It’s a great week to be a Star Wars fan. A new show centered on a Mandalorian bounty hunter debuted on Disney+, with the series’ second episode to drop this Friday, and on top of that we’ve also got a new Star Wars game in Jedi: Fallen Order to play this week.
As much as I want to play JFO, The Mandalorian’s got me itching for some bounty hunter action, and if you’re feeling the same, I’d like to recommend you check out the Bounty Hunter class in Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Playing the Bounty Hunter was one of my favorite experiences in SWTOR, for a number of reasons. For one, the game does a great job of fulfilling the bounty hunter fantasy. While the Mercenary is a perfectly fun Advanced Class to play, it’s the Powertech that really speaks to me in SWTOR. The Powertech gets all the neat gadgets from gauntlet deployed wrist blades, to grappling hooks, to a shoulder mounted rocket launcher, and tons more. Powertech’s feel like the sort of high-tech walking armory you’d expect a bounty hunter to be. And it is awesome.
This fantasy fulfillment also extends to the game’s story. I don’t want to spoil too much for you here, but there are two classes in SWTOR I consider unique from a story telling perspective and those classes are the Imperial Agent and the Bounty Hunter. In SWTOR, you’re often reporting to someone as part of your story. Jedi and Sith have masters to deal with, Troopers have commanding officers, and so on. The Bounty Hunter is a bit different in that once you’ve finished the first chapter, the game sort of turns you loose in a narrative sense. You do a ton of work for the Sith Empire, but the writers go out of their way to emphasize your sort of independence as a gun-for-hire. This means the story lacks a more cohesive narrative than some of the other class stories, but it makes for a more unique experience overall. The only negative I have to say about the Bounty Hunter story is that the companions that join you often do so with flimsy reasons and you don’t necessarily want all of them on your ship, but you aren’t given a choice in the matter.
Finally, and probably the most relevant to anyone jonesing for a Mandalorian bounty hunter experience, SWTOR is set thousands of years before the films (it’s not canon, but who cares?) so the Mandalorians are alive and well in this setting. There’s a ton of Mandalorian characters in the game, myriad options of Mandalorian styled gear, and so on.
What’s your take on The Mandalorian so far? And have you gotten the itch to return (or try) SWTOR and play a bounty hunter due to the show? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
