Pyloon’s Saloon (And Its Bittersweet Ending) Is The Best Thing About Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a prime example that bigger isn’t always better. The open world is too vast, the story too long, the villains too plentiful for proper examination. The gameplay might be an improvement, as are the graphics, but I’ve never connected to the game like I have with Fallen Order, which I’ve gone back to replay multiple times. In fact, I’ve only just revisited Survivor for the first time, three years after its release. And for all the scale and abundance of content, it’s the smallest area which is the game’s highlight.

Move over huge open world, I’d rather spend time in Pyloon’s Saloon. Greez’s cantina on Koboh is comparatively small but it’s where I like to spend my time. It’s part of the more tactile, realistic Star Wars fantasy, visiting a local watering hole and talking to the wide range of strange patrons. It’s wonderfully immersive. I’d get tried when out on missions, climbing mountains and more mountains, and just want to get back to the saloon to make the rounds, talk to everybody one-by-one, even use the force to unblock the toilet.

And what brilliant variety of aliens from the prequels, sequels, originals, animated shows, and new species too, like whatever the hell that freak Turgle is supposed to be. Some of the accents are maybe a little too specific and real world, but that’s an increasingly prominent staple of Star Wars. The only one I really rub up against is bartender droid Monk, whose design and mid-atlantic accent make him feel more like a Fallout character.

You get a snapshot of their story every visit, a chapter of an audio adventure each time you talk to them. I get annoyed when they start telling me things to explore when out on Koboh: “No, I want to stay here, tell me about yourself instead!” Cal has a habit of picking up strays and I’d search the open world not for chests or seeds but characters to recruit, convince to come back to the saloon. I was far more invested in this little side objective than the wider story.

But as the game progresses it becomes clear that Pyloon’s Saloon isn’t just a side mission but rather the heart and soul of the game. It enforces the themes and ideas the story is playing with. Cal’s journey in Survivor is that a Jedi is more than just a weapon; he needs to focus his energy on more than fighting the Empire. He can help people survive. He learns that running away, escaping, is not a failure but a success.

The story concludes (for now) with Cal finding Tanalorr, a place truly free of the Empire, and vowing to use it to house people as part of the Hidden Path. Pyloon’s Saloon is part of Cal’s journey to that realisation, a trial run for Tanalorr, a place of security for displaced souls. While he’s been using the saloon as a base of operations to rest between missions, Cal and the player have been discovering their true mission. But for Tanalorr to be a special place in this story, Pyloon’s Saloon can’t remain a sanctuary forever. It can be an example of togetherness but it also has to be an example of how the Empire destroys that spirit.

I love hub areas in video games. A place to recruit people, sink money into upgrades, to develop and expand. Usually these grow and improve over the course of the game, with their final state being one of richness and beauty. If they are destroyed or damaged, that’s usually left for the sequel. I’m still scarred by spending so much time and effort fully renovating Monteriggioni in Assassin’s Creed 2 and then seeing it get destroyed by cannon fire at the beginning of Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood. The saloon has to go the same way to prove the game’s narrative point about the Empire. That’s the thought going through everyone’s head while staying there: this can’t last for long. The game commits. Survivor doesn’t end with the saloon at its peak but rather back to its original, empty status.

And the best thing about the dissolution of Pyloon’s Saloon: how subtle it is. There’s no grand raid by stormtroopers. It doesn’t get burned to the ground. Instead its ending is much more bittersweet and melancholic. After bringing so many people together, packing the saloon, dusting off each booth, unlocking each room, filling and cleaning the damn fish tank and growing an entire rooftop garden, people begin to leave one-by-one. A Star Destroyer appears overhead and people move on. It’s so effective to see the bar quieten again, back to the empty space it once was.

Wini and Zygg find love together and decide to leave (doubly painful because I thought Zygg had the hots for me… er, I mean Cal). T-1N8 wants to become a surgeon after failing to save his former family. Mosey, the most knowable guide on Koboh, decides she has to leave now the Empire is on the planet. Caij is taken away, Bode betrays Cal (his big twist has never really sat right with me, a big reason for my lukewarm attitude to the story) and then Grock is killed by stormtroopers, leaving his partner Dana alone at the bar. You can even go out and find Grock’s body – I was shocked but appreciative of the developers’ commitment. Even Toa and Tulakt decide to leave!

Pretty much the only one left is mopey Moran. Maybe he leaves too but I’ll never know for sure. I can’t bare to walk in there anymore to see who else has gone. As long as I don’t check, he could still be there, lamenting his smuggling choices while leaning on the bar, Schrödinger’s Mirialan. At least the fish stay, but there’ll be no one left to feed them. But the tone is well judged. Most leave for better lives, Cal having helped them and them him in return, but it’s still sad to see them go.

And because Pyloon’s Saloon acts as a precursor to Tanalorr in regards to Cal seeing the worth in bringing people together, will it continue to act as such. Will Tanalorr end the same way or remain a hidden bastion of Jedi ideals? I get the feeling it won’t be a happy ending and its dissolution probably won’t be quite so gentle. We’ll find out in the third game, still untitled and technically unannounced but one has to assume it’ll release as part of the franchise’s 50^th anniversary in 2027.