Star Wars: The Old Republic is adding dedicated 'Date Night' scenes for some of its romanceable characters, so that you can wine and dine them without worrying about the fate of the galaxy.
During a livestream ahead of its upcoming update, the Star Wars MMO's devs announced new story content, a new stronghold for players to experience that story from, and rewards and market updates. They also, however, discussed a new feature, dubbed 'Date Night'.
You can catch the dev stream in the video below, in which the Date Night section begins around the 21 minute mark. In a discussion around new narrative features, narrative director Ashley Ruhl and lead writer Caitlin Sullivan Kelly said they were "very, very, very excited" to unveil the new feature.
Kelly points out that where the many connections players have made over the years since Star Wars: The Old Republic launched, even when those connections turn romantic, "we usually only really get to connect with these romantic partners in quick, stolen moments." Date Night is a new set of companion missions coming in the new update, designed specifically to rectify that.
Ruhl says that the missions will be cinematic-only scenarios, "where you get to spend some time with your romance companion." Each date is unique to the companion, but you'll be able to repeat them once per week. They do sound pretty chaste - board games and sparring rather than anything more steamy - but they'll also offer some 'tokens' unique to each character once you complete them.
For now, Date Night will only be available to a few characters, but that does mean you can go on a date with a Sith Lord or a former Emperor, which sounds intense. Future updates will make future companions available for dates, with the current selection focused on the companions that can be romanced by anyone in the game, regardless of class or gender. Basically, one of the best MMOs is about to get even better.
The new cutscenes sound a lot like the romance 'hangouts' recently added to Cyberpunk 2077. After the launch of Phantom Liberty, CDPR added dedicated dates to its RPG that let you take a load off in a low-stakes evening with your partner. Extricated from the main story, and often focused around specific activities rather than anything deliberately un-PG13, there's a definite comparison to be drawn with Star Wars: The Old Republic, but it'll be interesting to see how the community receives all this extra attention.
There's only one other title on our list of the best Star Wars game that lets you pick your romance partner - and it's not Lego Star Wars.
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