So the new online Star Wars game represents BioWare’s entry into Blizzard’s wheelhouse. BioWare, along with Rockstar (makers of Grand Theft Auto), has been a leader in driving extensive, believable voice acting into games.īlizzard, for its part, has zero interest in creating purely single-player games, as BioWare traditionally has. In its greatest efforts, like Baldur’s Gate, Knights of the Old Republic (an earlier “Star Wars” title), Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect, the focus outside combat is on storytelling and characterization. Blizzard was a pioneer of Internet gaming its central franchises (Diablo, Warcraft and StarCraft) are built around the online experience of playing in a community.īioWare, by contrast, has been known for single-player entertainment. It should be a Star Wars fan’s dream and deserves to attract in excess of two million paying players in the three languages - English, French and German - available at release.īlizzard Entertainment, which makes World of Warcraft, and BioWare, the Electronic Arts division that makes the Old Republic, enjoy deep respect and adoration among millions of players.
That said, the Old Republic is by far the best, most exciting online game since the original World of Warcraft. World of Warcraft boasts a variety, breadth and level of handcrafted content that no other game is close to matching. Having steeped myself in both games recently, I can say that any notion that the Old Republic will be a WOW killer is absurd. The attention is warranted because top shooter games are largely played on living-room consoles and sell millions of copies in just a few weeks.
“Star Wars” games have been around for decades, but the Old Republic provides the most extensive opportunity to become your own Jedi warrior, Sith assassin, snarky smuggler or powerful sage.Ī lot of attention has been paid this holiday season to the competition between the year’s two big combat games: Battlefield 3, also from Electronic Arts, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 from Activision Blizzard, which also produces World of Warcraft. On Tuesday, Electronic Arts will release Star Wars: The Old Republic, a sprawling multiplayer online adventure that is the first legitimate competition that World of Warcraft has faced for the hearts, minds, hours and dollars of millions of players. Yet it has lost around two million players over the past year, and now the original evil empire is at the door. The first online game to enjoy planetwide popularity, World of Warcraft had more than 12 million paid subscribers last fall. Over the last decade no video game has engaged a broader global community than World of Warcraft. Over the last third of a century no new fiction has engaged the popular imagination and become as thoroughly essential an element of mass culture as “Star Wars.” There can’t be many people anywhere who wouldn’t at least recognize a lightsaber or Darth Vader.
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