Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is here and it’s great! After a long wait made longer by some delays, the latest and biggest entry in the Lego Star Wars series is finally out on all major platforms. And while these games have never been known for their difficulty, I have some useful tips to share about how to skip combat, earn studs faster, unlock characters for free, and which upgrades you should invest in first.
Play Through The Three Trilogies First
Skywalker Saga lets you start playing each trilogy right out of the gate. And while you can jump around or mess about in free play mode whenever, I suggest first completing all of the trilogies in whatever order you prefer. (I started with Phantom Menace and ended with Rise of Skywalker.) This will unlock a lot of characters, ships, and planets for later which will be helpful. Plus, the game is fun and it’s a blast to play all the episodes.
But Don’t Try To Get Everything On Your First Go
When you play through the trilogies the first time, don’t feel obligated to collect everything in a given level or find all the secrets in the open-world sections between missions. If you try to get everything you’ll spend days completing a single episode and you’ll discover that, like in past Lego games, you can’t get everything until you come back in free play mode with more characters. So just have fun knowing you can come back later to explore it all. However…
Grab Kyber Bricks When You See Them
Whenever you see an easy-to-grab Kyber Brick, don’t avoid it! Most levels also include easy puzzles that can be completed with any character, which more often than not reward Kyber Bricks or other collectibles. You are going to want Kyber Bricks because they let you upgrade your characters.
Once You’ve Got The Resources, Buy Some Upgrades
Once you’ve gotten some Kyber Bricks and amassed a sizable chunk of studs, you can start upgrading your characters. In Skywalker Saga there are skill trees for each type of character, like Sith, astromech droids, and smugglers. However, the general skills tree is where you should focus your attention first. This improves all your characters, letting them run faster and do more damage.
Grab These Useful Upgrades First
While all the upgrades in the game are good to have, some are much better and should be unlocked sooner than later. Here are some of the best general skills to unlock first:
- Attract Studs: Fully upgraded, this will make studs fly toward you from very far away.
- Extra Health: You can take more damage. Useful during some bigger combat encounters.
- Fast Build: Might not seem like the most useful upgrade, but is helpful for getting “True Jedi” rank on levels that feature breakable cover. (I’ll explain in a moment.)
Focus On Breaking Stuff To Get More Studs
If you’ve never played a Lego game before or it’s been a while, a reminder: break everything! This is a great and easy way to get studs. And during missions, this is the best way to fill up your stud meters to reach True Jedi ranking. Anything made out of Lego bricks can often be smashed and will reward you with studs. So get to smashing.
Use Butt Stomp To Destroy Effectively And Quickly
You can run around smashing everything up with your fists or blaster, but a better strategy is often to use every character’s butt stomp ability. Simply jump into the air and then hold B/circle to come slamming down, doing damage in a fairly large radius. Do this two or three times in most Lego-filled rooms and you’ll be swimming in studs.
What’s great about this strategy is that every character from a droid to a Sith to a random smuggler can pull it off, making it useful throughout the entire game.
Break And Rebuild Cover For Extra Studs
If you, like me, obsess over getting True Jedi ranking long before a mission ends, then you need to start breaking cover props every time you encounter them. These props have stripes on them and are handy to hide behind during a fight. Breaking them will earn you some studs, but rebuilding them will also earn you studs. This only works once, but using this method with the faster building upgrade let me quickly reach True Jedi rank in many levels before even hitting the halfway point.
Upgrades That Will Help You Get More Studs
While we’re here and talking about getting studs, here are some upgrades to grab if you are trying to farm studs to buy characters or more upgrades:
- Hidden Bounties – This upgrade is found in the bounty hunter skill tree. When active, you get 250 studs from every kill when playing as a bounty hunter. Very useful in free play.
- Hero Terminal Expert / Villain Terminal Expert / Astromech Socket Expert / Paid Translator – As in previous Lego Star Wars games, certain types of characters are able to unlock or complete specific, exclusive actions in many levels. And all of these upgrades reward you bonus studs, up to 7500, every time you complete one of these tasks. There are a whole lot of these specific actions to do in the game, so it’s worth grabbing these.
- Data Card Extra Upgrades Studs Bonuses – You’ll need to find some data cards first before you can activate these bonuses, but they are the best in the game. You can activate upgrades that make every stud you get x2, x4, x6, x8, and even x10 more valuable. Best of all, as the game explains, these effects stack!
Turn Around At The Start!
A simple, but useful tip: When starting a level, turn around before running forward. I’ve found all kinds of things hidden behind me at the start of missions. On Endor, for example, I found a whole shooting gallery mini-game just hidden behind the player right at the start of the mission.
When In Space, Look For Comets
Compared to the planets and space stations in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, space isn’t nearly as much fun to explore. However, while up there, keep an eye out for comets, which spawn all the time. These can be easily destroyed using your ship’s blasters, and reward you with studs and Kyber Bricks.
You Can Skip Terminal Puzzles
If you’re trying to blaze through a level to complete a challenge or just don’t have the time to solve every puzzle you encounter, many can be skipped by holding the X or square button. You won’t get any studs, but you can move on and not waste time-solving puzzles you’ve already solved.
There Are A Bunch Of Free And Secret Characters You Can Get RIGHT NOW
Once you beat all the trilogies, you may be surprised to see you still have hundreds of characters and ships left to discover and unlock. And while I can’t help you unlock all of them for free, I can help you get over a dozen using some handy cheat codes. Go check out our list to see all of them. (And check back later as we continue to update it as people find new codes.)
Be A Droid Or Use A Disguise To Avoid Combat (Or Unlock New Areas)
If you play as a droid, like R2-D2 for example, many enemies will ignore you until you attack. This can be useful for younger players who might not be able to handle the combat yet, or for older players who are hunting for secrets in levels and don’t want to get attacked by stormtroopers.
Some enemies also drop pieces of their suit when you kill them. Assemble a full suit, and you can reap the benefits. Put on a full suit of stormtrooper armour, for example, and enemies will ignore you until you shoot or cause a problem. Also, while dressed as a bad guy you get access to areas locked behind Imperial/First Order terminals, and you can use grenades, letting you blow up props and doors built out of chrome-covered bricks.
Use Free Play To Go Back And Collect Everything
As mentioned earlier, once you complete an episode, you unlock Galactic Free Play Mode. In this mode, you can freely explore the entire galaxy in the game, or at least the planets you’ve unlocked so far. You can also, at any point, switch your characters out for other characters, letting you complete puzzles that were previously impossible.
Beat The Shit Out Of Kids To Speedrun…?
I don’t condone violence against younglings, but if you want to skip around some parts of the game or reach areas without using certain characters, you can always beat up kids to fly around the game. Really.
If you have any extra tips or strategies to offer, feel free to drop a comment below.
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