Star Wars announces new expansion to classic video game The Old Republic

To celebrate its 10-year anniversary, the long-running MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic is receiving a brand-new expansion pack called Legacy of the Sith.

No official release date has been confirmed, but the official Star Wars website promises a holiday 2021 release. This indeed coincides with the 10th anniversary of the game’s original release back in December 2011.

True to its name, The Old Republic takes place roughly 3,600 years before the time of Luke Skywalker, in an age where the galaxy is divided between the Republic and a Sith Empire. It should be noted, however, since the canon reset of 2014, that the game is actually not part of the current continuity and instead takes place in the old Expanded Universe (or “Legends” continuity).

One of the best parts of a new expansion for this particular game is the prospect for another one of its iconic cinematic trailers that often feature high-octane action sequences with many, many lightsabers and a dazzling array of Force powers. While no trailer or gameplay footage has been revealed as of yet, the expansion promises a redesigned combat system, a revamped character-creation mechanic as well as several quality-of-life updates that inevitably come with a game this old.

Will Legacy of the Sith be the game’s final expansion?

Indeed, few games make it this long and those that do are often MMO’s like The Old Republic or World of Warcraft. Fortunately for the former, the Star Wars game has been popular since its launch a decade ago. In less than a week after its launch, the game had acquired over one million subscribers. This made it, at the time, the world’s fastest-growing MMO to date.

Despite switching over from its subscription-based model to a hybrid free-to-play style, the game has remained profitable. Considering that it is technically one of the most expensive games ever made, this is a good thing.

However, the game’s legacy stretches back further. The game is preceded by the single-player classics Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel. Two games that are not just popular among Star Wars fans but are also considered some of the best games of their time.

The series’ popularity has been noted with Lucasfilm. At Star Wars Celebration 2019, it was revealed that a live-action adaptation was in the early stages of planning that could potentially take the form of a trilogy of movies. Since nothing new has been reported and the project was not present at Disney’s Investor Day last year, which saw the announcement of a huge amount of content, it can be safely assumed that any further news on the subject is still a few years away at least.

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