SWTOR Q3 2026 Producer Letter: 8.0 and Update on DX12

Keith Kanneg, SWTOR’s Executive Producer, released his Q3 2026 Executive Producer Letter. In it, he recaps the recent announcements for 8.0 and provides updates on the DirectX 12 upgrade.

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.

8.0 Content and PTS Recap

Since practically all of Broadsword’s resources are dedicated to developing Update 8.0, the most recent patch 7.9.1 was pretty barebones, really only offering Galactic Season 11, which was primarily a rehash of previous seasons.

Major 8.0 features include:

• The “Galaxy in Chaos” Era
• Ryloth, the Twi’lek homeworld, featuring new Dynamic Encounters
• Open-World Difficulty Modes
• Difficulty Mode Ventures: Classic & Expert
• Children of Nul Operation
• Level 85 with Upgraded Abilities and Balance Changes
• Quality of Life Improvements
• Makeb Consulate Stronghold (just plugging in my April Fool’s Joke for fun)

We can also test the following on the PTS.

• Bosses 1 and 2 for Children of Nul Operation
• Classic Venture for Jedi Knight and Imperial Agent
• Difficulty Modes
• Preliminary Combat Style changes for everything except Mercenary | Commando

Eric Musco, SWTOR’s Game Director, has also been hosting periodic, more informal “Let’s Play” livestreams on SWTOR’s twitch.tv channel, focusing on singular new features and answering questions from the audience. Check out our 7.9 Briefs for announcements.

Broadsword has yet to announce a release date for 8.0, but we expect it to come out in mid-December or late January to early February.

Update on DX12

Broadsword shared a pretty technical update on their progress upgrading SWTOR from DX9 to DX12.

Last time we heard, they were facing challenges porting over the game’s UI, but they’ve managed to get that done.

The next step is adding more advanced rendering features back into the version of the game running on DX12, like character customization and particle coloring.

Below, you can read the full statement from SWTOR’s technical team:

Hey SWTOR players!

Technical team here to get you up to speed on our most recent progress with DirectX 12. The last time we saw each other, we were explaining that the UI was the one feature that posed the largest obstacle for us.

We’re happy to report that the UI has been ported to DX12 and aside from minor visual differences being fixed, it is fully functional. Pulling back the curtain a bit, we had to upgrade our old version that only supported DX11 and re-architect it so it would work properly with our data. We then changed Scaleform’s DX12 rendering to use Frostbite RenderCore2 and work properly within our engine. For the more technical folks, we also had to port over hundreds of divergences to the new version and once we could verify that everything worked properly, we could move on to DX12.

With the UI in place, we are focused on adding features back into this “DX12 version” of the game to get it looking like the SWTOR you’re familiar with, and lay the groundwork for future additions. This means updating essential shaders, ensuring characters appear with proper customization (skin color, hair color, tattoos, cybernetics, scars, complexions, outfit colors), re-implementing our particle hueing systems, and much more. Lastly, general stability work and other feature additions are ongoing, so we are making fantastic progress.

The next time you hear from us we’ll share an update on when you can see the progress for yourself, and help us with a critical stage of testing for this new client! Thank you for your enthusiasm and support as we continue on the road to modernizing SWTOR!

It sounds like they’re getting pretty close to releasing a technical alpha version of SWTOR running on DX12, but we don’t yet have a timeline.

Given the pace of development, I would expect to see an alpha version before Update 8.1 releases in spring 2027, but take that with a grain of salt.

Rewards and Contests

Broadsword has a Best Dressed Contest event and free minipet available at the time of publishing.

Best Dressed Contest

Broadsword is hosting THE FIRST GALACTIC SPACE BARBIE FASHION SHOW. Players can enter a bespoke male and female outfit in the contest running from September 17th to October 11th, 2026.

Qualifying outfits can’t use more than two pieces from the same set and must equip at least 5 armor pieces, excluding weapons.

Entry requirements include an account in good standing and submissions must include a 1080p image of the toon without a weapon equipped that clearly shows the character nameplate and full outfit in good lighting, along with a picture of the character appearance sliders and equipment list. You do not need to be a subscriber.

Broadsword will select 4 winners (2 male and 2 female) based on the following criteria:

Players will be judged by their creative uses of various types of gear, overall cohesion of the entire outfit, and how well the character fits within the Star Wars™ universe.

The winning outfits will be turned into Personnel SH decos and made available to all players on the Anniversary vendor. The winners will also get Holo versions of these decos. Below, you can see my (cropped) contest entries:

Check out Broadsword’s official contest announcement for a complete list of contest rules and submission process.

Gladiopodling Minipet Code

You can get your very own Gladiopodling minipet for free until December 26th, 2026, by entering the code GETRDY4MOTF at swtor.com/redeem-code. You do not need to be a subscriber.