For a full decade, Bioware’s ongoing Star Wars MMO has lived and breathed through its self-contained portal. Now, The Old Republic has found a second lease of life through Steam.
The Old Republic is the latest game from EA to jump the Origin-Steam divide, following titles like Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age 2, Titanfall 2 and others that came over in early June. EA’s move has given a ton of their games a new lease of life, particularly Titanfall’s excellent and still-unique multiplayer mode, and The Old Republic‘s move should only bring good things.
So far, tens of thousands have taken to The Old Republic on Steam. It’s sitting alongside some PC classics like Civilization VI, Garry’s Mod, Path of Exile and the Master Chief Collection, which has seen a boost since the release of Halo 3 on PC. Elder Scrolls Online and Final Fantasy XIV Online are lower than The Old Republic for current players at the time of writing, although both games had a larger peak player count in the last 24 hours.
The Old Republic was one of the first MMOs to transition from a traditional subscription to a freemium model, and with great success. The MMO doesn’t have Australian servers anymore, alas, but if you can persist with the reduced inventory there’s still some excellent storylines to enjoy. The Imperial Agent path is highly recommended, although if you insist on a Force-wielding user, the Sith Warrior story is a lot of fun too. Trooper’s pretty good as well, although you might miss the whole wielding a lightsabre thing.
If you have an existing Old Republic account, the Steam version supports cross-save, so you won’t lose anything. It’s not known how many users playing on Steam are new to The Old Republic in general, but EA should provide some kind of update at their next quarterly investor call.
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