I believe a game has hit an unusual place when players get nostalgic pangs for a game within the game itself. We see that kind of things in franchise games like Elder Scrolls Online. The Morrowind expansion was a huge nostalgic trip, but it wasn’t for the earlier times within the game itself. ESO built its nostalgia from other games in the franchise. But if we look at World of Warcraft, we can see its self-nostalgia creep in all over the place. Most obviously when they reused Ragnaros in Cataclysm after having him defeated in Molten Core. If done well, pulling on past characters can make for interesting stories and a lot of fun for gamers.
Star Wars: The Old Republic will hit this unusual stage with Update 5.10 Jedi Under Siege when it launches in just a few weeks. I was going to say that BioWare hasn’t started reusing raid bosses, but then it’s used Kephess so many times that it’s become a meme. However, the reusing of Kephess wasn’t exactly for nostalgia; it was more to show the power of the Dread Masters. In 5.10, BioWare will bring back a few different characters from the game’s past, some more interesting than others.
I am keeping one of the reveals under spoiler tags because it’s a rumor. I’m not completely sure how truthful the reveal is, but just in case the rumors are true, I don’t want to ruin it for those want to jump in spoiler-free.
The return of Master Gnost-Dural
I have a book that came with my collector’s edition of SWTOR called the Journal of Master Gnost-Dural. And although he’s never made an appearance in the game proper, he is one of my favorite characters in SWTOR. We don’t exactly get to meet him personally, but we can infer a lot about his personality from his writing and the timeline videos that were released before the game launched.
Did I mention that he is voiced by Lance Henriksen, one of the most iconic voices in movie history? I put his voice alongside Morgan Freeman, James Earl Jones, and Alan Rickman as memorable and iconic. IMDB would disagree with me, but then maybe IMDB editors haven’t seen Aliens as many times as I have.
Gnost-Dural stands out as one of the great Jedi historians. His recorded histories leading up to the signing of the Treaty of Coruscant set the stage for the epic story that was vanilla SWTOR. His studies of the motivation of the Sith Empire gave us insight into not only who he was as a historian but also who the Sith Emperor was as a strategist and opportunist. Through his storytelling, we could see how the Sith Emperor was more interested in the long game and that there were no accidents in anything he did. I would consider Dural to be one of the greatest Jedi detectives in the game or really in the history of the Jedi because of the way he picked apart the Empire’s plan.
Where have I heard then name Malora before?
Malora’s story begins with your story in SWTOR. If you’re a Sith, you get to decide how her story begins, but regardless of your involvement, it begins with Renning. You meet Lord Renning on Korriban if you run the side quests. He wants you to retrieve the brain of a mutant Tuk’ata, but his apprentice believes that his work is preposterous and hopes to get him exiled. She asks you to sabotage the brain of the Tuk’ata when you find it. If you decide to work with Renning and reveal that the apprentice is a traitor, Renning will torture the apprentice and get rid of her. That apprentice is, of course, Malora. Renning dies at the hands of the Republic when it invades Korriban a few years later regardless of your choice, but I am very interested to learn what role that choice makes in your relationship with Malora in Update 5.10.
Community Manager Eric Musco mentioned that she is now a member of the Dark Council, heading up the Sphere of Biotic Science. Besides reintroducing this character to the SWTOR storyline, this also low-key tells the audience that the Dark Council is a thing again. At the beginning of Knights of the Fallen Empire, Lana Beniko tells us that the Dark Council was killed or fled when Arcann and Thexan attacked Korriban. Even though we were told that Acina likely controlled the Imperial Ministries directly, we now know that the Dark Council has been reformed in some fashion.
Rumors are flying about the return of [SPOILER!]
Click to reveal spoiler section
Many of us know by now that there was a deleted scene in the Blur Knights of the Fallen Empire trailer. The twins revealed their trophies to their father Valkorion. In the final cut, we saw them lay out lightsaber hilts from the Empire and the Republic. It was suggested that one of those hilts belonged to Darth Malgus. But what was even more revealing was the deleted scene that had an image of Darth Malgus in carbonite.
The rumor floating around the community is that Darth Malgus will return in 5.10. Questions are circulating around the community, too. How did he get back? Didn’t we kill him in the False Emperor flashpoint? What does this mean for the Empire? Did we just take him back after betrayed the Empire and attempted to dethrone the Emperor? Although I am excited about his return, if it’s true, it really leaves more questions than answers. But one thing I really hope is that he becomes a companion, and would he be romanceable?
We are returning to the separate Republic and Imperial stories with 5.10, and that alone has me super excited about the game again. But what are your thoughts? Has BioWare started to turn this ship around? I believe that it’s started to. What are your thoughts about the returning characters? Do you like it when they pull obscure characters back into the game? Let me know all of your thoughts in the comments. We will explore more of 5.10 soon.
Every other week, Larry Everett jumps into his T-16 back home, rides through the hypergates of BioWare‘s Star Wars: The Old Republic, and posts his adventures in the Hyperspace Beacon. Drop him a holocom on Twitter @Shaddoe or send him a transmission at larry@massivelyop.com. Now strap yourself in, kid — we gotta make the jump to hyperspace!
