Let’s be honest—when you first played Star Wars Jedi: Survivor back in 2023, did you stop mid-fight against that nasty Bilemaw and think, “Wait, I’ve seen this belly-flopping idiot before”? No? Well, I certainly did. And after two more years of dissecting every roll, parry, and poorly timed dodge in the galaxy, I can say with absolute confidence: playing Dark Souls 2 in 2014 was a secret eight-year-long training montage for Cal Kestis’s second adventure. Move over, Jedi holocrons—true wisdom comes from the Earthen Peak.

Now, I’m not just some guy waving a plastic lightsaber in my living room (okay, maybe I am, but that’s beside the point). I’m a certified Soulsborne masochist who has died more times to a mob of Hollows than to any Sith Lord. And as much as I adore the Star Wars Jedi games for finally making me feel like a proper space wizard with a laser sword, I can’t help but notice how much muscle memory from FromSoftware’s catalogue carries over. It’s like going from driving a beat-up sedan to a sleek speeder—the engine is different, but your foot already knows exactly where the pedal is.

The Soulsy Heartbeat of Respawn’s Jedi Games

Let’s rewind a moment. Both Fallen Order and Survivor borrow heavily from that sweet, punishing Soulslike formula. You’ve got your bonfire meditation points, your corpse-run XP recovery, and enemies that punish greed harder than a Hutt crime lord. In Fallen Order, I spent more time learning the Second Sister’s attack patterns than I did exploring Kashyyyk. She’d knock me down to a scripted health percentage, I’d think I was finally winning, and then—bam—cutscene, she escapes. It was frustrating, but that’s the dance, isn’t it? Telegraph, dodge, parry, punish. Rinse and repeat until your fingers bleed and you start hearing BD-1’s beeps in your sleep.

Survivor cranks that formula up to eleven. The game throws five combat stances at you right out of the gate, expecting you to juggle them like a hyperactive Tusken Raider with a gaffi stick. Bosses are faster, attack patterns are more complicated, and the number of enemies that can pancake you into the ground is frankly obscene. For a casual Star Wars fan just looking to swing a glowy stick, this might feel overwhelming. But for those of us who’ve spent weekends slowly walking around corners in Drangleic with our shields up? Oh, it’s pure comfort food. We’ve been trained for this.

Meet the Bilemaw, Your New Old Nemesis

And that brings me to the Bilemaw. The first time I stumbled into one of these oversized toad-lizard hybrids on Koboh, I was ironically more terrified of the nearby Mogu. The Bilemaw looked like it had just rolled out of a swampy bed and didn’t care much about my presence—until I poked its belly. Then it became a flailing, tumbling nightmare. You know the attack: you’re slashing at its side like a sensible person, and suddenly the whole creature just falls over onto you, rolling its bulk in a way that makes hitboxes cry. I died. I laughed. I died again. Then I realized why my brain kept screaming “COVETOUS DEMON!”

The Covetous Demon. The infamous boss from Dark Souls 2 that looks like a sad, melted Jabba the Hutt knockoff. Most players beat him on the first try by simply walking around him and poking his flab. He is, objectively, one of the easiest bosses in FromSoftware’s history, sandwiched between hallway ambushes that kill you fifty times before you even reach the fog gate. And yet, his most memorable attack is exactly the same as the Bilemaw’s signature move: a side-roll crush meant to catch players who get too comfortable.

I cannot stress how identical these animations are. When the Bilemaw topples sideways, the movement is that same sluggish, weighty flop you’d see in Earthen Peak. The hitbox? Deceptive both times. The tracking? Laughably cruel. The best strategy for both enemies? Exactly the same: attack once or twice during a clear opening, then walk—don’t roll—to the side and let them flounder like a beached space whale. Muscle memory from 2014 kicked in without my permission, and I love it.

Why Dark Souls 2’s Boss Design Is a Perfect Blueprint for Survivor

What makes this crossover so satisfying is understanding why Dark Souls 2 worked the way it did. That game had a reputation for being “the awkward middle child,” but it taught you a brutal lesson: the environment is the real boss. Getting to a boss fog was often harder than the fight itself, because every corridor was stuffed with ambushes, explosive barrels, and enemies who’d chase you across the entire level. You couldn’t just sprint past them—like you could in most other FromSoft titles—without getting a halberd to the spine. By the time you actually reached the boss room, you were already exhausted, low on Estus, and wondering if this was even worth the trouble.

Then the boss itself turned out to be a pushover. The Covetous Demon fell over. The Dragonrider fell off the platform. The Prowling Magus was just a congregation of regular enemies with a health bar. It was anticlimactic in the best way, because the game was saying, “Congratulations, you survived the real challenge. Here, have a participation trophy.”

Jedi: Survivor doesn’t make its bosses pushovers (the Double Rancor fight alone still haunts me), but it absolutely inherited that philosophy of overwhelming run-backs and punishing exploration. The Bilemaw isn’t technically a boss most of the time—it’s a large creature that respawns, just like the Jotaz or the Gorocco. But clearing an area full of Bilemaws, Bedlam Raiders, and those relentless DT Sentry Droids while trying to reach a meditation point? That’s the real fight. By the time you face a single Bilemaw in isolation, your muscle memory is so primed that the Covetous Demon’s long-lost cousin feels like a nostalgic friend rather than a threat.

A Jedi’s Greatest Weapon Is… Muscle Memory?

I genuinely believe that if you ever wanted a crash course in Survivor combat fundamentals, a mandatory Dark Souls 2 playthrough should be the entry requirement. The game teaches you to manage spacing against large, slow enemies, to not get greedy after three hits, and to read subtle telegraphs that look like the boss is just shifting its weight. It forces you to unlearn the panic-roll habit and embrace the patient strafe—a skill that makes the Bilemaw encounters laughable even on Grandmaster difficulty.

Think about it. How many times have you died to a Bilemaw because you were too busy admiring Cal’s blaster stance or trying to land a fancy aerial attack? Now compare that to how many times you’ve died in Dark Souls 2 because you got cornered by three Hollow soldiers in a room designed by a psychopath. The lesson is the same: respect the simple stuff. The Covetous Demon taught me not to stand next to a big boy who clearly loves to roll over. The Bilemaw simply gave me a Star Wars skin on that lesson—and a much cooler outfit.

So, the next time a Bilemaw flops onto its side and squashes your poor Jedi into a pancake, don’t get mad. Thank the Covetous Demon. Thank the Earthen Peak run-back. Thank the entire weird, janky, overstuffed world of Drangleic. Because without them, you’d just be another dead Cal Kestis complaining on Reddit. Instead, you’re a Soulslike veteran facing a familiar foe—and this time, you’re the one with the Force.