It’s a good time to be a ‘Star Wars’ fan. With the release of EA’s ‘Star Wars: Battlefront’s‘ trailer as well as one for ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens,’ there’s a lot of good news going around about the galaxy far, far away. But for those fans who also like BioWare’s MMORPG ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic,’ you might be disappointed to hear that it will no longer be considered part of the ‘Star Wars’ canon.
With ‘The Force Awakens’ on the way, ‘Star Wars’ media, from books, TV shows, movies, and games, are either being accepted into or thrown out of canon in an effort to streamline the franchise, and it looks like ‘The Old Republic’ didn’t make the cut.
Pablo Hidalgo, the Creative Executive at Lucasfilm, broke the news at a Q&A session transcribed by StarWars.com:
Q: Are The Old Republic expansions canon?
A: No — BioWare “has created their own universe that is so fantastic,” we’re not going to change it, says Hidalgo.
However, when asked if the ‘The Old Republic’ would ever be explored as part of the ‘Star Wars’ timeline, Leland Chee, Lucasfilm’s ‘Manager of the Holocron,’ responded, “It’s definitely not off the table.” So while we shouldn’t expect ‘The Old Republic’ to be part of the canon any time soon, it also hasn’t been thrown out for good.
This is not to say that ‘The Old Republic’ is going away any time soon – in fact, EA has confirmed that they plan to give the MMO more “story-driven game updates” in the upcoming year; these story-driven updates just won’t have any effect on the ‘Star Wars’ universe as a whole.
Initially released in 2011, ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’ is an free-to-play MMORPG for the PC. At the time it was one of the most expensive games ever made (with estimates between $150 to $200 million in development), and is still considered to be one of the fastest growing MMOs ever with 1 million subscribers within the first three days of launch.
