“Whenever we look at a scene, one of the key pieces we look at is, how can we change this for a Sith Lord versus a bounty hunter versus a Jedi?” says Boyd. Different campaigns also meet different characters while my Agent might know one assassin well, my Smuggler might be entirely in the dark. Those characters, and their influence on the player, help set the stage for Darth Malgus and the Sith as antagonists. Characters like Lana Beniko are loyal to the player, and have their own interpretations of Sith philosophy. We only have so much canvas to paint on at any one time.” Image: BioWare/Electronic Artsīut when expansions like Legacy of the Sith come around, this huge cast can be a boon. “We have a wealth of choices that are already established that folks already know and can get excited to see again, but it’s also a challenge because it’s a huge cast. “We have so many cool characters, anytime we’re establishing a situation we’re like, OK, who would make sense for this?” says Boyd. The characters that players meet, even during their earliest days, can come back into the mix.
Something that makes the MMORPG feel like, well, an RPG is that the early campaigns are still very relevant to the endgame story, and the player’s choices matter throughout. It’s possible to skip past the campaign side quests, filler material, and early expansion content like the Hutt Cartels and get right into the meat of intergalactic adventure, evil emperors, and moral choices. Over the years, BioWare has been courteously curbing the need for players to grind. While there’s plenty of new stuff to explore, it’s still worth stopping to go through those old campaigns, especially since the chaff has been cleaned out.
That’s their instinct, to bounce off each other as violently as possible.” That conflict is great for game design, according to Boyd, because everywhere the Sith go, conflict follows: “With Sith, it’s built right in. There’s no Rule of Two, which means there are tons of them, and they’re all constantly fighting.
The Sith have continually been one of the high points of The Old Republic. There’s also a storyline where there’s a civil war brewing among the Mandalorians.” “There’s a lot going on with Malgus, and he’s going rogue a bit. “We’re continuing a storyline that kicked off with our last expansion, and even before that with a plot,” said Charles Boyd, creative director on Star Wars: The Old Republic, in a call with Polygon. For example, new character creator options allow players to mix and match between their abilities, weapons, and stories they experience, instead of funneling down one of eight roads with stricter guardrails. The expansion also includes lots of important changes in the early game. The next expansion, Legacy of the Sith, introduces new endgame content in which players chase down a rogue Sith Lord to the watery planet of Manaan. The Old Republic developer BioWare Austin has been faithfully updating the game since it was first released in 2011.
While the galaxy’s politics can change over time, and new enemies appear or are vanquished, the core of the game remains making those tough choices. Star Wars: The Old Republic is an MMO with a strong focus on narrative content, and so the game has many tough choices designed to make the protagonist sweat. It can be a moral quandary, or a question of what to sacrifice. Sometimes, a role-playing game hits the player with a choice that is legitimately tough.