Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC)

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The Smuggler class should make Han Solo fans happy

Christine then takes the lid off the Smuggler class, of the Republic faction, for the first time. As the Han Solo archetype, the Smuggler is a scrappy, jaded underdog who always gets the girl and always manages to come out on top no matter what the odds stacked against him. He begins on Ord Mantell, a planet buckling under the pressure of a civil war between separatists and the Republic. Destroyed Walkers lie on the ground, and charred structural remains give the impression of a war zone. Your mission is to run guns to the Republic – no easy task.

Again, combat isn’t far away. Like the Bounty Hunter, the Smuggler is a ranged class with a focus on blaster fire, but doesn’t have as much armour. To compensate, BioWare has implemented the first ever cover mechanic in an MMO. Once an enemy is targeted, the Smuggler can take cover and move between cover points (shown by green indicators). A green icon above an enemy head indicates you have a defensive bonus against them. When in cover, abilities change – we can see the difference in the clean, minimalist UI. In keeping with Han Solo, the Smuggler’s up close and personal attacks are, how shall we put it… sneaky. We see him kick an unfortunate soul in the nuts, following it up with a head shot. Classy.

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The point BioWare wants to make by showing us the opening sections of two separate classes is that you’ll get an entirely different storyline, quests and voiceovers depending on what class you play. “You have an entirely different storyline, entirely different quests and entirely different voiceovers,” Christine explains. “So, when people ask us, hey whatever happened to Knights of the Old Republic 3, we literally say we’re giving you Knights of the Old Republic 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and so on, all in an MMO where you can play online with your friends. What could be better than that?”

The demo concludes with what’s called a “Flashpoint” – a highly customised story and gameplay experience. Our Bounty Hunter, having completed the Great Hunt quest line, is now off Hutta and on an Imperial Transport, and grouped up with a Sith. On the ship, the Sith waves in classic MMORPG style – an odd sight for a Sith. You’ve heard that the captain has disobeyed a direct order from his superior, one Grand Moth Kilram – not a particularly clever idea. With the Sith player you’ve fought your way to the bridge to confront the captain. Via a cutscene we see another MMO first (The Old Republic seems full of them) - a multiplayer dialogue system. First the Bounty Hunter selects a dialogue option, then the Sith gets a chance. The captain says he turned traitor because he doesn’t do suicide missions – he’d been ordered to go after a powerful Jedi on a Republic ship.

Now it’s time for a choice, one that will affect gameplay, your character, story and potential rewards. Do we let the captain live and use his years of experience to help us out, or do we kill the captain? Christine asks for a show of hands – unsurprisingly, we vote to kill him. The ship and its crew are now under our control, and we soak up the Dark side points.

The combat is fluid and exciting, unlike in most MMOs.

This obviously throws up some interesting questions. Will you have to sit through cutscenes or will you be able to skip them? Who in the group makes the ultimate decision, the party leader, or is it pot luck? And what implications do choices have for the persistent Old Republic universe? If you’ve killed the captain, and you want to group with someone who hasn’t, how will both players’ stories intertwine?

The answers will have to wait, because we’re now gunning for the Jedi warship. Via another cutscene you engage the ship. You get a report of blaster fire in engineering – the two of you head off to investigate. The Sith class is, obviously, heavy on lightsaber combat. We see him perform classic Sith moves – deflecting blaster fire with the lightsaber and paralysing enemies with Force Choke. The Bounty Hunter has a Death from Above ability that sees him use his jetpack to hover then come crashing down in a powerful attack. The two work together – the Sith Force Chokes to stun while the Bounty Hunter concentrates on DPS. Both players are able to take on massive amounts of Republic soldiers, more than you’d expect two players to handle in your average MMO. It’s a much more action-packed, fluid style of combat than we’re used to seeing in MMOs. You’re still auto-targeting, using hotkeys for special attacks and equipping passive abilities, but lightsabers clash impressively and blocking is supported by cool animations. Under the hood it might work like Warcraft, but to the naked eye it looks more like choreographed console combat.

The Jedi’s padawan turns up. As a wannabe Jedi, he’s able to deflect blaster fire and use the Force. He doesn’t last long though – the Sith ties him up with a Force Choke and the Bounty Hunter spams him with blaster fire. The Jedi Knight – effectively the end of dungeon boss – makes his long-awaited entrance. He’s more powerful, with a few fancy acrobatic techniques of his own, but he ends up just like all the others: dead. Now it’s loot time. The Sith takes his purple lightsaber for dual wielding and the Bounty Hunter picks up some new armour. Everyone’s happy.

We leave The Old Republic with almost as many questions as we had answers going in. We’re excited by the prospect of an experience of a quality seen in BioWare’s superb single-player games, and we know that The Old Republic will have all those things you’d expect from a traditional MMO (PvP, guilds, raids, an economy, an auction house, crafting and harvesting) too, but we’re not entirely sure how the high production value story features will work and what impact they’ll have on people who are just after a straight-up “Warcraft in space” game. The combat looks great (the Smuggler cover system is a highlight), but we imagine that, at the end of the day, much of it will work like traditional MMORPG combat, with fingers hovering over hotkeys and eyes on health bars. If BioWare, in the coming months, reveals this to be untrue, we’d be delighted. After all, one of our main gripes with MMOs these days is that they’re all too similar. BioWare should be commended for trying to do something different, for being so ambitious. And with a trailer like that, it’s impossible to feel anything other than pure geek love.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is in development for PC. No release date has been set.

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