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One of the best game franchises to come out of the original Xbox was Bioware’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. After the original and sequel launched to great fanfare, fans eagerly awaited another sequel…one that would never come. 
 
After 7 long years, we don’t get a sequel per se, but we do get the next best thing; a complete reimagining of the KOTOR universe in the form of an MMO. Bioware has finally unleashed Star Wars: The Old Republic, and after months of beta tests, community discussions, and early access, the game is in our hands.
 

 
The big question remains: can SWTOR challenge the mighty World of Warcraft for MMORPG supremacy? The blunt answer is no…not yet. WoW has too much of an established fanbase and a fanatical following. While Star Wars is a phenomenon in its own right, it just hasn’t made any impact in the MMO world.
 
SWTOR aims to change that with the first real challenger to WoW. Combining the best parts of all previous Bioware RPGs, SWTOR allows you to fully immerse yourself in the world of Star Wars/. Whatever you want to do or be, you can (within reason of course).
 
When I reviewed The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, I jokingly called it “Second, Second Life.” I was wrong…SWTOR is Second, Second Life. The problem with reviewing a game of this scale, especially an MMORPG, is the understanding that you never truly “finish” a type of game like this. When do you decide that you’ve played enough to have the required amount of information for a review?
 
Since that’s the case and SWTOR is essentially an endless game, I will not give a review score. 5 years from now (hopefully Bioware will continue to support it for that long!) SWTOR won’t even resemble what it is now, and something that’s constantly evolving can’t be based off of one score alone. These are simply my impressions.
 

 
The first thing that struck me about SWTOR is how much it resembled KOTOR. I know that’s kind of a dumb thing to say, considering that it’s basically KOTOR 3 as an MMO (even though it takes place well before the events of KOTOR). Throughout the last 5 years or so, Bioware has truly perfected the art of the Western RPG; just their work on the Mass Effect series has earned them a place as one of the great developers in video game history. They bring that talent and everything else they learned to SWTOR.

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