As SWTOR Turns 10, Combat Styles, Character Creation Revamps, And Content Are All Coming In Legacy Of The Sith Expansion

Star Wars: The Old Republic turns 10 this year, and BioWare and Electronic Arts are celebrating with another expansion this holiday season. Legacy of the Sith will see players learning the truth behind the "ultimate plan" of Darth Malgus while also raising the level cap and learning new ways to fight.

The expansion will take players to the aquatic planet of Manaan, a location from the original Knights of the Old Republic game. The planet has been invaded by the Sith Empire, who intend to seize a medical resource known as Kolto. The result is a fight for control of the planet.

There's also a new flashpoint on a mountaintop tomb on the planet of Elom. Darth Malgus is there collecting ancient Sith relics. Another new addition is the operation set in a deep space research station. This facility, run by a Sith Cult experimenting with Czerka tech, is in the process of rebuilding an ancient superweapon. There will be three versions of the operation. The first two, Story and Veteran, will launch with 7.0. The other will come in 2022.

The level cap will increase by five, to 80, but the bigger change coming to the the game in general is probably the addition of Combat Styles. This new system replaces advanced classes and will allow players to "independently choose a specific class story and combine it with ability sets from other related tech or force wielding classes." This effectively allows players to increase their "class" options from two to several. The new system also separates class story choice from gameplay. To accommodate all these new choices, the dev team is also adding loadouts to make switching easier and implementing balance changes specific to the feature.

Players can also look forward to another season of rewards. Season 2: Shadows of the Underworld offers rewards themed around underworld syndicates as well as a new companion: Fen Zeil, a Duros Gunslinger.

All of this information was covered in the latest SWTOR stream on Twich (embedded below). For the most part, it was a fairly brief stream with a high-level overview. During the steam, improvements to the player experience, such as UI changes, an updated character creator with new visuals, and changes to content leveling were mentioned. They didn't actually offer a look at any of that, just mentioned they're things that will be happening.

The stream also offered a short timeline of things that will be happening. This includes a test of the Jedi Guardian on the game's PTS beginning July 5. On July 12, players can expect some new story content focused on the Mandalorians. There will also be some streams.

If you're wondering about launch, all we know is that it will be free to subscribers and occur during the holidays.

There is one other thing of note. During the stream, they dropped a code for the Heta Kol Stronghold Decoration. Just go to swtor.com/redeem-code and use the code LOTSofSWTOR.