Star Wars Old Republic: We had to cut a lot of content

BioWare was forced to cut “a lot” of content in its MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic, as often its development team ambitiously designed things that were not necessarily needed.

“As big as our game is, we cut a lot of content because we really iterated the experience the player was going to have as they play through the game,” senior environment designer Mike Harnisch told VideoGamer.com.

“The challenge was, how do I create this incredible planet that’s not going to feel after the tenth hour that you’re just sick of it? How are we going to delineate space?”

In terms of what was actually cut, he explained to us: “It was just areas, like areas of the planet where we ended up moving space.”

“We would say ‘Well, we want to move this interior here, and we want to do this, and we don’t really need this’. We were so ambitious, I think that we ended up building a lot of things that we didn’t necessarily need.”

However it isn’t likely users will notice any of these cuts.

“So it wasn’t anything that anyone will notice when you play the game, it’s just that from our standpoint everything is our baby. So it was very difficult for us to build stuff and then to tear it down. But at the end of the day, it was that type of polish that we were really able to put onto this game visually, and it’s really going to show.”

Star Wars: The Old Republic is currently in beta and awaiting its December 20 launch date.

Read the Star Wars: The Old Republic interview in full for more from Mike Harnisch.