typically, this is a time when a game presents you with its toughest challenges, while giving you a moment to appreciate just how far you’ve come. The menacing mounted knight that once gave you so much grief? Gone in two bonks. The oversized flies that stubbornly blocked your progress? Easier to squash with a riot shotgun. The final stages of a video game often function as a power fantasy, with your evolved abilities acting as a metaphor for how much your character has grown on their journey. These abilities can sometimes feel a little indulgent, satisfying the player’s wish for extravagant levels of power. And there’s no better example of this than the final boss fight, where ‒ after a challenging struggle ‒ you defeat the big bad, wrap up the storyline, and end the game feeling as powerful as a god. 

Not so, in Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. Here, the only way to beat the final boss is by running away… and you’re given a serious humbling in the process. 

Let me set the scene here. In Fallen Order, you play as Cal Kestis: a former Jedi Padawan who’s on the run from the Galactic Empire. Following an epic journey that spans planets and solar systems, Cal ends up in a sinister underwater bunker, where he’s on the hunt for a device containing important data. Sure enough, things initially seem typical of a final level: you obliterate multiple ambushes, send platoons of underpaid stormtroopers to their deaths, and defeat an entire Sith dojo containing every annoying enemy in the game. Then, you’re presented with a big combat challenge in the form of Sith Inquisitor Trilla, who provides a scrappy and intense lightsaber duel. Her defeat should signal your total victory, and position you as no.1 lightsaber wielder in the galaxy. But here comes the twist. Darth Vader shows up. He swiftly dispatches Trilla. He swats aside your mentor, and turns to deal with you. He has no health bar. You cannot damage him. All you can do is run.

It’s a devastating introduction, and the subsequent chase sequence is a far cry from the typical power-fantasy boss fight you’d expect to find at the end of an action game. Yet flipping the stereotypical power arc on its head makes total sense for Fallen Order’s story. At its heart, this is a narrative about a young person recovering from trauma: a growth process that is gradual, not immediate.