Star Wars: The Old Republic - On this day

The Star Wars franchise had two MMORPG games, of which only one is alive now, and it was launched on this day ten years ago. Star Wars: The Old Republic is a kind of continuation of KOTOR games that were single-player RPGs and one of the largest and most expensive projects in the video game industry. It was made at a time when EA did not have a license for Star Wars, and about two hundred million dollars were spent on the project, not counting the budget for the promotion of the game.

Star Wars: TOR was heralded by lavish trailers that at times looked better than Star Wars movies episodes 1-3, and an additional reason to rejoice was the fact that SW: TOR was conceived as the first MMORPG with fully sounded dialogues. Over 200,000 lines of text were recorded for the game, setting the Guinness World Record at the time.

The Old Republic was launched according to the then still current model, with a monthly subscription of 15 euros. The initial interest of the players promised great things - more than a million people played SW: TOR in the first week of the game's release, making the game the fastest growing MMO title in history. However, the onslaught brought problems with overcrowded servers, and the content of the game was not enough to keep the players for a long time.

The number of active subscribers declined rapidly from month to month, until EA decided to switch the game to a free-to-play model. Since then, SW: TOR has recorded a solid community of players, although even after that it has not fulfilled the prophecy that it is an MMO that will bring down the famous World of Warcraft.

The game has received a total of seven expansions to date, and we saw the last one in October 2019. An eighth expansion called Legacy of the Sith is also planned, due out this year, but postponed to the second month of 2022.