Star Wars: The Old Republic is now on Steam

BioWare’s Star Wars MMORPG let’s you play in a galaxy far, far away.

JJ Travers

July 21, 2020

BioWare and EA’s free-to-play MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic launched on Steam today.

BioWare / EA

The MMO from a galaxy far, far away first launched in 2011 as an exclusive on EA’s Origin platform, a direct competitor to Steam. In the years since the game’s release, EA’s disposition towards Steam has cooled quite a bit. So much so that EA announced last year that it would bring its PC games to Steam, beginning with the smash-hit Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which sold over 10 million copies in the first four months of its release.

Recent EA games to be released on Steam include Rocket Arena, Command & Conquer: Remastered Collection, and a number of games from its back catalogue, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Star Wars: The Old Republic takes place in the Star Wars universe around 3,600 years before the events of the Star Wars films and 300 years after the events of the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic video games, at a time when a tenuous peace has been established between the re-emergent Sith Empire and the Galactic Republic.

Players can choose one of eight available classes to explore the galaxy with: Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent, and Sith Inquisitor for the Sith Empire; and the Trooper, Smuggler, Jedi Knight, and Jedi Consular.

The Steam launch introduces crossplay and cross-save between the Steam and SWTOR launcher, as well as eight new Steam trading cards, five jawa-themed emoticons, profile backgrounds, and achievements. EA promises over 100 achievements will be added with a future update later this year.

While the game is free-to-play and includes a huge amount of content, there’s also optional microtransactions and an subscription service ($15 a month) which raises the level cap and access to the Knights of the Fallen Empire, Knights of the Eternal Throne, and Onslaught expansions.

Yes, I know, Star Wars: The Old Republic is coming up on its ninth birthday. But don’t let that fool you. In October of last year EA announced the the game was closing in on a billion dollars in lifetime revenue, over a $200 million development budget. Not bad for an older game huh?