Return of the “Jedi Survivor”: Fast Travel Not Allowed?

After a lengthy time period of high quality “adulting”, I finally got to step back into the boots of Cal Kestis for a few hours to continue my journey through Star Wars: Jedi Survivor. And after a few awkward minutes of trying (and failing) to remember what each button did, I fell right back into the groove of combining Cal’s lightsaber skills with his aerial acrobatics into combinations that weren’t half bad. I took out my first Rancor, defeated a few bosses, and really felt the story coming together. But this game has been out for MONTHS, so I am kind of feeling the pressure to make progress as quickly as possible. To be honest, I really don’t have the time to slowly walk around and smell the roses if I want to complete this story at some point in the twelve months. I have a LOT going on in the real world and very little time to spend in virtual ones, so I REALLY need to get from Point A to point B in the most efficient way possible… and as much as I love this series of games, they both have one unique little quirk that is both realistic AND annoying. If you have played them, then you know what I am talking about. If not… well, let me set the scene up first.

After completing a level in most games, we are typically treated to a nice little cinematic cutscene followed by our character being transported to the most logical point to start on their next mission. You know… you defeat Bowser, you are told that your princess is in another castle, and then your character is seamlessly transported to the beginning of an entirely different world. Or perhaps you just completed a core world objective in Mass Effect… you fought through a massive amount of resistance, reached the end of the area, defeated the “boss character”, and then the screen simply asks you if you want to “Return to the Normandy”. Then BOOM… like a Star Trek transporter, you and your entourage are zipped to the optimal position to start on the next quest on your log. But NOT Star Wars: Jedi Survivor… oh no, no, no. After successfully battling my way through the challenges of the environment as well as the opposition and finally besting the “big bad” at the end of the map, I have to retrace my steps and walk ALL THE WAY BACK to where I started from. On occasion, there will be a shortcut I was able to create for myself on my way in that will make some of this a LITTLE bit less frustrating, but make no mistake… there isn’t a mystical “Ocarina” awaiting me that I can simply pull out and play to transport myself somewhere else. There isn’t a secret back door that will help me save some time exiting this castle that clearly does NOT contain my princess. I am going to have to exit the way I came in… and when you are trying to save time, this can present more of an obstacle than the Stormtroopers I just dispatched to get here. But wait… what is this option in the menu? A FAST TRAVEL option? Now THAT sounds MUCH better. Let’s see what this does…

You can only imagine my excitement as my fingers guided the on-screen cursor down to that beautiful “Fast Travel” option and pressed the action button… I didn’t really know where I wanted to fast travel to, I just knew it HAD to be closer to my next destination than where I was currently standing. And at least there wouldn’t be any more annoying backtracking in my future. We are about to start cooking with gas my friends… Hank Hill would be so proud of me. My life was about to change forever thanks to this fast-travel button that would whisk me to wherever I wanted to go… wait. What do you mean “Fast Travel Not Allowed”???!!! You have GOT to be kidding me right now… my game-changing shortcut is “grayed out”, meaning that action cannot be performed at this time. No reason was provided to me, nor was I told what criteria I was lacking to be able to utilize this function in the future… it was just a simple “nope, not happening, do not pass Go, do not collect $200”. I guess we are walking all the way back through this fortress after all… now with 20% more disappointment than we had before. But as I continued the game, I found out why that fast travel option was not available to me at that time… and I am glad that it wasn’t. But to better understand WHY, we need to make one pit stop first.

I’m pretty sure that we are all pretty familiar with making poor decisions in our lives that led us into a detour that we would have rather avoided. I know I have PLENTY of those examples in my personal life… you are welcome to have some of them if you don’t have any of your own. I’m actually running a “Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale” on bad ideas that made my life much harder than it had to be, so it’s a great time to stock up if you are so inclined. When we fall into a hole that we personally dug, we don’t really have anyone to blame but ourselves. But what about when we are doing the right thing, we are “following the story”, and then we STILL have to march through these uncomfortable, annoying, time-wasting places in our lives where we feel like we might even be moving BACKWARDS just to move forwards? Those are much more difficult to understand or accept… and with the limited amount of time each of us have on this planet, none of us want to waste ANY of those precious grains of sand in the hourglass doing something that doesn’t move us forward. So WHY do these seemingly “time-wasting” experiences exist and what do we do when our “fast travel” option doesn’t work? Let’s ask someone who knows a thing or two about such things… and maybe this will help me with more than just my return trip in Jedi Survivor.

Acts 16:6-10 Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them.

The Apostle Paul received direction from the Lord that was blocking his preferred path forward… pretty sure we are ALL familiar with that feeling. But there is something important in this story that can be easily missed if we don’t pay attention to what transpires next… rather than moving on to the next mission he wanted to take on, Paul was redirected to Macedonia and into the home of Lydia (Acts 16:11-15). But Paul was blocked from his fast-travel option for a higher reason than he could have imagined at the time… he needed to do some time in prison. Yes, you read that right. This was more than just an inconvenience at this point… we are going directly to jail.

Acts 16:22-34 Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” Then he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household.

