Cal Kestis is a fictional character in the Star Wars franchise. He is the playable protagonist of the Star Wars Jedi game series which includes the 2019 video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and its 2023 sequel, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, developed by Respawn Entertainment. The character has also appeared in other media of the franchise, such as the novel Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars by Sam Maggs, which bridges the gap between the two Star Wars Jedi games. Cal is played by American actor and model Cameron Monaghan through performance capture.

Within the franchise, Cal is a former Jedi Padawan and survivor of the Great Jedi Purge who, during the early reign of the Galactic Empire, lives in seclusion on the planet Bracca until an incident forces him to reveal his Force powers. Pursued throughout the galaxy by the Inquisitors, the Empire's Jedi hunters, Cal embarks on a quest to rebuild the Jedi Order as he is joined by a number of unlikely allies, who help him challenge the Empire's rule and become a second family to him. During his journey, Cal learns to re-embrace his Jedi role and reconcile with his troubled past, as he goes on to become a powerful Jedi Knight and a prominent figure in the fight against the Empire.

Cal's character has received a generally positive reception from critics and fans, who praised his growth and relationships with other characters, although he did face some initial criticism over his "boring" appearance in the first game.

Cameron Monaghan provides both the voice and likeness for Cal Kestis' character, including his natural red hair. Respawn Entertainment captured his physique through motion capture. On playing the part of Cal, he said "It's pretty surreal to see a character that you built and got to explore and imagine. It's a character that I've really grown to love". He also stated, "It's such a privilege to be able to play something that has a storied history behind it, but also something that I'm a fan of and have always wanted to be part of since I was a kid". The actor "didn't want to model Cal on any specific Star Wars character", adding "I wanted Cal's personality and demeanor and everything to come out of his own experiences and his own stories, and to build it from an inward place".

During his audition process for the game, Monaghan wasn't told that he was auditioning for a Star Wars game. "At that point I didn't know I was auditioning for a Star Wars game, but I kinda knew. They made these fake audition pages and stuff, and I was kinda reading it like 'hmmm ... This is Star Wars, isn't it?' They were like 'No, of course not.' So when I got into the room and they gave me the toy lightsaber, I was like 'I knew it!'"

Before the developers knew who Cal Kestis was going to be, there were several different concepts. The director of the game Stig Asmussen revealed "We talked about doing an alien character, we talked about doing a different gender, but we arrived at where we were because at the time, Rey was kind of the thing for Star Wars, so it made a lot more sense for us to have a male protagonist".

Cal is the protagonist of the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019), set five years after the rise of the Galactic Empire and the Great Jedi Purge. His backstory is explored in a flashback that occurs later in the game, which reveals that Cal was a Jedi Padawan training under Jedi Master Jaro Tapal during the Clone Wars, and that when Order 66 was issued, Tapal sacrificed himself to save Cal from their former clone troopers, leaving the latter guilt-ridden and causing him to sever his connection to the Force.

While working as a scrapper on the planet Bracca, trying to hide his identity from the Empire, Cal uses the Force to rescue his friend Prauf during a work accident, exposing him as a Jedi to the Empire, who subsequently dispatches two Inquisitors, the Second Sister and the Ninth Sister, to capture him. Cal escapes with the help of Cere Junda, a former Jedi Knight-turned-mercenary, and her partner and friend Greez Dritus, who allow him to take refuge on their ship, the Stinger Mantis. Since Cere has cut herself from the Force after a brush with the Dark Side, Cal is recruited to retrieve a Holocron hidden away by Cere's former Jedi Master, Eno Cordova, which contains a list of Force-sensitive children around the galaxy that could be trained as Jedi, allowing the Order to be rebuilt.