Star Wars: The Old Republic is going to shift over to a third-party studio, and there have been a number of discussions and rumors as to what this might mean for the future of the game. Some are wondering if this will be a sort of maintenance mode or if planned updates will continue.
Given how big of a shift this seems like it might be, the community naturally has a lot of questions. Since the news came out early this month that EA was in discussions with Broadsword to potentially take over development, many have naturally wondered what this is going to mean.
Keith Kanneg has been responding to some of the community questions since the original IGN article on BioWare focusing on single-player franchises and EA moving the SWTOR team. He continued with a new update yesterday, sharing just why he has been referring to the change as a “a new beginning for us” rather than signs of doom and the end.
“With 7.3 now live, our priority is continuing to prepare for Game Updates 7.3.1 and 7.4 along with planning for 2024 and 2025 with a focus on content and continued modernization initiatives,” he shared. He also placed special emphasis on the fact that for players, this transition is intentionally likely to be seamless.
In response to a common question about the game going into maintenance mode as a result of the change in development studio, he says “absolutely not”.
“As I’ve said before, we are working on future plans including more story and modernization initiatives for the game. We’ve upgraded the game to 64-bit, and are working on moving the servers to the cloud, and there are more content and tech updates on the way.”
So it looks as if the planned and announced modernization like new cloud-based servers and other technological upgrades are still on track, even if they shift in time frame.
A full official announcement still hasn't been made, but the team is trying to reassure the community that there is still work to be done, story left to tell, and more on the way.