Star Wars: The Old Republic First Look Preview

That’s one hell of a trailer, isn’t it? What, you haven’t seen it yet? Then what are you waiting for? Go watch it. Down there, on the bottom left of the screen – click on the cinematic trailer. Don’t worry, we’ll wait.

Wow. Not bad, huh? That trailer, which depicts the Sacking of Coruscant, is probably the best bit of Star Wars CGI ever made. It doesn’t tell us anything about how the upcoming MMO, The Old Republic, will play, but it doesn’t half make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

“Now that is what Star Wars is all about,” enthuses Blaine Christine, producer at BioWare Austin, during a behind closed doors presentation of the game. He’s just shown the trailer again in case anyone missed it during EA’s media briefing. “Kick ass action-packed combat and a heroic, engaging storyline.” Quite.

The thing is, anyone who’s played any MMORPG before will watch that trailer and think, that’s cool, but if The Old Republic ends up simulating that kind of combat then I’m a shaven Wookiee. Well, it’s time to get your hedge trimmers out guys, because the game might just do it.

Christine reiterates BioWare’s central goal with this ambitious project – to tell a story. While this sounds simple on paper, BioWare reckons no MMO has managed to do it before. Not properly, anyway. And by properly, BioWare means full voice over, cinematic cutscenes, Mass Effect-style dialogue wheels and decisions that have real impact on character, plot and gameplay – basically, stuff beyond pages of text and screen after screen of boring background lore.

For the first time, BioWare shows how it’ll all work with a gameplay demo running off of live servers back at the BioWare Austin, Texas, studio. We’re shown the Bounty Hunter class, of the Imperial faction, making his first tentative steps in The Old Republic. Based around iconic fan favourite Boba Fett, Bounty Hunters begin on the world of Hutta – this is the first time Hutta has ever been fully realised in a video game. As a fledgling Bounty Hunter it’s your mission to find your way into an event called The Great Hunt – sponsored by the Mandalorians to find the greatest Bounty Hunter in the galaxy. This is the Bounty Hunter’s opening quest line, designed to ease players into the game, introduce the mechanics of the class and get you off the planet.

From a third-person perspective we move towards an NPC and initiate our first ever conversation as a Bounty Hunter. Usually in an MMO a window would open with a page of text to read. In The Old Republic, however, a cutscene with full voice over triggers. The Old Republic is the first ever fully voiced MMO. Every single character class, male and female, and every single NPC, has full voice over. The amount of dialogue in the game must be mind-boggling.

The man we’re talking to is Braden, a gruff human who acts as your mentor through The Great Hunt. Like in Mass Effect, you pick from a number of dialogue options in real time from a conversation wheel, albeit a basic one. You’re introduced to Mako, a girl who will provide intel and tech, and Jory, a “big bruiser” who handles heavy lifting. You’re impatient: “Personally I’m just here to kill people and cause damage.” As a player you can decide how you interact with people. Every conversation will be like this.

Outside the base we see Hutta in all its glory. It’s run by the Hutts, of Jabba the Hutt fame, who moved in, enslaved the native populace and turned the planet into an industrial wasteland filled with toxic fumes and poisonous gasses. It’s a barbecue-coloured area, with spiralling structures providing an eye-catching background and imposing metal buildings ominous in the foreground. The art style suggests a look inspired by the computer-generated Star Wars series The Clone Wars, with cartooney, almost caricature character designs and a graphical fidelity that won’t push your PC too hard. “We like to refer to it as stylised realism,” Christine explains. “We’re not going for a photorealistic look, but we want something that’s easily identifiable as Star Wars: The Old Republic if you see a screenshot or you are in the game. It’s more like a painting.”

It’s not long before our Bounty Hunter gets his wish – killing people and causing damage. As a ranged class, most of his abilities are blaster based, but he’s got some rockets for extra damage and a stun dart for crowd control. Up close, he’s got a flamethrower (you can see it in the trailer – you have seen it right?). We see him taking on multiple Fa’athra street thugs at once. BioWare wants players to feel heroic, so you’ll be able to take on groups of enemies at the same time without breaking sweat. “You’re not just killing bunny rabbits in our game.”

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.

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.

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.