Paul had a date with destiny with someone he would have never met if his “fast travel” option had been approved… SEVERAL someone’s, actually. From Lydia, to the unnamed girl possessed by an evil spirit, to this prison warden and his family… Paul was unable to move forward in his adventure because there were some souls in need of guidance and healing that he would never have encountered if his path didn’t take him in this unwanted direction. The very next day Paul would be released from prison and depart this area with his previously unknown mission completed… it wasn’t on his original quest log, and the Lord didn’t exactly warn Paul to pack for a quick trip to the big house. But the same Heavenly Father who sent Christ on a path to speak to one Samaritan woman at a well (John 4), directed Phillip to walk down a lonely desert highway without any known destination (Acts 8:26-40), and guided Onesimus to the exact same place as Paul to secure his release from slavery (Philemon), will also lead us down very similarly undesired paths… not for discipline, but for DELIVERANCE. 

Before we jump back to the ongoing adventures of Jedi Knight Cal Kestis, there is a very practical application in this for all of us if we are willing to look past our disappointment with these detours and see the possibilities within these predicaments. Many times, I have been so personally bogged down in my own dilemmas that I almost missed the very reason the Lord brought me backwards into this unintended intersection… perhaps the reason I am experiencing this delay is because this situation isn’t about ME. There are souls that this backtracking will bring me into contact with that I would not have met otherwise. Most of my dearest friendships were forged in the fires of my darkest times… and many of the souls I have had an opportunity to reach for the Lord were found on trips that I never intended to take. The voices of those who are silently crying out for help are rarely found in the places we would prefer to meet them… they are located in the hospital rooms we never wanted to occupy, the long lines that we had hoped to avoid, and the waiting room at the mechanic shop while we reshuffle our entire budget to afford a new alternator we didn’t plan on needing. This “backtracking” and “time-wasting” has a higher purpose than we are often aware of… we just have to open our eyes to see the perishable pocket of possibilities that would never have been presented to us if we had simply followed our preferred pathway.

In my Jedi Survivor journey, there was a very real and important reason why I couldn’t simply “fast travel” out of my current area… there was a specific character who I could ONLY meet if I backtracked all the way back to the beginning of where I started, and there was an incredibly critical new ability that I could ONLY unlock if I made my way back the way I came. For both my character’s development as well as the proper advancing of the story, the game would not let me “fast travel” past these important and necessary “story events”. The game isn’t limited… just my viewpoint within it is. And as I am continuing through the story, I am finding that there are several places where the fast travel option is present and there are locations where it is grayed out… and when I find myself in those “gray places”, now I know that there is an event of greater significance coming up around the corner. The game isn’t punishing me or limiting me… it is PREPARING me for what I will need as well as PLACING me in a position where I can best serve the needs of others. What a very “Jedi” concept.

As we follow in the footsteps of Christ, we will find that there is never a crown before there is a cross… just as the Lord Himself learned through the trials and tribulations He suffered (Hebrews 5:7-9), we too have many “crosses” to bear on this planet for our personal development (Luke 9:23). But many times, these detours are actually our destiny in disguise… perhaps what we perceived as a burden was actually going to serve as a blessing to someone else and we just didn’t know it at that time. None of us can bypass these “story events” in our lives… and it is a good thing that we can’t. The Lord in His grace will send the rain when it is needed, but that means that the rain someone else was praying for might also cause it to “rain on our parade” (Matthew 5:45). And in our race to grab an umbrella, we may find ourselves drawn into a divine intersection that couldn’t have happened any other way. That isn’t luck… that is His divine hand of providence. 

Whatever circumstance we find ourselves in, if that “fast travel” option is grayed out, there is a REASON for it. It may be providing the opportunity that the Lord needed to teach us something new, or it might be the only way we will be brought into a “chance” meeting with eternal implications. Paul only reached that prison warden for Christ because He didn’t allow his current situation as an innocent prisoner to affect His ability to continue to worship and serve the Lord in that dark place (Acts 16). My Star Wars character Cal Kestis only learned how to ride a mount and tame animals because I was forced to go back through the way I came in instead of simply “fast travelling” to my next destination… and this turned out to be an ESSENTIAL skill for my next mission as they helped me to reach places I could never reach on my own. And the character that was awaiting me at my journey’s end would not only enlighten me with new areas to explore, but also become someone I would see many more times down the road. And if we look past this present passing moment of discomfort in our real world lives, we may find that there is something truly important that we can do for the Lord in this position we are currently stuck in… we just have to open up our hearts to His will, open our mouths to Him in prayer, and open our eyes to see “beyond the gray” to understand this non-skippable “story event” and how we can serve Him and others within it. Someone’s eternal destiny may be on the line… and our decision in this place of personal detour may represent their only hope. 

• Like us?  Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Spotify, TikTok, or YouTube for our articles, podcasts, and videos!
• Facebook: Finding God in Video Games
• Twitter: @FindingGodIn_VG
• Instagram: Finding God in Video Games
• Podcasts on Spotify/Apple/Google: Finding God in Video Games
• TikTok: @FindingGodInVideoGames
• YouTube: Finding God in Video games