According to the Star Wars Canon panel at Celebration, SWTOR is not canon, from the live blog:

Are The Old Republic expansions canon?

 

No — BioWare “has created their own universe that is so fantastic,” we’re not going to change it, says Hidalgo.

 

--SWCA: One Big Story - Star Wars Canon Panel LiveBlog

They also said that exploring the Old Republic timeline is "definitely not off the table".

According to the Star Wars Canon panel at Celebration, SWTOR is not canon, from the live blog:So that settles any ambiguity surrounding that, interesting however that they have no intention of altering it, on top of that the Story Group is presiding over it so clearly they have a lot of respect. So parts could be canonised in the future.

 

They also said that exploring the Old Republic timeline is "definitely not off the table".

Well my friend, what remains is; do we consider the glass half empty or half full !? All things in their own time I think . . .

Beni while we have often disagreed I respect both your intelligence and you utter passion for the Star Wars Universe... but I need to say I am not at all surprised by this. I have no doubt at some point in the future that they will engage stories with the comic book characters, maybe even some of the characters that were never PC's in the video games. But the named characters we have played, Revan etc., they will never see the ligh of day because the LSG wants a Tolkeinesque Canon, not a Lucas...what ever works at the given mokment Canon, which was what the EU Canon ultimately was.

Darko, I consider the glass half full., as an example some of the best DC stories I ever read were "Elseworlds" tales. Simply because a tale is not Canon does not mean it is not a damn good story and why people felt the need for some sort of codified Canon in Star Wars always baffled me.

Beni while we have often disagreed I respect both your intelligence and you utter passion for the Star Wars Universe... but I need to say I am not at all surprised by this. I have no doubt at some point in the future that they will engage stories with the comic book characters, maybe even some of the characters that were never PC's in the video games. But the named characters we have played, Revan etc., they will never see the ligh of day because the LSG wants a Tolkeinesque Canon, not a Lucas...what ever works at the given mokment Canon, which was what the EU Canon ultimately was.

Well my friend, what remains is; do we consider the glass half empty or half full !? All things in their own time I think . . .

The glass if half full I feel.

Glad we can finally put to rest all the 'maybe it'll still count as canon since it's so far removed from the movies' or 'I thought it was only the post-RotJ stuff that was being made non-canon' stuff that seemed to be floating around.

SWTOR being the last ongoing 'Legends' property is one thing I like about it. The New Canon has been shaping up fine in all the products I've seen, and the trailers give me high hopes for the upcoming movies (despite my attempts to temper my expectations), but I'll always be a big fan of the Legends continuity - warts and all.

Also from Celebration: "Legends stories may not be left unresolved forever, but revisiting them is not a priority now. Once the new continuity is fully established, continuations of Legends stories are potentially possible. Fan-favorite Legends characters can come back if the stories require them and can do them justice."

(Echoing a 'no current plans for more Legends, but who knows' tweet from LucasBooks' Jennifer Heddle on the same day as the Canon announcement.)

For now, I take that to be nothing more than hot air - placating, noncommittal statements meant to mollify those upset about the end of the Legends timeline. I certainly hope that Legends eventually gets revived as a separate 'Alternate Universe' continuity, but they have no plans to do so in the near future, and I don't imagine there will be a particularly large market for it several years down the line.

So for now, Legends' fire has gone out of the universe, SWTOR is all that's left of their relig... er... continuity.

Glad we can finally put to rest all the 'maybe it'll still count as canon since it's so far removed from the movies' or 'I thought it was only the post-RotJ stuff that was being made non-canon' stuff that seemed to be floating around.

 

So for now, Legends' fire has gone out of the universe, SWTOR is all that's left of their relig... er... continuity.

STARWARS.COM TEAM 15 HOURS AGO

“Anything’s possible.” – Roberts

STARWARS.COM TEAM 15 HOURS AGO

Can Darth Revan be made canon?

Well then they throw us this bone . . .

STARWARS.COM TEAM 15 HOURS AGO

“Anything’s possible.” – Roberts

 

STARWARS.COM TEAM 15 HOURS AGO

Can Darth Revan be made canon?

 

Well then they throw us this bone . . .

