Star Wars’ Expanded Universe has lived on in myriad methods because it got here to an official finish in 2014, when Lucasfilm and Disney wiped the slate of continuity clear. While some components and characters have rejoined canon, and re-releases of traditional EU comics and books give possibilities to re-explore what was, one enduring EU stalwart is prepared for extra: Bioware’s choice-driven MMO, The Old Republic.

As the MMO turns 10 this yr, The Old Republic finds itself at one thing of an odd crossroads. Unlike many Expanded Universe merchandise, its standing as a residing, ongoing on-line recreation allowed it to flee the tip its fellow EU tales had been confronted with when Disney and Lucasfilm introduced their plans to reboot Star Wars canon, pared right down to, on the time, the unique and prequel motion pictures, Clone Wars and Rebels, and a handful of recent Star Wars publishing gadgets. A decade later, The Old Republic endures, having turn out to be a free-to-play recreation. Many of its concepts and influences may be now felt in present Star Wars tasks like the High Republic transmedia initiative, itself its personal story of that “more civilized age” earlier than the Republic fell.

The Old Republic’s connection to its religious successor, Bioware and Obsidian’s beloved duology Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, The Sith Lords, has seen its legacy stay on in tasks like next year’s KOTOR remake, and even lingering rumors and desires that Lucasfilm will revisit the period with new cinematic tasks. Even as the corporate’s relationship with the EU has re-warmed—principally via the prospect to merchandize the previous with re-releases and Star Wars’ best love of all, new toys—The Old Republic has largely been left to its personal units, telling its personal continuation of an period hundreds of years earlier than the movies, one the place the Sith Empire and the Republic have waxed and waned in a cycle of battle. Which means its builders, coming into its newest enlargement—Legacy of the Sith—don’t actually have a lot of a problem with regards to the best way to hold The Old Republic and the period it represents alive. Their considerations are, naturally, extra about the best way to hold gamers invested and energetic in shaping the story of characters they’ve been taking part in for the very best a part of a decade, in a narrative that lets them decide lots of moments, large and small.

“It’s got to be that there’s so many choices and options, right?,” Charles Boyd, one of many creative directors on The Old Republic at Bioware Austin, mused of the sport’s largest challenges at a latest press convention to debate Legacy of the Sith and The Old Republic’s legacy itself. “We do have the benefit of 10 years of story, and 10 years of branching options and storylines, and characters and classes having separate experiences—which is awesome, because whenever we’re like, ‘What do we want to do next?’ we have all this stuff we can look at and say, ‘It’d be cool to continue that piece,’ or ‘Here’s a new thing, how can we ground it in something players know?’”

But that freedom can be a blessing and a curse for The Old Republic’s writing workforce. There are lots of threads to select up on—whether or not they come from the unique, class-specific story arcs the sport launched with a decade in the past, or extra extra broadly from latest, largely centralized plot strains like these present in Knights of the Fallen Empire and its successor, Knights of the Eternal Throne. But which means there are additionally myriad inflection factors of participant selections alongside the best way in these arcs to contemplate, too. “More than anything, we want players to feel like they’re having a Dungeons and Dragons tabletop experience—where it’s you and a DM and it’s tailored to your choices and past experiences, your future choices and all that. That’s really hard to do when you’re not in the room,” Boyd mentioned. “It’s definitely a challenge when you try to foresee what players will want to do in any given situation and build a story around that without exploding the scope of everything. So, finding that careful balance of player agency and respecting your choices, of playing off your choices, while also telling a cohesive, continuous storyline going forward, it’s my favorite part of building this game—but, it’s also probably the most challenging, for sure.”

That will come to a head when Legacy of the Sith arrives as the sport’s newest enlargement subsequent month. Not solely does the brand new enlargement embrace a bevy of main mechanical modifications that permit gamers to undertake the fight kinds of different lessons to alter the best way they play their very own character, narratively the enlargement will set each Republic and Sith-aligned heroes alike towards certainly one of The Old Republic’s most iconic characters: the Sith Lord Darth Malgus, who has been foe, uneasy ally, and now rogue agent over time since gamers first met him. Malgus first returned to The Old Republic in a significant approach within the final enlargement, Onslaught. But the Sith has now gone rogue along with his personal plans to uncover historical powers past the Republic and Sith Empire’s management, at the same time as the 2 sides discover their cyclical warfare rising even hotter coming into Legacy of the Sith. There, the Empire invades the watery planet of Manaan in an try to pressure the impartial Selkath individuals into supplying their medical prowess—because the unique dwelling of naturally occuring Kolto, the therapeutic liqud that preceded the Bacta tubes we see within the authentic Star Wars motion pictures—to the Imperial warfare effort.

“Darth Malgus is probably our most recognizable character, our Sith Lord, he first appeared in the cinematic trailers that preceded SWTOR, so he’s been around longer than 10 years in the players’ minds. He was a warrior for the Empire, he ended up breaking away, trying to do his own thing. Didn’t go so well because the players stopped him. He was presumed dead for many years, but being more machine than man, he survived and has returned to the story in our storyline for the most recent expansion, Onslaught,” Boyd teased of the place Malgus has been—and the place he’s about to go in Legacy of the Sith. “[He was] seemingly working for the Empire until he managed to break free, yet again, and now he’s gone rogue. He has his own plans. No one knows exactly what they are, but we know they’re not good. So players are eager to discover his secrets, and stop whatever he’s planning before he can pull it off.”

As gamers put together to hunt Malgus as soon as once more, and even with that unusual limbo it finds itself in in relation to its “canonical” cousins a decade on, the SWTOR workforce nonetheless has loads of concepts about the best way to hold its pocket of the galaxy far, far-off alive. Legacy of the Sith is a celebration of every thing that has come thus far for the MMO, nevertheless it’s removed from the tip. “We’ve laid out with EA the next couple of years—our five year plans,” Keith Kanneg, The Old Republic’s venture director, mentioned of the sport’s future. “‘What do we want? What do we have? Where are we going?’, that type of thing. Really, this is a foundation year for us, even though it’s 10 years into our life cycle. We looked into it and said, ‘If we want to last another 10 years, we have to do a lot of improvements, a lot of changes, find where we’re going, where our story is going’—so, where do we see it [with Legacy of the Sith]? Kind of the start of the next 10 years.”

“That’s exactly how I’d put it, too. We want to build on all this amazing storytelling and the choices the players have made to make their character unique up to this point—and keep that going,” Boyd added. “How many games get that opportunity to tell that continuous, branching interactive narrative? But then, at the same time, [we] recognize we have a 10-year-old game, so let’s update some things. Expand options as a player. Carry the game forward into the future.”

Legacy of the Sith, The Old Republic’s newest enlargement, will launch on December 14.

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