Star Wars: The Old Republic has an almost unheard amount of singleplayer narrative content, which can take upwards of 400 hours to complete for an experienced gamer, with eight unique class stories, dozens of companion quests, and hundreds of fully voiced planetary and expansion quests, a player who is “in it for the lore” can easily spend the better part of 500 hours soaking in the universe Bioware has created.
While the 8 class stories are the best content in the game, and later narrative updates were of lower quality, Star Wars: The Old Republic narrative is comparable to anything found in similar titles, and even at its lowest (Knights of the Eternal Throne), Star Wars: The Old Republic’s story is worth experiencing.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic’s 5th expansion is one of the most controversial updates in the history of the game; with a huge marketing budget and a year’s worth of updates ready to drop, subscribers were very excited to sink their teeth into the first of several expacs which would be made available for free to all subscribers.
Unfortunately, things began to go south very quickly, and players who had been invested in the game since its original launch were horrified by changes that rebooted their favourite MMORPG in a direction no one had asked for including.
Chief among these changes was the forced removal of beloved companion characters, which would see some classes wait upwards of 5 years before their squad was canonically back together, and in a few cases, companions who played a major role in the class fantasy of several classes have yet to return eight years later.
Another blow to the fanbase was the developer’s insistence on solo-only content, forcing players who had worked cooperatively on each other’s stories since launch to go their separate ways for hours at a time.
Just when things looked like they couldn’t get worse, players who had identified as Republican or Imperial since the very first seconds of their character were suddenly forced to leave their faction and join a new hybrid faction that saw Sith Lords and Jedi Masters working together to defeat the Sith Emperor who somehow had not only returned as a new character named Valkorian but had then swiftly died and demonically possessed the player character.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
However, the biggest issue for many players was how Knights of the Fallen Empire would receive no substantial group content. What little narrative content was on offer had been split into bite-sized episodic chunks to be drip fed throughout the year.
In the eyes of the community, Knights of the Fallen Empire was the death of Star Wars, the Old Republic. While things have improved slightly in the years since, especially as players have regained their companions and the narrative has resumed its focus on Republic vs Empire, I cannot help but feel that Knights of the Fallen Empire forever changed the direction of Star Wars the Old Republic, in a way that has been more negative than positive.
In response to overwhelmingly negative feedback, the Knights of the Fallen Empire trilogy was cut shot after just 1.5 instalments, leaving players old and new confused by the abrupt and nonsensical ending that alienated long-time players and confused new ones.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
When Star Wars the Old Republic launched, each class felt unique. Players could enjoy the class fantasy of whatever role they chose, from the noble Jedi Knight to Sadistic Sith Inquisitors, cold and calculating bounty hunters to seductive smugglers; the plot beats, companions, and major events of each class story helped sell the class fantasy.
Unfortunately, every update since that time has continued to weaken this element of class fantasy, starting with the first major update that funnelled eight class stories into two faction stories and eventually into a single unified story that saw smugglers facing off against powerful force users and Sith spirits.
At the same time, the player character was losing its uniqueness; companion characters were gutted similarly, with companions losing not only their dedicated combat role of healer, tank or DPS but also their crafting specialisation, resulting in no single character being more worthwhile than any other.
In addition to making up for the lost companions caused by the events of Knights of the Fallen Empire, almost all companions were eventually made available to all players, resulting in players having access to dozens of barely interactive companions they had no history with, many of which lacked custom dialogue and customisation options, making them little more than DPS or heal bots for the player when engaging in open world combat.
While the developers have tried to reincorporate some elements of class fantasy in newer updates, the damage has been done, and after killing the eternal emperor on several occasions and being told I am the saviour of the galaxy repeatedly going back to being a no-name smuggler or rank and file trooper just doesn’t feel engaging.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
While Star Wars the Old Republic continues to receive updates, they often severely lack content. Even a major point update often contains less than 2 hours of story content and often no group content.
Considering that the raiding, flashpoint (dungeon), and crafting aspects of the game can go months and, in the case of crafting, years without updates, it’s unsurprising that the respective communities are showing signs of attraction, with the raiding and crafting communities being particularly hard hit.
As of April 2023, crafting has not been updated since Onslaught, and players cannot craft any non-cosmetic items useful at endgame.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
No developer wants to admit their game is a sinking ship and that they are unable to do anything about it, but Bioware’s instance that changes such as merging Imperial and Republic players onto the same teams and removing ranked PvP modes are “exciting new changes” do little to hide the fact that the reason for said changes is the PvP community has shrunk to such a degree that Republic vs Empire combat is entirely not viable for much of the day.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
Back in 2015, when I was most active on Star Wars the Old Republic if anyone asked to join a guild, they would be flooded with a dozen whispers and public messages, recently when rolling a new character on the most populated starter world, it took me almost two full days to find even one guild recruiting, and even then it was the only guild actively recruiting in fleet chat, despite fleet being the “go to” area for recruitment and trade.
