Lack of Child Murder in 'LEGO Star Wars' Is a Boon for Speed Runners

Someone playing the new LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has discovered a trick that can help players traverse large pits and bypass empty space. Child characters, especially young LEGO Anakin Skywalker, are invincible in the game. You can hit them, but they’re impossible to kill. A determined player can use a lightsaber to launch a kid into the air and relentlessly beat the crap out of them to create forward momentum to take them over pits to move through levels more quickly

The technique, called “Child Flight” by the player who discovered it, could be a boon to explorers, completionists, and speedrunners.

Red Orb, the person who discovered “Child Flight,” is a huge LEGO Star Wars fan. “I remember playing the original LEGO Star Wars game as a kid,” he told Waypoint in a Twitter DM. “So of fucking course I was gonna play the new one after waiting almost three and a half years for it to come out.”

Red Orb also loves the Devil May Cry series and other character action games. “So when I heard the new LEGO Star Wars was gonna have combo based combat I knew I had to play it on release.”

He wanted to do something interesting with the combat, but the enemies had such small health pools that it was hard to get a long combo going. But Skywalker Saga players have AI companions. In the opening of the game, you play as Qui-Gon Jinn escorting a young Anakin Skywalker around Tatooine.

“At some point I accidentally hit young Anakin and he didn’t take any damage,” Red Orb said. “So after making sure I can knock him into the air and do stuff, I started going in on him. After a while I noticed I could basically jump cancel an infinite loop in the air with the right timings. So I tried it and found the easiest loop and tried it over a drop that kills you.”

Killing children is an iconic part of the Star Wars saga. But killing children is a huge taboo in video games that can lead to higher ESRB ratings and a strict ban in some countries. Even games that ostensibly about player freedom like Fallout 3 don’t let you murder kids. The new immersive sim Weird West constantly tells the player it can kill key story NPCs and still progress the game, but shooting a child will always result in a miss. 

Different games deal with child characters differently. LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga lets you hit them forever but they never take damage. “I've used this to get various collectables without needing to do the puzzle among other things,” Red Orb said. “I think it's going to be exceedingly helpful in free play any-percent speed runs since you can bring in young Anakin to the levels and use him to skip portions. The game likes to throw large gaps or high peaks that you need to do a thing to get up or across, but with the air loops you can just skip it.”

Fans still upset about The Phantom Menace can beat on Young Anakin without guilt and, possibly, use his invincibility to traverse tough areas. It’s a win-win for the youngling who will become Darth Vader