“Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything. 'Cause no mystical energy field controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.” – Han Solo, Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope.
Last week, we took a look at everyone’s favorite Force-wielders: the Jedi. This week, we’re going in the entirely opposite direction and taking a closer-look at what is probably the most popular character type outside of Force users in the Star Wars universe: the Smuggler.
Fans of the original films are often divided in their love of the films’ main characters. Needless to say, some of us just appreciate the witty, fast-talking, quick-drawing awesomeness of Han Solo to the straight-edge Luke Skywalker. Star Wars: The Old Republic fans who love the affable smuggler have been clinging to every tidbit of information on the game’s Smuggler class that they could find, and recent months have been fairly revealing to that end.
So far, we know that the Smuggler will be playable in one of two flavors. Players can opt to go the Gunslinger route, which is your dual-wielding Smuggler with a variety of crowd control options (blinds, snares) and the capability to inflict “serious injuries”, which at least to me, sounds like the Smuggler will have some DoT abilities. On the other hand, players who are looking for a bit more of a cunning Smuggler can look forward to the Scoundrel advanced class, which makes use of stealth, carries a shotgun-like blaster that features heavy knockback capability, and can even off-heal via the use of a med pack.
We also know of the Smuggler’s ship, which is an “XS Stock Light Freighter”. The XS Stock is designed in an unsurprisingly Corellian fashion and bears a fairly close resemblance to Han Solo’s YT-1300 Freighter, the Millennium Falcon. Screenshots and even a walkthrough video of the XS Stock’s interior are available for viewing, and it is looking pretty impressive. Touching on space for a moment, my feelings on the whole rail-shooter space offering are well known by now, but the Smuggler definitely has the potential to make the most out of SWTOR’s space features. I’d love to see hectic spice run missions that really get the blood pumping.
Most recently, Bioware revealed a new and somewhat brief video that gives us a closer look at the life of a Smuggler in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The video also revealed the first Smuggler companion, Bowdaar, a tough-as-nails Wookiee who serves as the Chewbacca to the player’s Han Solo. I guess it’s the most obvious choice and not too surprising. I love me some Han Solo, but I don’t literally want to be the character, so here’s hoping to a plethora of non-Wookiee companion options. I do hope that Bioware spends some time on establishing the relationship between the two characters, as I expect the Wookiee is probably going to tag along due to owing the player a Life Debt. Keep in mind that according to Bowdaar’s backstory, there are people who think the guy is immortal given how tough he is known to be, so he doesn’t sound like the type that would need saving. I’m curious as to how Bioware plans to put these two together, to say the least.
With all the information and media we have at our disposal on the Smuggler, there are still many lingering questions. For example, what sort of gameplay can we expect outside of the epic shoot-outs? The Smuggler is a pretty versatile class, and one could provide a pretty layered and deep experience without thinking too far out of the box. On the most basic level, I’m still wondering if we’ll actually get to you know, smuggle things, especially as part of some larger type of PvP. Star Wars Galaxies actually offered some fairly interesting and unique (though imperfect) smuggler gameplay, and I’d like to see this sort of thing manifest itself in SWTOR.
What do you think of what Bioware’s revealed of the Smuggler so far? And what do you hope to see as part of the Smuggler experience in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
