A Twitch streamer ended his Star Wars Jedi: Survivor permadeath run somewhat controversially after taking fall damage. The streamer, GoodGame_Ethan, already went through the (time-consuming, grind-heavy) trouble of acquiring every skill point in the first level. And though the fall isn’t what ultimately “killed” him, he decided to call it quits, anyway.
As GamesRadar notes, some Jedi: Survivor players won’t even “acquire every skill in the game even after well over 20 hours.” Losing that type of substantial game progress after failing to meet the requirements of your permadeath run—if you die, you have to restart the game—is the kind of missed opportunity you can feel from the bottom of your gamer heart, even if you’ve never attempted to do something similar.
But people on Reddit, where Ethan posted clips of both his maxed-out, tutorial-level skill tree, and his death, believe that neither empathy nor earnest condolences are in order. The video of Ethan’s (alleged) run-destroying fall shows protagonist Cal faltering mid-air after a Stormtrooper shoots at him. He plummets to the ground, and a black screen fades in before Cal respawns, standing where he was before he jumped, though he’s missing a chunk of health.
At this moment, Ethan drops the controller and lies on the ground with his hands over his face, inconsolable at what he interprets to be a full-on character death. Cal, with his operator occupied by desolation, stands around being useless, soaking up more Stormtrooper hits before keeling over and dying for real.
This is what some redditors take issue with: falling in Jedi: Survivor won’t kill you; it only damages you.
“Wait, dude? You killed yourself,” a top comment says. “You don’t die from falling off cliffs, you just take fall damage. [But] when you restarted they [blastered] you to death.”
“No, it’s a true permadeath run,” Ethan replied. “That definitely counts. I wouldn’t say respawning with less health isn’t a death.”
After users in the comments continued to downvote and take issue with Ethan’s logic, he layed down the law: “I get to make up whatever I want to do. And what I want to do is hardcore roleplay. Just like real life.” Amen, brother.