In 2011, Star Wars fans approached Star Wars: The Old Republic with caution. It came from the same team that brought us all the stellar Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel the Sith Lords, boasting the same sort of delicate attention to story and characters that Bioware has proven a mastery of. The catch? It’s an MMO. Could a truly immersive narrative manifest from an massively multiplayer RPG? Yes and no.
The many stories that could be told in SWTOR were admirably focused, but lacked that sense of intimacy that made the legend of Revan so appealing to us in 2003. Too focused on making a story non-specific enough for anyone to fit into and becoming bogged down with too many game extending distractions, you lose what is a pretty interesting main story in the rigamorol. Mix in the further muddying of what was already a convoluted skill/item system by expanding it tenfold, and you have a game that had a lot to do before it could ever truly compete with genre heavyweights like World of Warcraft or Guild Wars.
It struggled to reach the expectations Bioware had set for the title months after launch. Even with big expansions and content additions, SWTOR was forced to drop its subscription fee model and adopt a hybrid sub/free to play system in 2012. Getting players in the door consistently afterwards, expansion packs started dropping in consistently for the next two years, including adding base building elements and fully free flying space combat.
None of them compare to Knights of the Fallen Empire.
WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE BEGINNING OF THE EXPANSION BELOW THE VIDEO.
Knights of the Fallen Empire starts with a lengthy cut scene that summarizes the rise to galactic dominance that the Eternal Empire has experienced. From the perspective of a pair of force sensitive twins who act as harbingers of war for their father, the Emperor Valkorion, you get a good sense of the personal motivations behind these NPCs before you take your first steps into this new world. Princes Arcann and Thexan are remarkable force-wielding warriors who are constantly achieving great feats in battle, but never enough to coerce appreciation from their father. Thexan takes it hard, but Arcann is far more affected. Consumed by rage in one final snub, Arcann makes an attempt on Valkorion’s life, but Thexan intervenes and is killed instead. Only then does Valkorion show Arcann the affection he’s been missing all this time.
This set of scenes tells a more complete and emotional story than any other in the game. Bioware jettisons the old reliance on flashy light saber combat and action-packed warscapes and replaces it with an honest to goodness backstory. It’s in this moment that the MMO was finally what it promised to be, four years later. I’ve been playing this game on and off since 2013, and I’ve never been more interested in it that at the beginning of Fallen Empire.
Once that’s over, you begin your journey into this new “Wild Space,” an area of scarcely charted space that is just beyond the reach of the Empire or Republic. Depending on if you import one of your old level 60’s or create a new one, the first hour or so will serve as a partial tutorial where the game slowly familiarizes you with your skills and the rhythms of combat again. It also introduces you to the new status quo of the game, where Jedi and Sith (and their governments) have forged an alliance in order to stand against this new foe. As a level 60 Jedi, I stood side by side with a Sith Lord, Darth Marr, and came up with a plan to rout the Eternal Empire while searching for the trail of the Sith Emperor, who has exterminated a planet and vanished by the end of the main story. Over the course of the next 11 chapters, you learn that these old doctrines matter far less in this new world. The Force is just another weapon.
By the end of the prologue a few big revelations hit you. One, the Valkorion is the Sith Emperor in physical form, and his “absence” was actually him constructing a new empire outside of the reach of the old galaxy. Two, Arcann kills him and assumes his throne, but the Sith Emperor’s connection to the Force is so strong that he doesn’t need a body to remain alive. Three, you are framed for his murder, and are frozen in carbonite for 5 years before you are broken free, and the game proper starts. As an “Outlander”, you’re tasked with taking the fight to the Eternal Empire and stop their galactic domination. It’s a great time to be an Old Republic fan.
The mechanics of going about the “game proper” have changed pretty drastically across the board. Leveling from 1-60 the old fashioned way is no longer a grim exercise in grinding boring side quests. Experience gain from quests has been greatly enhanced, and story missions (now denoted with purple markers) give tons more XP than they used to. It’s entirely possible to get to level 60 without having to do any side quests at all, and now it’s much easier to figure out what’s ancillary and what’s required. What this mostly does is allow people to play this game almost completely by themselves, so SWTOR can truly be the KOTOR successor it tries to be, for people who don’t want to be pressured into doing Flashpoints and the like. While leveling on lower level planets, you and your gear get down leveled appropriately, and gain experience at a rate comparable of your actual level, like Guild Wars 2.
Companions are simpler to keep track of, as well. Their armor is now entirely cosmetic, and their stats have be amplified so they’re never under leveled or under equipped. Affection has been replaced with Influence, which is gained based on just conversation choices and ditches affection gain items and the like. Companion effectiveness in combat (thanks to the Presence stat) and their effectiveness with crafting are affected by your influence over them. Each companion can also fill any combat role, so now there’s no reason not to have HK-55 follow you around where ever you go.
As far as combat stats go, Strength, Willpower, Cunning, Aim, and Surge have all be eliminated. The first four have been corralled into a single, do-it-all combat stat called Mastery, which determines damage bonuses and critical chances for all of the character classes. Surge is now just a component of critical chance and critical damage. Trimming these superfluous stats streamlines the math behind the combat a bit, and means you will find less items that have absolutely no use to you.
In the vein of Destiny, this game has only gotten better after a huge, game-altering overhaul that has helped bring out what the game does best, while minimizing its most troubling bits. The complete list of changes can be found here, at the SWTOR update blog. Now’s the perfect time to jump into Star Wars: The Old Republic, but if want to start from the beginning, refer to our Old Republic Wiki to help you through it. And don’t forget to keep us updated with your galactic exploits on Twitter @CurseGamepedia.