How to unlock the Combat Slide in Starfield

You have a gamut of unlockable skills and perks in Starfield. Some, like Persuasion, are incredibly useful when navigating conversations. Others, like Ballistics, are for when the talking is all over. To help enhance your battle options, you might consider acquiring the combat slide — and here’s how to unlock it in Starfield.

Getting the combat slide is a simple matter. Finding it, however, isn’t quite as easy. You unlock the combat slide by putting a point into the Gymnastics skill. That’s about it. If you were looking through the robust list of skills you can earn as part of Starfield‘s level system, the move likely eluded you. I’ve been without it for the roughly 55 hours I plugged into the game. But now I have it, and gave it a whirl. Is it worth the admission price? Well…

Okay, but should you unlock the combat slide in Starfield?

Did you know we published a list of the best skills to unlock early in Starfield? Gymnastics and, by relation, combat slide, ain’t in it. And there’s probably a reason. It kind of sucks. Even on a planet with roughly half of Earth’s gravity, my character could only slide a foot or two before skidding to an abrupt halt. Not every game treats a slide like Apex Legends. Maybe that’s okay, but when I have dozens of hostile laser beams chasing me I’d like bit more mobility.

The combat slide in Starfield exists to get you quickly behind cover and into a crouch position. It does its job, and that’s about the highest compliment I can offer the move. So if that’s what you think will pull your combat experience together like a Persian rug, go for it. But I had some buyer’s remorse. It doesn’t even look cool in third-person mode.

Getting Gymnastics to Rank 4 can help. At max rank you get a temporary burst of movement speed after sliding or mantling over objects or walls. It will take a lot of fall damage to get there, though. It’s just like leveling up your acrobatics skill in The Elder Scrolls.