Welcome to Knights of the Fallen Empire, a wrap-up of a behind closed-doors demo I got to see in-person at E3. The gameplay footage to my knowledge hasn't been released just yet but this is everything, and I mean everything, that I remember from the demo. And to note, when I was with the developers, the playthrough mainly chose dark side decisions. Let me guide you through the first hours of choice and story in Knights of the Fallen Empire.

The story begins with you, the Outlander, released from your carbonite prison after many years, with the help of Sith Lord Lana Beniko. You learn in brief moments that your ship was attacked, your crew detained and you imprisoned. The Eternal Empire considers you a threat and liability that they want to keep under control. What you know or have will be unveiled and is a huge plot point that the developers did not even want to disclose just yet.

"Tanek Attack" dialogue choices

In the standard plea of "Help us, you are our only hope" you flee the chambers with Lana and encounter different troopers and soldiers. After fighting through waves, you encounter Tanek and his companion. Both are Zakuul Knights who want to stop you. The dialogue provides three choices. Two are standard responses to initiate battle immediately or to avoid it but the third is a Force persuade that tries to defuse the situation. However your Force persuade doesn't even work as both knights seem to be Force sensitive and stare at you in disbelief, saying something along the lines of "Is this guy kidding?" and then attack you.

At the end of the battle, the other Zakuul Knight retreats to a higher pipe structure, telling Tanek to leave. However, Lana grabs him into a Force choke and it's your decision to either let him go or allow the kill. It's important to note however that not only does she voice her pleasure or distaste in your decision, but also she stopped herself before the kill, as if she's asking for your permission. The developers chose the dark choice to kill this time with the Outlander saying something along the tonality of "Finish it already." With this decision, Tanek's companion will actually hound you in the future. When I asked the developers if the return will merely be a one-time encounter at a later time, the developers said that the repercussions, both positive and negative, will have an effect in how your journey proceeds throughout the main quest. If you let Tanek live, his companion will actually remember this in another encounter. Whether this action compounds other relations with companions or NPCs has yet to be seen.

"Sun Generator" dialogue choices

In any case, let's continue. There's a good back-and-forth between pilot Koth Vortena as he struggles to get his ship ready for your escape while you drive through enemies. As you fight through, you learn the world's sun generator is about to explode. Two visible paths stem from this situation, light and dark. In the light path, you can choose to save the sun generator, which will have gameplay up to about 30 minutes, where you fight to restore the sun. Afterwards, you can escape from the world. On the dark path, you can choose not to save the sun generator, saying along the lines of "There are more pressing matters", such as escaping. Lana Beniko agrees, though Koth is in visible disagreement. The dark path avoids the stabilisation quest of the sun generator and cuts to the escape. Whether you choose to save the sun generator or not will actually have outstanding consequences later on, especially since you can return to this area. And notably, you'll be able to visit the world, the surface and even certain swamp regions of this world as well. Unfortunately, when I asked whether the denizens of the regions will know what you did with the sun generator, there wasn't a clear-cut answer besides "People will know and your impact, or lack thereof, is definitely noticed."

Vaylin: Concept art, cropped screenshot, full screenshot

In the final escape, you're confronted by Vaylin, who tries to stop you and Lana. More notably, Lana is familiarly with who Vaylin is, and also she is actually willing to sacrifice herself to fight Vaylin so she can cover your escape. But certain roleplay dialogues pop up here to say whether you want her to sacrifice herself or not. As the fight looks like it is about to start and more Sky Troopers join in, surprisingly enough, Vaylin puts away her lightsaber, saying she doesn't need it. In the next moment, Koth appears with the ship and shoots at Vaylin, where this screenshot appears. As you jump onto the ship and are pulled in by HK-55, a yellow-orange model of HK-47, your escape is where the demo ends.