There certainly might be a Darth Revan introduced to the Canon continuity, the same way there was a version of Armand Isard established in Tarkin and a version of Darth Bane established in the Clone Wars: Lost Missions. But they are not the same characters as their Legends counterparts, any more than Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is the same character as the white, WWII vet Nick Fury from the comics' main continuity.

It will be interesting to see if Canon-verse versions of Thrawn, Mara Jade, Kyle Katarn, Revan, or other fan favorites begin to show up - and what those characters will be like if they do.

One thing, if Kyle Katarn does show up I'd rather him not become a Jedi and just stick with being a Rebel Agent. Don't get me wrong, I like JK:O and JK:A it's just...I always felt he was more an Agent type rather than a Jedi, plus it fit well with him being an Agent after being a Stormtrooper.

Although if he appears and is a Jedi again, I won't have any problems there either.

STARWARS.COM TEAM 15 HOURS AGO

“Anything’s possible.” – Roberts

 

STARWARS.COM TEAM 15 HOURS AGO

Can Darth Revan be made canon?

 

Well then they throw us this bone . . .

Given Revan nearly appered in the lost missions...

I don't really understand your point, but as far as I'm concerned the player characters are already in the light, right here, in this game, which continues to expand under Lucasfilm's guidance and approval.Believing SWTOR would be canonised was always wishful thinking, this is the next best thing.

 

The glass if half full I feel.

I mean in the light of the new Canon. They said they may at some point revisit TOR in the Canon. If they do it is a dangerous road to tread, taking player characters and making them "Canon.". Yes we have the characters here in this game, but they exist only in the light of the now confirmed " SWTOR is not Canon" lamp. If you turn that light off they do not exist.

Is the Old Republic in "canon" with the other Legends? Perhaps the Old Republic won't ever even need to tie into any other product, including the the original movies.

The old republic is its own universe - which means it's EU based aka Legends - KoToR 1-2 serve as core legend/canon into our game. The best way to research this is to look in to the Legend Tab on Wookiepedia and cross reference with the lore ingame.

This article gives you a very good description of SW:TOR in relation to Canon.

What's being stressed now is that SW:TOR is Authentic Star Wars rather then Star Wars Canon.

My personal view is that we play in Ancient times, much like the pre greek-roman Era in our own human history, the fall of the remnants of this(SWTOR) Era we get in Episodes 1 - 3 and The Clone Wars series, which in turn is Canon.

So our Game takes place in a time were we still have some knowledge of the Dark side/Sith origin or even the Jedi origin. In the the new Canon Era it is yet to be discovered/Written!!!

Guys, the SW universe is younger compared to the ST universe and I'm very impressed it took this long before these decisions had to be made. The reality is, if everything with a SW logo on it is considered canon, from children's cartoons to serious books, the universe will not only become ridiculous but it will get bogged down to the point it makes it very difficult to tell an interesting story. I'm sure everybody has a favourite storyline or character from the EU, but there are atrocious ones too.

I suggest fans approach SW that same way ST fans approach their extended universe, anything written down in paper can be your personal canon until it is contradicted by something in a television show or movie.

And frankly, there are even movies that many ST fans don't consider to be canon. Heck, Gene Roddenberry didn't even consider at least one of the movies canon . That would be like George Lucas deciding Force Awakens isn't canon.

- Arcada

Guys, the SW universe is younger compared to the ST universe and I'm very impressed it took this long before these decisions had to be made. The reality is, if everything with a SW logo on it is considered canon, from children's cartoons to serious books, the universe will not only become ridiculous but it will get bogged down to the point it makes it very difficult to tell an interesting story. I'm sure everybody has a favourite storyline or character from the EU, but there are atrocious ones too.

 

I suggest fans approach SW that same way ST fans approach their extended universe, anything written down in paper can be your personal canon until it is contradicted by something in a television show or movie.

 

And frankly, there are even movies that many ST fans don't consider to be canon. Heck, Gene Roddenberry didn't even consider at least one of the movies canon . That would be like George Lucas deciding Force Awakens isn't canon.

