Star Wars: The Old Republic contains zero mentions of midi-chlorians

The quickest way to bother a Star Wars fan (besides attempting to make them watch the Christmas Special) is to bring up "midi-chlorians," the advent of the prequel trilogy that attempted to science-ify the Force. They're just an awful, lazy plot mechanic, and one that shouldn't be anywhere near the franchise. Naturally, with the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is said to have 60 man years worth of writing in it, we were worried that they would show up somewhere. Maybe in a random conversation. Maybe in a lore codex. Maybe scribbled on the wall of a Cantina on Mos Ila, who knows?

Well, one person: Daniel Erickson. Erickson was the lead writer on the game, and claims to have read through every word that made its way into the game, so if anyone could answer our question, it would be him.

Above: Hear him for yourself in the interview

At the end of our interview, which you can check out above, we asked him the question: "How many times are midi-chlorians brought up?"

"Zero," he responded, "they won't be discovered for quite some time."

Friends, we can all let out a collective sigh of relief. Considering the game's other inside jokes meant for die-hard Star Wars fans (including the Smuggler's class ability to "shoot first") we're not entirely surprised that they were left out, but we are extremely happy to hear that we'll be able to play through every drop of content in the game without having an NPC tell us that our midi-chlorian level is "over 9000."

Hollander Cooper

Hollander Cooper was the Lead Features Editor of GamesRadar+ between 2011 and 2014. After that lengthy stint managing GR's editorial calendar he moved behind the curtain and into the video game industry itself, working as social media manager for EA and as a communications lead at Riot Games. Hollander is currently stationed at Apple as an organic social lead for the App Store and Apple Arcade.