Pretty far into Respawn and EA’s new Star Wars game, Jedi: Survivor, you’ll encounter a difficult boss fight on Jedha against a powerful foe who can easily kill you in a few hits. But to talk about this boss fight in any more detail requires spoiling a big moment from the game’s second half. So if you haven’t reached that point yet, then turn around now.
Seriously, final warning. Don’t hop into the comments or complain on Twitter that I spoiled this big Star Wars moment in the new Jedi sequel. Okay? Okay.
After a betrayal leaves Cal in a bad state, you play as Cere Junda. She’s the Jedi Master who helped train Cal in Fallen Order and has now dedicated her life to preserving the Jedi’s legacy and teachings. Now the Empire is about to destroy all her work—the new Jedi archives—and she must hold them back while her allies escape with what little they can. And this leads us into the big fight against the one and only Sith Lord himself: Darth Vader.
And this fight isn’t easy, which you probably already know as you looked up some tips on how to defeat the former-Jedi-turned-Sith. This fight is tricky because you only get four healing items and you don’t have all of Cal’s stances and moves. Instead, you have to rely on Cere’s admittedly powerful but limited number of moves and abilities.
How to defeat Darth Vader in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
It’s clear with how slow Vader’s attacks are that the game wants you to parry his blows, and you can do that. But if you are like me, parrying isn’t your strong suit and relying on it is nerve-wracking. So we aren’t going to parry much, instead relying on one move in Cere’s arsenal: her force slam.
When you jump and hit Y/Triangle, assuming you have some Force energy, Cere will slam down onto the ground and stun Vader for a moment. This can also interrupt Darth Vader’s unblockable attacks, too. And it’s this move that became my go-to for defeating this bastard.
The strategy goes something like this: Jump and force slam near Vader to stun him for a moment (and remove a large chunk of his stamina bar, too). Then quickly attack the Sith Lord with two to three basic slashes. Then immediately dash or leap away from him before he can grab you and snap your neck or attack with a fury of swings. Hopefully, you did enough damage to earn just enough energy to do another slam. Repeat this over and over until you win.
At first, this strategy might not work. You’ll need to get a feel for how close you need to be to force smash him and how far away you want to get to avoid his retaliatory attacks. You’ll also need to occasionally dodge balls of junk he throws at you, so watch out for those. The key here is to not get greedy. This fight happens in three stages and if you screw up you have to restart all over. So take your time and chip away at him between jumps and slams.
I’d also recommend letting him kill you and restart if you take any damage and have to heal before the first cutscene. The end of this fight becomes very hard as Vader turns on SUPER SITH MODE and strikes faster and harder. You are likely going to need all the healing items you can get once that happens. And if you can parry even a few of his attacks, that will help out a lot and make this strategy even more effective.
Regardless of how you beat Darth Vader, I wish you good luck. And may the Force be with you!