14 DAY TRIAL // BioWare has confirmed that players would be able to take on the role of a Bounty Hunter in the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, which is set to arrive sometime in 2010. The confirmation comes via a short movie that shows a Bounty Hunter using his trademark jet pack and dual blasters in combat. Until now, BioWare had only confirmed that Jedi and Sith classes would be available to the player.
The developer has underlined that the game would be set up so that, in addition to the main storyline of the MMO, each character class would have its own epic story arc, which would be unveiled gradually as the game progresses and as the character sees more of the game world and advances in level. As the lead writer, Daniel Erikson, put it, “You're going to have as much choice in that one class as you would have had in an entire Bioware game before, because every single class gets its own story, and that's a story personal to the player. He gets to have his own Star Wars trilogy.”
The Bounty Hunter seems like a natural addition, given the setting of Star Wars: The Old Republic. After all, the MMO takes place about 300 years after the events depicted in the Knights of the Old Republic games, and a full 3,000 years before the six movies in the Star Wars saga. The Jedi and the Sith are not fighting each other in the open, as a truce has been declared, so they need characters like the Bounty Hunter to attack each other covertly.
The constant skirmishes taking place will mean that players in the MMO will be able to get a lot of fights on, both versus the environment and against other players. Still, BioWare is saying that alongside the combat, Star Wars: The Old Republic will offer the character choices and dialog trees the developer is known for.