The State of SWTOR and Upcoming Content 2022

Star Wars The Old Republic recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary with the launch of Game Update 7.0 Legacy of the Sith. In this article, I discuss the current state of SWTOR and what we know about potential upcoming content.

The State of SWTOR

Things did not go smoothly with The Old Republic’s anniversary update. The update was delayed until February so didn’t even launch during the anniversary month. Then, content that was supposed to be included in 7.0 was delayed and bugs that were reported on the PTS launched with 7.0. As of writing this article, the missing content is yet to be released and not all the bugs have been fixed.

The pinnacle of Legacy of the Sith, Combat Styles, was an ambitious overhaul of The Old Republic’s combat system, that received mixed reviews from players. Its implementation may have contributed to the delays and omission of content from 7.0. But on the bright side, 7.0 did introduce an improved gearing system that made it easier for players to get gear regardless of their content focus.

So where does this leave The Old Republic? For the veteran player, starved of content and eager for more story. For newer players, however, there’s plenty of story content to explore and on top of that, the typical assortment of your standard MMO content to experience. From dungeons, known as flashpoints, to raids, known as Operations and instanced 4v4 and 8v8 PvP modes. Plus plenty of other features like player housing and a pretty decent outfitter system.

The Old Republic has been slow with its content releases for many years now, compared to other MMO’s, and it looks like this is going to continue for the foreseeable future. 

So what is next for The Old Republic? How much do we know about upcoming content and when can we expect it? Will it be enough to appease players? Let‘s talk about it.

What’s next?

Now that 7.0.2 has been released and weapons have finally been added to the outfit designer, players may be wondering what we can expect next for The Old Republic.

Well, besides fixing all the ongoing and new bugs, the next update is likely to be 7.1. This update will feature a new Operation, R4-Anomaly and the Manaan Daily Area. Both of which were supposed to be a part of the Legacy of the Sith update.

Game Update 7.1 – R-4 Anomaly & Manaan Daily Area

The first 3 bosses of the R4-Anomaly Operation were on the PTS for testing. However, on the 4th of April, access to the bosses was removed and the PTS was taken down on the 12th of April. As of writing this article, the PTS has not yet come back up for further testing of the new Operation. We are also supposed to be getting new tiers of gear that will drop from R-4. But so far, new gear tiers have not been on the PTS for testing.

The Manaan daily area has yet to be seen on the PTS. So we know absolutely nothing about it. Sure, there will be dailies and a reputation system. But beyond that, who knows? Will it be another CZ-198? Or will it be more fleshed out with datacrons and fun achievements? Like Onderon and Mek-Sha were? I for one am hoping for the latter. Who knows maybe we’ll get to befriend another cute creature?

As for when we can expect 7.1, we have no concrete timeframe yet. My personal guess is July at the earliest. But we’ll see what happens.

Summer – Nar Shaddaa Nightlife Event

What else can we expect in the northern hemisphere summer? Probably the return of the Nar Shaddaa Nightlife Event! You know the one where you gamble your credits away so you can get these Gambler’s Party Floor Decorations.

Can we expect anything new? Who knows? It would be nice to see some new rewards, I mean decorations, to earn! And over the last couple of years, they have added content and new rewards to the event. So we’ll have to see what happens.

Game Update 7.2 – PvP Revamp

Now surprisingly we kind of know what to expect after 7.1. A PvP Revamp, which will be the key focus of Game Update 7.2.

Personally, this is what I have been waiting for. Since the PvP revamp was first announced on July 1st, 2021 as part of the 10-year anniversary announcement, I have been eager to find out all about it!

10 months later, we know absolutely nothing. What could a revamp even mean? It’s hard to speculate given Bioware’s track record for content. All I can say for sure right now is I am glad the developers are taking the time to give PvP some attention.

Will there be further attempts to address dsync issues on certain maps? Will they add something new? Spice things up? Who knows? Let me know in the comments below what you think the developers should do with PvP. How would you improve ranked? Would you like to see a new map? Let me know!

Now when do I think the PvP Revamp is going to come out? I’d say maybe September if we’re lucky? But more likely later in the northern hemisphere autumn.

Beyond Summer – Story and Feast of Prosperity

Now, what else are we expecting beyond summer besides possibly the PvP revamp? This is where things really start to get into speculation territory.

Sure the Feast of Prosperity Event will likely return later in the northern hemisphere autumn, but else could happen? Well, we do have a little bit of a clue of what else to expect.

Recently, Charles Boyd, the creative director for The Old Republic tweeted that he was overseeing voiceover work for future story content. 

Now, this isn’t the first time Charles Boyd has tweeted about overseeing voiceover work for the Old Republic. So if we look at the other times he has tweeted about voice over work starting, then look at how long it took for decent chunks of story content to be released afterwards, we can get a rough idea of when to expect more story content.

In the past, in June 2020, specifically, Charles Boyd tweeted about voiceover work being done.

Then in December 2020, we got Game Update 6.2 which featured the excellent Echoes of Oblivion story and the Spirit of Vengeance Flashpoint. Since this was a roughly 6-month turnaround, between the voiceover work and the launch of the story content, we can perhaps expect a similar timeframe for more story content this year. 

Holiday season 2022, is probably when we can expect more substantial story content. Whether it will take the form of a flashpoint or a story instance like Echoes of Oblivion or perhaps both, remains to be seen. Now that’s not to say we won’t get some story snippets prior and possibly with the Manaan daily area. But I don’t see us getting a decent chunk of story content until the end of the year.

Potential Roadmap?

There is one more clue found in the original 10-year Anniversary Announcement as to what we could expect in 2022. A roadmap of sorts. This graphic shown on the announcement stream on July 1st 2021, indicates that they had also planned to bring out Nightmare R-4, Galactic Seasons 3, a new Flashpoint, new locations, tech modernisation and visual improvements in 2022.

Sadly, with all the delays to various content and updates, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of this content ended up getting pushed back until next year. We’ll probably get Galactic Seasons 3 and the new Flashpoint towards the end of the year as part of the new story. As for some of the other content, especially Nightmare R-4 Anomaly, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

Conclusion

So to summarise, what do we know so far about the rest of 2022? We know we’ll be getting a  new Operation and Daily Hub area. We know there’s a PvP revamp coming. We’ll probably see the Nar Shaddaa Nightlife and Feast of Prosperity Events return and we’ll eventually get more story content. Beyond that? Only time will tell.

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