Hey there! You may not know this, but I am a bit of a Star Wars fan(who isn't at this point?). Although the Disney trilogy sucked ass and they also deemed the extended universe non-canon, this extended universe is what kept me interested in the franchise.
I got into Star Wars by playing video games, more exactly I got into it by playing Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2, a pretty short spectacle fighter in the vein of God of War. Everyone says it is worse than the first Force Unleashed, but personally I can't say, because I haven't gotten around to playing it. Anyway, from there I went to the worst named series of games, starting simple with Star Wars: Dark Forces, a first person shooter which was quite innovative when it came out, then Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and finally, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy. Confused enough?
Later, I played the Knights of The Old Republic series, which made me love that setting the most out of the entire Star Wars universe, which sadly (or thankfully nowadays) is not represented on film. And here we get to today's subject: Star Wars: The Old Republic, a MMORPG developed by BioWare, set some 300 years after the KOTOR series.
In The Old Republic, the first thing you do is choosing your faction, your class out of the 4 mirrored classes available. After this you customize your character with a pretty in-depth editor, choose a name and the game slaps you on your ass and sends you in a cutscene. Surprisingly for a MMO, the game has a story which is fully acted, featuring cutscenes and even dialogue choices which can affect your character's alignment and also the objectives you will get in your quests (so far, this was present only in side quests, the dialogue options in the main quests seems to only change a few lines of dialogue in the cutscenes).
Gameplay-wise, the game is basically World of Warcraft, having automatic combat with abilities based on a cooldown, exploring hubs on foot or on a mount, having a follower with you who can assist in combat and enemies sitting around, twiddling their thumbs until you come in their aggro range. Stuff is pretty standard, but personally I do not mind, as I am here to walk around these planets and talk to people. And walking around is the bulk of gameplay, seeing how big the maps are, but if that is not your cup of tea, you can take a taxi service to different locations across the map.
All in all, I can't say more about the game, because I do not want to spoil stuff from the story, but also because I am not very far in the game, as the title of this post states. If you want to give this game a go, you can look it up on Steam and play it for free, a subscription granting you benefits, of course, but I don't think those are really that important for a casual player or someone who is here just for the scenery.
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