Star Wars: The Old Republic is approaching its ten year anniversary, and as a part of the celebration of the milestone, it was planning on releasing its sixth full expansion pack, Legacy of the Sith, on December 14th. Unfortunately, The Old Republic recently announced it would have to push back the launch of Legacy of the Sith by two months.
The Old Republic: Legacy of the Sith is an ambitious expansion pack will include new story, battle content, and systems. One of these new systems in Legacy of the Sith is a complete overhaul of the character creation system, which includes the separation of a character’s story from their combat style and discipline.
The Bioware team responsible for The Old Republic has said their primary reason for the delay is to focus on the areas of the game being changed in Legacy of the Sith. Between the character customization options, secondary discipline choices, and linear gear progression coming in Legacy of the Sith, there are a lot of places where unoptimized and unfinished details could ruin the game experience. Having two additional months for public testing and fine-tuning these areas will hopefully ensure a smoother launch and endgame experience.
However, one has to wonder if the current MMORPG market has something to do with the delay as well. Final Fantasy 14 is seeing unprecedented success with Endwalker, and its two-week delay put its launch only a week before Legacy of the Sith's original launch. While the delay will give a buffer between the hype surrounding FF14’s launch, The Old Republic will instead have to compete with Guild Wars 2, which is planning its launch of End of Dragons, its third full expansion, in late February, and possibly with World of Warcraft’s Eternity’s End patch, though the latter will likely arrive in spring or summer.
Fan reception to delays is always mixed, but the community is largely pleased by the delay. While no one is happy to wait longer, most players understand delayed games usually mean better games. With all of the features coming in Legacy of the Sith, a few more months to iron out details means a better experience in the long run, and most players understand that.
On the other hand, there are plenty of players who are disappointed. With a week remaining until its original planned launch, many long-time SWTOR fans already have their PTO squared away, and have already bought their 60-day subscriptions to access the expansion, which will now unfortunately fall off right before launch, meaning they’ll have to purchase another two-month pay period to play. Players will have to hope The Old Republic’s extra time to refine Legacy of the Sith pays off so it is worth the extra subscription time.
Star Wars: The Old Republic is available for PC. Legacy of the Sith launches on February 15, 2022.
Source: The Old Republic
