Two years after Knights of the Fallen Empire, Star Wars: The Old Republic launched a new major update that moved the story forward and began the preparation for the next full expansion.
- I didn’t play Jedi Under Siege until after Onslaught came out, so some of my thoughts may be skewed.
- With Zakuul and the Eternal Fleet gone and the Alliance no longer able to make them play nice, the Republic and Empire are back at each others’ throats, and the Alliance has to choose a side. The choice on Iokath doesn’t make a difference aside from who’s still alive and a character being called out on betraying their original faction there if they did so. This time, if you choose to betray your original faction, you’re assigned a role as a saboteur/double agent – still working with the original faction, but taking the opportunity to swing things toward the new side’s favor.
- The story for the expansion involves an Imperial attack on a hidden Jedi colony. Regardless of your side, the outcome is basically the same: the Jedi are driven from the planet. Your actions influence how successful the evacuation is, whether your side gets to learn the Jedi’s secrets for farming on an inhospitable planet like Ossus, and the like. The biggest difference side makes is Gnost-Dural, who escapes with you to begin properly reforming the Jedi Order if you’re from the Republic, or is killed or captured (your choice) if you’re from the Empire.
- Tau Adair and Major Anri are solid additions to the cast. With the old factions taking an increased role in the story, having a field-level companion (rather than running around with Gnost-Dural or Malora or… well, I’ll get to him) is important, and these two are good. Unfortunately, being part of the Republic and Empire means they aren’t and probably won’t become full companions/Alliance members, but working with them is nice.
- The big point of this story addition, however, is the return of Darth Malgus. They don’t bother explaining how he survived his defeat in False Emperor – falling into a pit on an space station about to explode – but somehow, Malgus returned. (Hush.) I was never too upset about him dying in the base game, but bringing him back to be the Bad Guy is a good enough choice now that Vitiate’s dead-dea, and other major antagonists like the Dread Masters, Revan, and Vinn Atrius (I guess) have been dealt with.
- Four companions returned as part of the new story, which unless I’m misremembering only left Kira, Scourge, Zenith, and Tharan missing of the original set1. Doc and Nadia are part of the Republic’s story regardless of what class the Alliance Commander is, while Jaesa only shows up for members of their respective classes. (Khem presumably follows the same rule, also requiring that the Inquisitor side with him at the end of his story – but I haven’t played an Inquisitor through Jedi Under Siege and I intensely dislike Khem so I sided with Zash so it’s going to be a long time, if ever, before I see how he returns.) Unfortunately, the trend of them only being available to their original classes continued.
- Two new gear tiers were introduced and could be earned through the new master mode of the Machine Gods operation or on Ossus. The latter seemed like an excessive amount of work, but to be honest I had largely stopped playing at this point and by time I came back it had moved on to the new expansion’s gearing system.
- Ossus also has a new lair boss operation, the Mutant Geonosian Queen. It’s a bit more involved than other lair bosses – there’s actually a path to clear to get to it, so it’s a bit more like Toborro’s Courtyard or Valley of the Machine Gods before they added bosses 2-5 than the other lair bosses. And the difficulty is closer to the event lair bosses (Xenoanalyst II and Eyeless) than either the easy Golden Fury or the frustrating Colossal Monolith.
- Before Onslaught released, a fourth recurring event, involving a pirate invasion of Dantooine, was added. The return to another location from Knights of the Old Republic is nice (only Kashyyyk is left… well, and the space station over Yavin, but that barely counts), and it’s a fun event (with maybe one too many Heroic missions, which by time I got around to playing the event were getting tough to find a group for).
- Finally, there is one quest where your character can discover a mysterious pair watching the Odessen base…
Overall, Jedi Under Siege was a return to form for the game, getting back to basics after the mess that the Eternal Empire story turned into.
Next: The payoff.