 

- Arcada

To each their own when it comes to media / fiction tastes, it's obviously a matter of personal preference, but I have to say that I usually think of Star Trek as my go-to example of how not to do an expanded universe, and an illustration (by way of contrast) of how there can be value added by having some sensible continuity rules.

Before the New Canon decision, when I picked up a new Star Wars novel, comic, or game, I had a very clear idea of what it was using as background. With Star Trek, that's just not the case. We can just look at this game as compared with Star Trek Online:

Right from the start, when I began playing TOR, I knew that it was following the history established in the Tales of the Jedi comics I had read 15 years before, the Knights of the Old Republic games that I had played almost a decade before, and the KotOR comics that had just wrapped up a year earlier, and that it was also going to stay consistent with works that are even set after it - things like the Chiss Ascendency, Mandalorian culture, etc., were all in the same continuity.

With STO, however, it was a completely different matter. It was following some things, such as the JJ Abrams 'reboot' move where Spock went through a black hole and Romulus was destroyed. It was clearly ignoring others, like the Destiny novels where the Borg were wiped out 30-some years before STO is set. An it was... kinda following others, but not really, like having Ro Laren as the security chief of DS9, which seemed to follow the Avatar-Unity novels, except that it now happened about 10 years later than it did in the novels and she was in prison for a while in between. Overall it was... messy.

I'm not saying any series should be dogmatic about continuity, especially at the expense of good storytelling - if Star Trek wants to say "alright the 'Shatner-verse novels where Kirk gets resurrected by the Borg is going to be its own separate deal" and put out things like the Star Terk / Green Lantern crossover they have going on now, then that is perfectly fine, since it's clear these are their own discrete things. Heck, if they want to make it clear that we're all just going to quietly pretend Voyager's "Threshold" never, ever happened and we shall never speak of it again, even that is fine as long as it's not happening too frequently.

But there's a difference between a few isolated cases like that and a general approach to continuity where I'm not sure whether the next novel is going to treat the Klingons as the Federation's long-time allies, or as an empire they just got done fighting a war against - regardless of the timeframe the novel is set in.

I have no problem with the New Canon setup and with setting the old EU (including SWTOR) in a "Legends" continuity - having two separate 'universes', as long as they're consistent about it, work fine IMO. But I do think having some comprehensible system in place adds value to the storytelling, which is one area that I think Star Wars had done far better than Star Trek.

Given Revan nearly appered in the lost missions...

Didn't Revan ACTUALLY appear in the Mortis episodes when Anakin had his visions?

Didn't Revan ACTUALLY appear in the Mortis episodes when Anakin had his visions?

No. They story-boarded an appearance for him and designed the CGI model, but in the end he did not appear in the episode.

The only thing that matters is if SWTOR is gonna continue being alive.Canon or not, who cares...

Cus if not, i am gonna have to go back to ESO or WoW and nobody wants that.

The only thing that matters is if SWTOR is gonna continue being alive.Canon or not, who cares...

 

Cus if not, i am gonna have to go back to ESO or WoW and nobody wants that.

No we don't want that, Don't worry mate . . .

I'm completely fine with SWTOR staying in the Legends canon, because it hopefully will allow the writers to be more risky with the stories. Some people have said that the devs explained at Comic Con that they're taking advantage of TOR's non-canon status in that way, which is partly why they're doing what they're doing with Fallen Empire.

If TOR being non-canon means better storytelling, since the writers no longer have to worry about conflicting with other things in canon, I'm all for it. Hell, I think that was part of the issue early TOR had: playing it safe to avoid offending the canon zealots.

I'm completely fine with SWTOR staying in the Legends canon, because it hopefully will allow the writers to be more risky with the stories. Some people have said that the devs explained at Comic Con that they're taking advantage of TOR's non-canon status in that way, which is partly why they're doing what they're doing with Fallen Empire.

 

If TOR being non-canon means better storytelling, since the writers no longer have to worry about conflicting with other things in canon, I'm all for it. Hell, I think that was part of the issue early TOR had: playing it safe to avoid offending the canon zealots.

Same now bioware can actually make interesting stories without worrying about continuity making sure it matches up with the time line etc. I mean making the empire and republic fall is pretty drastic and something I feel would not fly it was still canon imo.