Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order draws a lot of inspiration from Dark Souls – particularly with its combat system. As such, it’s not the easiest game to pick up and play. You’ll likely want to hit the ground running though, and swing that lightsaber around like you’re in the movies. We’re here to help with that.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order: Combat Controls
Before we move onto the tips, let’s take a brief look at what you can actually do as a Jedi. The controls below are based on the PS4 version of the game.
- Left Analogue: Move your character. Press it down to run.
- Right Analogue: Move the camera. Press it down to lock target.
- Left Dpad: Equip or unequip your lightsaber.
- Up Dpad: Use Stimpak.
- Square: Attack.
- Triangle: Overhead attack.
- Circle: Evade. Double tap to roll.
- X: Jump. Double tap while in combat to flip out of the way.
- L1: Block. Press just before an attack to parry.
- R1: Use Force powers.
How and When to Evade Attacks
Before you even think about swinging that lightsaber, you should learn how to avoid taking damage entirely. Sure, bringing down your opponents will keep you alive, but avoiding taking damage will keep you alive longer, and learning the ins and outs of evading is key to that.
To perform a quick evade, press circle. This is best used when you don’t have time to press L1 to block an attack, and it provides you with a brief split second of invincibility. Tapping circle twice allows you to pull off a dodge roll, which is best used to avoid wide sweeping attacks, as you’ll cover a lot of ground getting out of the way.
So why would you evade when you can parry? That’s a very good question. The truth is, you can’t actually parry every single attack in Jedi: Fallen Order. Whenever a character turns red as they’re about to attack, their next attack can’t be blocked or parried. In this instance, you’re going to need to evade to avoid taking damage.
Timing is difficult to provide tips on as it’s different for each enemy, but evading works very similarly to parrying. We’ll cover the basics of that in our parry section below, but you have to basically press L1 as an attack connects to parry, and evading works the same. If you evade too early, you’ll likely take damage. You’ll want to press circle as soon as the enemy moves to attack, choosing to roll if their attack covers a lot of ground.
Basically, spend time learning enemy attack patterns and it should become clear when you have to parry or evade.
How and When to Block, Parry, and Reflect Projectiles
Blocking, parrying, and reflecting projectiles are all performed using L1, but the difference between these evasive maneuvers depends on the weapon your enemy has and your timing. Here’s a quick breakdown.
- Blocking: Hold down L1 to block. You can block any melee attacks or blaster projectiles.
- Parrying: Press L1 just before an attack connects to parry. Parrying temporarily stuns your opponent, opening up opportunities to counter-attack.
- Reflecting: You can reflect blaster projectiles back at your opponent using the same method as parrying. Simply press L1 just as the projectile is about to hit you to reflect it right back at your opponent, taking them out.
So when should you use these three maneuvers? Well, ideally you never block and use a combination of evades, parrying, and reflecting instead. That’s not always possible though, so you should see blocking as a last resort.
Why? Well, there are two reasons: blocking uses stamina and if this drains to zero you’ll leave yourself wide open to attack and the other is that it doesn’t actually provide any offensive benefits. Whenever you parry, your enemy will be temporarily disabled, allowing you to deal huge damage to them without worrying about retaliation. Often, you’ll end up taking out most enemies in one hit following a parry.
The same goes for a reflect, which instantly takes out a ranged enemy. You pull this off using the same method as parrying: press L1 as a blaster projectile is about to hit you and you’ll reflect it right back at the enemy. It’s worth taking note of the fact that the projectile does need to be on target originally to allow you to perform a successful reflect.
Here’s a few parrying and reflecting tips we found useful during our combat endeavors:
- After reflecting a projectile, keep L1 pressed down to continue to block the remaining projectiles. Storm Troopers rarely fire a single shot, and as reflecting only affects a single shot you can still be hit by the others long after the Storm Trooper is already dead.
- If your timing is spot on, you can reflect multiple attacks. When facing multiple enemies, continue to keep attacking L1 as each projectile is about to hit you to string reflects together. It’s risky, but looks awesome if you can pull it off.
- You can’t parry all attacks. If an enemy turns red while charging up an attack, use evade instead. See our section on evading above for more details.
- When fighting groups of enemies, parrying remains effective, and can stun any enemies that are directly adjacent to the one you parried. However, it won’t affect ranged enemies, or those a few paces away, so make sure you’re safe to counter-attack before doing so.
- It might be best to play a counter-attacking style, waiting for your enemy to attack before you retaliate. That way your parrying and reflecting act as an opener for your assault.
How to Use Abilities
As you progress in Jedi: Fallen Order, you’ll unlock a series of abilities. These aren’t to be confused with Force powers. They’re simply combat maneuvers that you can pull off using a series of button combos.
You can unlock new combat abilities by meditating and spending a skill point whenever you’ve unlocked one. Abilities can act as gap closers, increase your attack damage, or provide you with a quick counter-attack. There are plenty to unlock as you play, and you should spend some time reading their descriptions on your skill tree.
Or, even better, you can actually watch the skill in action by pressing square while reading the description. We recommend doing this as you might find interesting ways to use each ability, that you wouldn’t otherwise have thought of from reading the description.
Also, there is one combat ability that isn’t detailed. Once you’ve pulled off a dodge roll, hold up on your right analogue and press square to pull off a devastating uppercut attack. It deals pretty decent damage, and is a great counter after an evade.
How to Use Force Powers
Force powers are probably the reason why you bought Jedi: Fallen Order in the first place. These allow you to slow down opponents, push them back, throw your lightsaber, and more.
They function in a similar method to abilities in that you unlock them using skill points and can use them during combat. However, they often have outside of combat functionality as well, opening up new pathways. For example, you can use your slow power to allow you to bypass spinning fans or moving objects generally.
Much like with abilities, we recommend spending some time reading the descriptions of your Force powers to learn the best ways to utilize them.
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