Bioware’s general manager Casey Hudson posted a few hints about what the studio expects to deliver with the SWTOR 2019 Expansion and New Content!
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Warning! This is a blog post. Official information here is mixed with my personal analysis, expectations and predictions. My thoughts are based on facts, but also on my being a fan of the game.
Today Casey Hudson, general manager of Bioware, posted in a blog some thoughts about the studio’s latest developments – Anthem, SWTOR and possibly a new secret upcoming game – most likely to be the already announced Dragon Age 4, but could also be a surprising return of the Mass Effect series.
If you like to check out the full blog post, check the sources section at the bottom or follow the link below.
In this post I will focus your attention on the few lines at the bottom, which are directly related to Star Wars: The Old Republic – the one and only currently ongoing Star Wars Legends MMO.
In the meantime, our Star Wars: The Old Republic team is hard at work on some amazing plans for the coming year, with new features and surprises that I think makes it the game’s most exciting year yet. And yes – we hear loud and clear the interest in BioWare doing more Dragon Age and Mass Effect, so rest assured that we have some teams hidden away working on some secret stuff that I think you’ll really like – we’re just not ready to talk about any of it for a little while…
We know that SWTOR will receive a new expansion. What we didn’t know officially from Bioware is when exactly and in what size the new content will be delivered. While the following are only my personal expectations, I do want to share them with you and, of course, ask for your thoughts on how much of what I think will happen is the same that you think will happen! :)
Bioware never even hinted openly at when the expansion is coming. But, wait, is that true really? They did mention in the Summer Roadmap that there will be a new narrative coming to the game. That will happen before the next expansion.
For our Story and PvE players, you have not been forgotten and coming this Fall, along with the return of some very cool Companions, and big updates for Guilds, we’ll introduce a completely new storyline that will kick off a new set of challenges and adventures that will continue into the new year.
Going back to Casey Hudson’s post, we can conclude that the next Expansion will be some time into 2019. Well, Duh! I personally don’t even expect to see an official announcement of the expansion, its content or size in 2018. Not even a trailer. Why? Because Bioware keeps telling us that “it’s far off” into the future. This leads me to believe that a possible release date may be some time in Fall of 2019. I know, not exactly what, we, the fans, would love to hear.
Another reason I believe the end of 2019 to be a believable target window is the way Bioware developed the Gods from the Machine Operation. It has been three years since we had a new Operation released. Many of us, raiders, believed that Bioware has been working on a new one for a while and are about to announce it any moment now. Then came the announcement that the studio is beginning a split release cycle for the Iokath Ops – one boss at a time. It is true that the studio is planning things well ahead of time, but planning and actual development are two very different things.
Because community manager Eric Musco, creative director Charles Boyd and the big boss himself Keith Kanneg have all been telling us that the next expansion is coming, but is far out and away still, I can easily say we shouldn’t hope for a release before October-November 2019. I’d love to be proven wrong!
So far we know that 5.9.2 is coming on 7th of August. This update was already delayed with a week, but some nice new features have been added too – the new 3-bedroom apartment area in the Rishi Hideout for example.
With 5.9.3 we will have Dark Side Jaesa coming back too. Because of how Bioware decided to split the numbering of the updates and stuffed enough new features into 5.9.2, but refused to call it 5.10 (as originally planned), I would speculate that this is because the new narrative is going to be released with 5.10 and they are keeping the bigger number for patches that contain story content updates.
Last year game director Keith Kanneg announced that the studio is happy with the direction they have taken – telling new stories via Flashpoints. However, this may not be the same for 5.10.
There’s still no info on what the new narrative will be. I’m a little worried of how the Anthem’s release may clash with this new narrative for SWTOR. I for sure intend to jump into Anthem and play the hell out of it. We also got a hint from Mark Darrah on twitter yesterday of a possible date – 2nd December. If it is a date, it could be about the Anthem Demo’s release and that will make things even harder for fans of both games to fully enjoy them. In any case, you can rest assured that I and VULKK.com will never miss on any important update and will always keep you on top of things! If you can’t find the time or resources to enjoy both games together, you can always stop by here and watch reviews, overviews, analysis, walkthorughs and more.
I would love to tell you more, but at this point the only official info I can share with you about the upcoming expansion is that it will be a return to the classic Star Wars conflict – Empire vs Republic. In fact, we’ve already seen the beginning of this with the conclusion of the Theron Story Ark and the Nathema Flashpoint. The new narrative story will lead up to the Expansion – something similar to Forged Alliances probably. While I can’t pull out the exact quote, I remember Eric Musco (or was it Charles Boyd?!) hinting somewhere that we will see Empire vs Republic in the prelude.
Funny thing is the SWTOR expansion was announced way back in January 2018. This was more of a PR move to calm down the masses. These were hard times for Bioware as a whole, because of the bad news coming out about Anthem and some nasty speculations about the studio’s future existence.
This concludes yet another set of Vulkk’s ramblings type of post…
What do you think? How does an Expansion for SWTOR in Fall 2019 sound to you? I know that you and me both would prefer to have it this Christmas, but things don’t always happen the way you want them to.
