For the last month, I have fallen head over heals in love with an amazing MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) on PC called SWTOR (Star Wars: The Old Republic). Released to western audiences in 2011, this amazing collaboration between Bioware (developer), EA (Publisher), and Lukas Films LTD. (IP holder) has been going strong now for nearly 10 years. As an avid gamer, I knew of this game for quite some time but never truly decided to commit myself too it for any prolonged period of time so that I could give it an adequate review. Having gone through much of the content over the past month, I feel as though I am now ready to share my thoughts about this hidden gem of a game.
By far the strongest aspect of this game is how the Star Wars story is captured to perfection in online video game form. From the start, SWTOR places you (the gamer) at the forefront of your own Star Wars journey, allowing you to select which side of the force you would like to start your characters journey on. The choice is between either the light side with the Republic or the dark side with the Empire. Seeing as I always love to play villains in games I chose to join the Empire with a Cyborg Juggernaut (warrior) character.
To ease you into your own personal story within the game, you start out as a nobody who needs to learn the ropes of the empire or republic by completing tasks and making decisions along the way. Each decision along the way brings you close to the light or dark side, even if you chose a different starting position from the choices you make. This makes for a very interesting interaction with many of the games NPCs (non player characters) as many of them will show displeasure if you choose a dialogue choice different from what they were expecting. Personally, I stayed true to the dark side throughout my playthrough almost entirely.
The story progresses with you as the main character getting stronger after each victory. You visit a multitude of planets each with a struggle against the republic or empire (and later against the Eternal Throne) in an effort to strengthen your chosen characters bond with your faction. This brings us to a discussion on overall progression that I feel is another exceptionally strong aspect of SWTOR.
Progression in SWTOR is evident in many ways:
- Story
- Character Level (max level 75)
- Character Profession (gathering / crafting)
- Class and Abilities (active / passive skill tree)
- Gear Score (max level 306)
- Legacy (account wide progression which includes Alternate Characters)
- Renown (max level 999)
- Achievements
- Reputation
- Fleet Commendation (space battles)
- Valor (PvP)
- Social (group activity points)
- Fashion (lots of cosmetics to collect)
- Flashpoints / Operations (SWTOR’s version of dungeons and raids)
- Companion (max level 50 per NPC)
There is likely even more progression points that I am missing but I do believe I hit the vast majority of them. With so much progression even past the max character level of 75, SWTOR leaves a lot of things to do for when you reach end game. After approximately 180 hours of gameplay over the last month, I have completed the vast majority of the story of the game and am now hitting the end game progression grind, mainly focusing in on gearing up and trying elements of the game that I have neglected to this point.
Between the story and the progression, the last topic of praise I would like to hit on is the community element of the game. It is my experience thus far that the community is extremely friendly and helpful to new players. The general chat in each planet you travel to is lively, it is very easy to join a guild to experience end game content, and the game encourages you to group up and do things together with its Social point system and bonus group experience buffs. The community has recently seen a rather large influx of new players due to the Steam launch and many of these players are going to the Star Forge server. This is how I found the game and I am so happy to see that after nearly 10 years the game is not only surviving, but thriving.
My review for SWTOR is 8.5 / 10 with points taken off only for the tab targeting combat system. I personally prefer action combat.
Should you care to check the game out for yourself, the Steam link is here.