When a developer believes in their game, passionately jumping to show off what makes the gameplay changes exemplary and worth to play, it makes me want to believe as well. After what I saw in the demo as well as the genuine care in how the devs represented their game to me, someone extremely close to other BioWare titles but not so much Old Republic, I think Knights of the Fallen Empire is what will steer gamers to playing this MMO, even those who had no interest before. By taking a firm hold of the narrative and reflecting on the end of Shadow of Revan, of current companions and of the new narrative, by thrusting the player into more conflicts and twists in lieu of straggling the same path, Fallen Empire has, I think, the drive to level the playing field of storytelling across all of BioWare's current IPs. And as someone who has recorded on Dragon Age and Mass Effect extensively for the past few years, I am taking the risk in saying Knights of the Fallen Empire, you may want to pay attention.

Knights of the Fallen Empire releases in October free for subscribers, with its multiple chapters releasing at an episodic pace. You can see more in the links below, don't forget to like and subcribe, better yet comment. Is this what you want, whether you are a current player or former player, or simply just curious? Is this the direction you want to see? Let me know in the comments below. More is to come and in full detail from my special time at E3. Take care and I'll see you next time.

• About the length of a chapter:
  

  In the demo I saw, the devs skipped a lot of the gameplay between the escape/Tanek and the Sun Generator (for time's sake, I was supposed to be there only for 30 mins but we stayed a bit longer). It also felt like there's more to play after your escape - the chapter doesn't end there. There's a lot to the first chapter that we didn't see.

• More info on skipping the 30-minute quest:
  

  From what I understand, a consequence to not helping the sun generator. While you skip over it now, you'll end up with dirty work later that light side doesn't get.

• Comparing Mass Effect 2 story to what was shown in the demo:
  

  Wow. Yea, I can definitely see the similarities between your escape with Miranda versus escape with Lana. I mean of course Mass 2's start was more of a tutorial run and the beginning of this feels different, but superficially yes I can see it.
  Well sort of. Miranda was less welcoming to listen to your commands

E3 2015: YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE IN SWTOR’S FALLEN EMPIRE

June 23, 2015, MJ Guthrie

Star Wars: The Old Republic fans are still hungry for more Knights of the Fallen Empire information, and we can’t blame them. As we noted in yesterday’s part one of our BioWare interview with Lead Designer Michael Backus, Studio Creative Director James Ohlen, and Senior Producer Bruce MacLean, this new expansion will be quite a departure from how the game has developed up to this point. Today, we bring you part two, which focuses on companions, new content, some tidbits on the Eternal Empire, and what goodies players get when they grab the expansion. Oh, and did we mention the regular class stories are getting overhauled as well?

A whole new game

Since new players can be granted an instant level-60 toon to start straight into the expansion, it’s hard not to consider the SWTOR and Fallen Empire two completely different games instead of a game and its expansion. At this point you may wonder what they have in common, and those who have played the base game might question how the two will connect together. For instance, since you get five new companions, what happens to the old ones?

Backus said point blank that answering me would involve spoilers, so he wouldn’t share. However, he did note that while you were frozen in carbonite for five years, your companions still had to live through the passage of time. In your absence, their lives went on — but the choices you made involving them might have something to do with where their lives headed after you disappeared. Companions are, in Backus’ words, “super important.” He said the team focused on making the experience better, giving companions more content, and making your decisions impact your companions as much as their decisions/actions impact you.

From the walk-through, we learned this: Lana Beniko, your Sith Lord companion, tells you that your memories of all your previous companions all dying is probably just stasis-induced dreams, and I know for a fact at least one old droid companion was there to help you out of a tight spot. But what happens to the rest is something for players to find out. Backus did say this, however:

“We’re doing a lot of cool stuff with companions. Some of it I can’t tell you about, but the gameplay in this system reflects the fiction and vice versa. We built both together. We said, ‘What if there were an opportunity to interact with this companion in this way?’ I can’t give you too many specifics, but the answer is it is very possible that classes and the companions start to cross-pollinate.”

Backus also said which companions you end up with will be reflected in the choices you make! He explained, “With the fall of both the Republic and the Empire, effectively you are that chosen one. They feel you can help rebuild, and part of that rebuilding is you going out and finding your companions. And who those companions are is kind of part of the player choice.” We know that Lana can be one, and we also met a new HK55 droid that’s programmed to protect meatbags at all costs. But it sounds as if all players will not have the same options depending on those choices they have made and will still make.

