For the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic, the expansion Onslaught was announced in April. Many fans were more than pleased with the upcoming content. For them, the new expansion is truly important.
What kind of expansion is this? In April 2019, EA announced the expansion “Onslaught” for The Old Republic. The expansion is supposed to be free for subscribers and adds numerous new content to the game:
- a new story with new missions
- two new planets
- a new playable species: Nautolans
- a new raid
- new equipment and a higher level cap (level 75)
“Onslaught” is only dated for September 2019. So it will be a while before the new expansion is released. You can find details about SWTOR: Onslaught in our announcement report.
What “Onslaught” means for fans
This is how the development has gone so far: As it looks with the currently announced features, Onslaught will be one of the biggest expansions of SWTOR, perhaps even the biggest. Any previous expansion mostly brought roughly:
- the increase of the maximum level
- stories
- new missions
- new companions
- small group dungeons (Flashpoints)
The content of the last two expansions, Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne, received mixed to positive reviews from critics. However, they often fall to the back places in player rankings. This has increased the hunger for a good expansion even more than before.
Players have been waiting for new content for so long: Onslaught is the seventh expansion of Star Wars: The Old Republic and will be released nearly three years after the last expansion.
Knights of the Eternal Throne, the predecessor, was released in December 2016. Fans of the MMORPG had to do without major content updates for almost three years.
Previously, updates were released annually from 2013 to 2016, almost always at the end of the year, in October or December. As early as spring 2018, during the announcement of a new roadmap, calls for a new expansion were made.
This was the concern: Because this cycle was broken and no updates came for so long, fans feared that the developers at BioWare had simply stopped working on SWTOR.
Also, in autumn 2018, the “Cantina Tour” event of SWTOR was canceled. The tours are community events in various cities. Due to the cancellation, fans already labeled SWTOR as a “dying game. “
In addition, many developers from SWTOR were pulled away for the development of Anthem in order to finish Anthem. According to an insider, it was even said that BioWare wanted SWTOR to die in favor of Anthem.
Many fans blamed the publisher EA, which has belonged to BioWare since 2007 and is among the 5 most hated companies in America. There was a belief that EA only cares about money and thus simply writes off fan favorites like SWTOR.
According to reports from former developers, however, the opposite was true. It was said that EA did not kill BioWare, but saved it.
This is why fans are happy now: After the announcement of Onslaught, a certain relief spread among the fans. Many had feared that the servers of their beloved game would be shut down, that SWTOR would simply be ended.
However, since Onslaught will be a large expansion with its many features, fans now hope that SWTOR will last for several more years. They are not only happy that content is coming at all, but also about what specifically is supposed to come.
The new items are expected the most, which are supposed to lead to more individual customization of the classes through the “Spoils of War” system. But the date also seems cleverly chosen by the fans. Since Onslaught is released in September, the team then has a lot of time to fix any bugs. December will have several weeks of holidays in between.
What will happen next?
In the coming weeks and months, Onslaught will first be developed. Articles on the official SWTOR site will appear that will elaborate on some features such as:
- planets
- Nautolans
- classes
- “Spoils of War”
- the story
At the moment, many players are still thinking on reddit about how some of the new features like the “Tactical Items” will work.
By the way: Anyone who logs into SWTOR until May 6 will receive a free M4-Y8 astromech droid.
How long do you think SWTOR will last with Onslaught?
According to BioWare, not only large expansions are necessary for the maintenance of the game:
