Keith Kanneg, SWTOR’s Executive Producer, released his Q1 2026 Executive Producer Letter. In it, he recaps the recent updates and provides updates on the DirectX 12 upgrade and the upcoming 7.9 and 8.0 announcements.
Why Producer Letters Matter
SWTOR’s Producer Letters may seem pointless to regular players. They contain mostly recap of old news, but they are valuable for returning or new players who haven’t been around all this time.
The letters stand out because the information is provided by the person in charge of everyone else and presented in a way that’s digestible to new and more casual players who aren’t deeply involved with the current state of the game.
Over time, these producer letters build up as a public record, one that is a lot easier to read than the patch notes if you’re trying to get a sense of the history of the game or what content was released while an individual was confirmed to be working on SWTOR.
What happened in Q1 2026
As always, we will follow Keith’s letter structure and mark the key new features the developers are most proud of.
Update 7.8.1
Update 7.8.1 was very unusual for the current structure of updates for SWTOR. It has the numbering of a “minor” update, yet it delivered a new story chapter, Master’s Enigma.
This is a result of the now-ended actors strike that delayed story production for SWTOR and many other titles for well over a year. The devs are now catching up, releasing new stories every three months, instead of every six months.
As we pointed оут in our review, Master’s Enigma was a visual feast and a great story. This chapter had suspense and a surprising twist. For some more surprising than for others, perhaps.
Galactic Season 10
Galactic Season 10 combined Galactic Seasons 1 and 3 rewards to allow players to earn what they may have missed. The best companion in the game, Altuur zok Adon has returned to delight you with his DPS and Heals.
Aside from old rewards, Broadsword sprinkled a few new rewards, though they were mostly reskins of other items.
Spring Abundance Festival
The seasonal Spring festival is currently running in SWTOR and it offers a single, but very tasty (or should I say good-looking?) reward. It’s Grogu’s basket of eggs. This is a minipet item that will follow you around. Instead of “baby Yoda”, you will have a few eggs to take care of on your adventures.
What is coming next to SWTOR
Tradition dictates that without sharing too much, Keith keeps the enthusiasm going in his hints and teases about upcoming content to SWTOR.
Update 7.9
The 7.9 update is happening this Spring. We don’t have a date for it, but I expect it around late May or early June.
Game Update 7.9 “Legacy Reborn” is the Legacy of the Sith finale! Darth Jadus, Darth Malgus, and Shae Vizla clash in an epic battle that will decide the future of the galaxy. Who will you side with, and who will emerge victorious?
Keith Kanneg
Keith’s letter reminded us that we will learn more about both 7.9 and 8.0 in the upcoming 7.9 Livestream. He did not mention a target date for that event either.
15th anniversary and 8.0
Keith, and everyone else over at the SWTOR dev team, keep calling this an update and 8.0. Not an expansion. Given SWTOR’s recent history with expansions, I think they are trying to move away from this frame.
SWTOR hasn’t produced a regular standard expansion since Shadow of Revan. In the more recent years, 6.0 and 7.0 eras have been scheduled and released in small chunks throughout the era’s cycle. For 7.0, it’s been four years, a bit longer than we’d like, but I think this was partially a result of the strike as well.
DirectX 12 progress update
The developers have been working for quite some time to transition SWTOR from DirectX 9 to DirectX 12. At the end of March 2026, they provided us with a lengthy status update that we can analyze and try to come up with some facts behind the hype.
Making technical upgrades such as moving to DirectX 12 and updating to 64-bit are huge milestones for the game, as it both preserves its health and gives us opportunities to build even more compelling content for players. I’m very pleased to see this game continue to evolve, and we’ll share more on the progress of DirectX 12 as we meet major milestones.
Keith Kanneg
Here is a summary of the DX12 Spring 2026 Update post:
- The SWTOR Engine: The game was originally built on an early version of the Hero Engine. Over the years, it has been modified so heavily that the devs are now (rightfully so, I think) calling it the SWTOR engine.
- Frostbite integrations: EA’s popular Frostbite engine has had a role to play in SWTOR, believe it or not. SWTOR devs collaborated with EA engineers to integrate specific rendering components.
- The UI bottleneck: We have heard several times how problematic the SWTOR UI is for the devs to make changes. This became clear in the early days of 7.0 when they started reworking parts of it. Currently, all major rendering features are functioning in the DX12 mode, but converting the UI is proving to be a great challenge.
- Tech Alpha coming: When the UI is functional (because we can’t play and test without it), the devs plan to release a technical Alpha. Its purpose will be to test it on as many hardware combinations as possible.
What this means for SWTOR?
DirectX 9 is very outdated. Moving to DirectX 12 is a serious future-proof signal for the game’s health. This is a long-term goal for SWTOR’s devs. This is one of the best possible features that can be integrated to the game. It will raise the graphical ceiling.
DirectX 12 is fundamentally better at distributing CPU workloads across multiple cores, which is how every modern processor is built. It also reduces GPU overhead. I don’t want to go as far as to say that you will be able to play 16 man raids with more than 30 FPS. Time will tell.
Integrating modern rendering components from EA’s Frostbite engine means that the SWTOR dev team may have an easier time creating and implementing new environments on a level (and scale) we have not seen before.
Because the team has to retrofit a 15-year-old heavily modified old engine, we should temper our expectations from what we may see on Day One. As I’ve stated, this upgrade is a future-proof and a long-term commitment. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t see a significant graphical leap right away.
Twitch Drop
The Twitch Drop campaign continues for SWTOR. You have about a week remaining, until April 7th, to earn the T2-26 Scout Walker by watching five hours of SWTOR content with Drops enabled.
May the 4th Promotions and Events
If this is not your first year in SWTOR, you likely know what to expect from the Star Wars holiday. The Double XP Event will return, of course! Item sales and a login and subscriber rewards will be announced in April.
