Star Wars: The Old Republic's free Galactic Starfighter expansion is bringing PvP space dogfighting to the sci-fi MMO on either December, January or February, depending on how much BioWare love you . Fans hoping for a PvE variant will have longer to wait. That's "longer" as in, between a very, very long time away, and the full heat death of the universe.
The announcement was made by the Unnamed SWTOR Podcast , who had spoken to BioWare's Damion Schubert, Andrew Horwitz, and Eric Musco at a recent Community Cantina event. Here's what the podcast learned, as transcribed by Massively :
"I asked about the possibility that Galactic Starfighter was designed with PvE in mind. [BioWare] said no, it was not. That is far far far far far down on the wall of crazy, is PvE Starfighter. [BioWare] said the biggest problems would be with scripting and 3-D AI; things that they don't have in the game they would basically have to write fresh.
"The good thing about PvE is the good scripting. Getting the ability in at the right time makes it interesting and fun, but not unfair. You know, getting those enrage timers right. Getting like a DOT thrown out at the right time. Stuff that has to be done really well for PvE to work right. And for them to do that in space would be a lot of work. So problems with scripting and AI would be reasons that we won't be seeing PvE Galactic starfighter."
I can't see players being too upset about the absence of PvE plans, especially given that the long-awaited off-rails dogfighter sounds perfect as a PvP addition. While the desire for a reboot of X-Wing or TIE Fighter is strong, it's probably a bit much to expect the team to create one inside of an existing MMO. You can see the announcement trailer for Galactic Starfighter below.