New worlds to explore are also a part of the expansion. One such world is Zakuul. Although it appears to be an ecumenoplis like Coruscant or Nar Shaddaa, it is not; Backus notes that while the city itself is very vast, the world also has outlying swamps and other terrain. Although we don’t know to what degree Zakuul is explorable, McLean noted that players will be fighting through the scaffolding in city heights as well as visiting the surface and the underbelly of the world.

What about the new abilities for the five new levels? MacLean stated that specific information will be released in the upcoming months but that “the general philosophy is on increased mobility and action-packed combat.” As for more information on PvP and flashpoints, Backus deferred those questions until later, saying the studio wants to reveal that information at a later time. However, fans should be assured that devs will be announcing more and more content and features as the October 27th release draws closer. “We understand that our players still love [flashpoints, Galactic Civil War, etc] and we plan on addressing those things as we progress,” said Backus.

It isn’t just the expansion that’s bringing something different to the table. As MacLean put it, “We’re also going back to the original game and we’re evolving the eight base class stories so that leveling up takes a fraction of the time it once did, with an epic story guiding you the whole way. It is a Knights of the Old Republic-inspired BioWare RPG experience in each of those eight class stories without the ‘go kill eight womp rats’ side quests.”

The Eternal Empire

Backus delved a bit into the story about major players who were seen in the trailer as well as those in the walk-through. The Emperor of the Eternal Empire is Valkorian, who has twin sons — Thexan and Arkan — and a lightning-flinging daughter, Vaylin. Backus noted that there are a lot of politics going on with this family, but he wouldn’t share details saying that the background is part of the chapters of the epic story. He did, however, note that “some of the lore and some of the fiction that we are establishing actually starts with Shadow of Revan.” As he put it, “I guarantee that once you play through especially the first nine chapters if not the first 16 chapters of Fallen Empire, if you go back through Revan and play through Revan, you can start to see hints of what’s coming.”

What happened to the Empire and the Republic? That, too, is in the story, but suffice it to say that they were conquered and now folks from both those sides are working together to get you — the hero — to the point where you can save them all from the Eternal Empire. No, really: You are the chosen one. Literally. As Backus said, “You’re special, and you’re special for a reason!” You need to restore your power and be the figurehead to fight the Eternal Empire. The whole story revolves around you.

Getting the goods

So how will players get this new expansion/standalone game? Those who are subscribed when the first nine chapters are released in October will get all those chapters unlocked on their account, and they will remain unlocked even if a player unsubs after that point. Those who haven’t yet bought Shadows of Revan or Rise of the Hutt Cartel and can hold off might want to as Knights of the Fallen Empire will include all previous expansions. Those who are subscribed in the months leading up to the release (starting in July) will earn special in-game items as well, the first being the smuggler Niko as a companion. Other perks will be available for each month until the expansion releases. Players who are subscribed between July 31st and October 19th will also have access to Fallen Empire on October 20th, a week earlier than it will be available otherwise.

Those who feel they are aren’t ready for Fallen Empire right now can wait before subscribing to unlock it without missing out on any chapters. Whenever players subscribe, they will get all chapters of the story up to date to that point. That means if 25 chapters have been released, one month of subscription will net a player all 25 chapters.

Instead of doing two expansions a year, devs confirmed that SWTOR will have just one really big one, though it won’t all be released at the same time; the seasons of episodic story chapters that start with Fallen Empire will continue. Free-to-play and preferred players will not see any content unless they have subscribed sometime during the release of the chapters, at which point they will have access to everything up to that date of subscription.

Don’t forget to check out part one of our E3 interview with BioWare!

Massively Overpowered was on the ground in Los Angeles, California, for E3 2015, bringing you expert MMO coverage from NCsoft, Blizzard, Ubisoft, BioWare, and everything else on display at the expo!