Over the last few weeks, I have monitored fleet and capital chat on EU’s biggest server at various times, and seeing the chat so dead is disheartening; with only a handful of players advertising items and no visible group forming activity, Star Wars the Old Republic feels like a singleplayer game that other people occasionally intrude upon, and that reality will only worsen as time goes on.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
Star Wars the Old Republic is the sole surviving part of the old expanded universe to receive narrative updates, with the rest of the expanded universe being cancelled or declared non-canon shortly after Disney acquired Lucasfilm.
While Star Wars the Old Republic is officially non-canon, elements of the universe have appeared in canon shows and movies, indicating that Disney may be open to making elements of the game canon in future.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
Star Wars the Old Republic’s economy is broken beyond all repair, with hyperinflation of close to 2000% per year and billions of credits being generated each day, there is no way the developers can rein in the economy without drastic changes, such as a massive tax on the super wealthy or a total economic reset and reissuance of credits at the rate of 1 per 5000 for wealthy players, and 1/5 for free-2-play players.
In 2015, a Hypercrate purchased from GTN for around $40 of cartel market coins would be sold for around 4 million credits; today, that same purchase would be worth somewhere in the region of 6-8 billion credits and would require a complex multiple stage player to player trade due to its value being greater than the player credit cap (4.2 billion).
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
Most of the items shown here cost more than the player cap, resulting in rampant inflation that lowers the value of credits to around 200mil credits per dollar spent, and in the case of highly sort after items such as the Mandalorian Nomad, its not uncommon to see individual armour pieces selling for 1 billion credits (7 Billion per set), despite costing less than $20 worth of Cartel Coins.
For all its faults Star Wars the Old Republic has a very fair business model, and subscribing for even 30 days unlocks all prior narrative content, which makes Star Wars the Old Republic an extremely attractive prospect for solo players looking to experience more of the Star Wars the Old Republic universe.
As of update 2020, players can choose two complementary combats styles per character, allowing smugglers to access imperial agent skills and bounty hunters to access sniper rifles, to name just a few of the potential builds made possible.
In addition, force users can take this a step further and gain access to dark (or light) side abilities of the alternative factions’ twin specification upon reaching certain milestones (such as Light or Dark III)
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
Star Wars the Old Republic has one of the most comprehensive MMORPG housing systems, allowing players to buy and decorate a wide variety of strongholds, from Coruscant apartments to sprawling multi-level complexes.
In addition, Guilds may purchase guild strongholds and even capital ships, granting guild members easy access to vital services such as mail, auction house and banking.
Image credit Star Wars: The Old Republic - Published by Electronic Arts and developed by Bioware.
Pictured: The Alderaan Noble estate is just one of the 10+ locations players can call their own.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a massively multiplayer online role playing game video game developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts, it was released on 20 December 2011 and it is Free-2-Play.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is available exclusively on PC.
Star Wars the Old Republic remains in active development; however, compared to other mmorpg, the amount of content it receives per year is comparable to a minor update, with an average World of Warcraft major point update (10.1 etc.) receiving almost double the amount of narrative and group content that Star Wars the Old Republic receives in an entire year.
While we do not know how many people play Star Wars the Old Republic in total, the steam community peaks at around 7k users each day and has seen around 10 million users download the client since its launch on Steam in July 2020.
Star Wars the Old Republic is far from dead, however how long it will continue to survive after the launch of Massive’s upcoming star wars game is in question if EA and Bioware do not up their game and start producing substantial endgame and narrative content for their flagship MMORPG.
On average Star Wars: The Old Republic takes between 100 and 999 hours to complete.
Estimated completion times are derived from various sources and may vary based on the skill level of each player.
Star Wars: The Old Republic offers the following matchmaking options:
The Star Wars: The Old Republic in-game store sells:
The following peripherals are officially supported:
Star Wars: The Old Republic is rated PEGI 16+ and contains the following:
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a great game for fans of the Star Wars franchise, but with its economy firmly in the hold of hyperinflation and both PvP and Raider communities in decline, I find it difficult to recommend it to anyone else when there are so many better titles readily available.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is one of the only MMORPGs with more content aimed at solo players than group players, which while nice for solo players, makes for a very poor MMORPG.
