"The fact that Star Wars: The Old Republic continues to receive updates despite becoming worse with each passing one is a testament to how good its early game content is and just how desperate the Star Wars community are for a massively multiplayer experience."
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 eight class stories are the best content in the game, and later narrative updates were of lower quality, Star Wars: The Old Republic’s 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.
Star Wars: The Old Republic’s fifth 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 expansions which would be made available for free to all subscribers.
Unfortunately, things began to go south very quickly. 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. Chief among these changes was the forced removal of beloved companion characters, which would see some classes wait upwards of five years before their squad was canonically back together. In a few cases, companions who played a major role in the class fantasy 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 first seconds of their character creation 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 possessed the player character.
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 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 short after just one and a half instalments, leaving players old and new confused by the abrupt and nonsensical ending that alienated long-time players and confused new ones.
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 that fantasy.
Unfortunately, every update since has continued to weaken this element, 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 uniqueness. Companion characters were gutted similarly, losing their dedicated combat roles of healer, tank, or DPS, as well as their crafting specialisations, resulting in no single companion being more valuable than another.
To make up for the lost companions caused by Knights of the Fallen Empire, almost all companions were eventually made available to all players, resulting in dozens of barely interactive companions lacking dialogue or personalisation. Many now serve only as basic combat helpers when engaging in open-world combat.
While the developers have tried to reincorporate class fantasy in newer updates, the damage has been done. After killing the eternal emperor multiple times 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.
While Star Wars: The Old Republic continues to receive updates, they often severely lack content. Even a major point update often contains less than two hours of story content and no group content.
Considering that the raiding, flashpoint (dungeon), and crafting aspects of the game can go months and, in some cases, years without updates, it’s unsurprising that those communities are showing signs of attrition, with raiding and crafting 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.
No developer wants to admit their game is a sinking ship, but Bioware’s insistence that changes such as merging Imperial and Republic players onto the same teams and removing ranked PvP modes are “exciting new changes” does little to hide the fact that the PvP community has shrunk to such a degree that Republic vs Empire combat is no longer viable for much of the day.
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 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 one advertising in fleet chat, despite that being the go-to area for recruitment and trade.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve monitored fleet and capital chat on the 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 others occasionally intrude upon, and that reality will only worsen with time.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is the sole surviving part of the old expanded universe to receive narrative updates, with the rest of that continuity cancelled or declared non-canon shortly after Disney acquired Lucasfilm.
While officially non-canon, elements of The Old Republic have appeared in canon shows and films, suggesting that Disney may be open to making parts of it canon in future.
Star Wars: The Old Republic’s economy is broken beyond repair. With hyperinflation of close to 2000% per year and billions of credits generated daily, there is no way the developers can rein it in without drastic measures, such as a massive tax on the super-wealthy or a full economic reset and reissuance of credits at a reduced ratio.
In 2015, a Hypercrate purchased for around $40 worth of cartel market coins would sell for about 4 million credits; today, that same item would be worth 6–8 billion credits and require complex multi-stage player-to-player trades due to exceeding the player credit cap (4.2 billion).
Most of the items shown here cost more than the player cap, resulting in rampant inflation that lowers the value of credits to around 200 million per dollar spent. For highly sought-after items such as the Mandalorian Nomad, it’s not uncommon to see 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 fair business model. Subscribing for even 30 days unlocks all prior narrative content, making it an attractive prospect for solo players looking to experience more of its universe.
As of update 2020, players can choose two complementary combat styles per character, allowing smugglers to access Imperial Agent skills or bounty hunters to use sniper rifles, among many possible builds.
Force users can take this further, gaining access to light or dark side abilities of the opposite faction’s twin class upon reaching certain milestones (such as Light or Dark III).
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.
Guilds may also purchase guild strongholds and even capital ships, granting easy access to vital services such as mail, auction house, and banking.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role playing game developed by Bioware and published by Electronic Arts, it released on 20 December 2011, and is available exclusively on PC.
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:
Star Wars: The Old Republic supports the following peripherals:
Star Wars: The Old Republic is rated PEGI 16+ and contains:
Star Wars: The Old Republic is a great game for fans of the Star Wars franchise, but with its economy locked in hyperinflation and both PvP and raiding communities in decline, it is difficult to recommend when so many better titles are 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 play, makes for a very poor MMORPG.
We found Star Wars: The Old Republic to be a good game, meaning it is likely to be enjoyable for most players, despite having a few areas that could be improved upon.
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