The year is 25,100 BBY. The galaxy is just recovering from the tyranny of the Infinite Empire. The Jedi Order is still in its infancy, having only split away from the Je'daii a few hundred years ago. The galaxy is largely unexplored, and even technological advancement is still a work-in-progress. What species do exist in the galaxy are currently locked in the Unification Wars, with many disparate factions all vying to replace the Infinite Empire as a source of leadership and stability in the galaxy. This unusual timeline leads to some noticeable changes in the gameplay environment for SW:IF.
Space travel, exploration, and hyperspace
The first, and probably largest, of these changes is a complete rethinking of space, travel, and exploration. Space is now a continuous whole, and most of it is unknown. Shipboard hyperdrives are unknown - the dark side energy required to power the Rakata's hyperdrives makes them unsuitable for everyday use. As a result, conventional space travel is performed using massive hyperspace cannons, which launch a ship into hyperspace toward a desired target. Unconventional space travel using on-board "tumble hyperdrives" is also possible, but both expensive and dangerous - tumble hyperdrives send a ship into a jump of unpredictable distance and duration, which means it's impossible to tell where you'll end up while using them. Some daring explorers use these to help chart the galaxy, but it's not unheard of for these explorers to wind up flying into a star or bouncing too close to a supernova - and that ends their trip real quick.
Exploration is also a major part of the game. At the start, only a small number of planets and species will be available in game, and players will have to explore to find additional worlds, and once found, will have to take the time and effort to build new hyperspace cannons and beacons there to make travel to and from feasible. In many cases, the location of such a world will come with the introduction of space travel to its native population, opening new race options for play in-game.
This, of course, has implications for space combat. Without a tumble hyperdrive it's impossible to flee space combat without first navigating to and docking with a hyperspace cannon - and even then, it takes a few moments for the hyperspace cannon to lock onto a beacon and alter its heading to ensure a safe trip. That means if you can't outrun your attacker in sublight, you'll have to hope you can outgun them instead. (A prospect which, hopefully, will be less daunting than it currently is - we're exploring new ways of traveling in space that are more intuitive, approachable, and enjoyable.)
Lightsabers
I'll put this one bluntly: In 25,100 BBY, lightsabers haven't been invented yet. The closest thing is the forcesaber, a device created by the Rakata that functions very much like a lightsaber, but requires considerable dark side energy to activate. Additionally, and perhaps obviously, the lightsaber forms haven't been developed yet. This means that, in general, most force users will be wielding force-imbued blades rather than lightsabers, and the saber forms will be changed to sword styles. For dark siders, the sith alchemy tree will now lose its sith blades option (which would be redundant with force-imbued blades), and will instead gain a force saber option - meaning the balance of blades to sabers will essentially be reversed. (Don't worry - Force-imbued blades still have the same properties as lightsabers.)
Race selection
The galaxy is young. Most races have not yet developed faster-than-light space travel, if they've even left their planets at all. Many are likely in the equivalent of the dark ages on their worlds. This means the race selection is going to be more limited than it currently is - custom races, unfortunately, will no longer be an option. Any race considered playable in the current timeline will be on the list of choices - a list that will grow steadily over time as new worlds and species are discovered by the players. This, I know, is a bit of a drawback, but we believe that the benefits to the gameplay of this timeline are worth this sacrifice. The good news is, since there's limited data about when various races joined the galactic community, we're given a good amount of liberty to release popularly desired races early on in the game.
Additionally, of note, despite the Infinite Empire having fallen, and most of their kind having been wiped out, there are still a few surviving Rakata in the galaxy at large - which means Rakata will become available as a race selection.
Factions
This one, I'm not getting into much detail on just yet. All I'll say for now is, the following factions do not currently exist:
- The Empire
- The Republic
- The Rebellion
- Blacksun
- The Bounty Hunters Guild
- The Sith Order
- The Sith Empire
Things that *won't* change
There's a lot of technological differences here, but despite those idiosyncrasies, you should know that SW:IF still is the Star Wars you know and love. There are still blasters. There are still starships of all shapes and sizes, civilian and military. There's still bounty hunters and smugglers, light siders and dark siders, crime rings, world-spanning cities, and everything else that comes along with it. For the most part, aside from the things listed here, this is still Star Wars - and we want you to enjoy it for both what's new and unique to SW:IF, and to what's tried and true in Star Wars.
Thanks for checking out this week's weekly spotlight! We're all looking forward to making this game a reality (and you should know that progress has already gotten underway toward doing so), and we can't wait to share the product with you when it's done!
~Glitch
