Back in 2018, I provided a brief concept for three separate games within the Star Wars universe. This article looks at the middle of those concepts to expand upon it. That being the RPG. When speaking of this action RPG before, I’d given a good idea of the basics, and I guess the basics are all you really need to know. But what with this being me, a lover of crafting concepts, I’m going deeper into how it’s playing and the story you’ll be working through. And that means I have given thought to what the story is going to be.

The opening mission sees you crash down onto a planet after a rival bounty hunter damaged the engines of your ship. The other knows you were also taking on the bounty, and knows you succeeded, so they’re playing dirty so they can be the one to get the reward. Once on the ground, the target makes a run from the ship, which is where the tutorial begins.

After a chase where you and the target get attacked by animals, you’ll run into that bounty hunting rival, who sets their droid mercenaries on you. While fighting them off, that rival takes the target and flies away in their ship, blasting your own to pieces. With the fight complete, you’ll need to head to the nearest town so you can start rebuilding what you’d had.

Now, all the planets you visit are split into regions. This starting planet will have you visiting three across this opening chapter, with a fourth that becomes available later in the story. Those regions will not be next to each other, instead being spread out across the planet, and vary in size. Whether just an urban area, mix of urban and country, or mostly country with a few villages dotted around, each planet you visit will have a different mix depending on how populated it is.

In total, there will be five planets. That might not seem like a lot, but each planet has relevance to the story being told. You’ll be travelling across planets once you finally have a new ship, but since that won’t be until the end of the second chapter, you’ll have a lot of time to get to know this starting planet. As to how you get that ship, you’ll be doing your job as a bounty hunter.

After all, smaller jobs don’t require a ship to travel across the galaxy. The baddie will be somewhere on the planet you accept the job, and these will be small enough that the rival will have no interest in them. Which is just as well, as that rival has set things into motion that will give you a hard time.

It’s a pretty scummy tactic, what they do to make money. Stealing bounty targets from others isn’t enough. They then persuade the contractor of the bounty to put one on the hunter they stole the target from, having faked evidence that they were instead aiding the target so that they could escape and hide.

So with that now having happened to your hunter, they are forced away from that starting planet, which is fortunate as they now have a ship to escape with. Hopping between one of three other planets as you claim jobs and perform what’s needed of them, you’ll also be fending off hunters attempting to bring you in alive.

By chapter four, you’d have encountered a hunter who is friendly to you. What happened to you has happened to them, but to avoid capture they gave up hunting. Since you had helped them once before, they are willing to help you now. While they won’t be an active help at first, they will come to realise that when it comes to the one causing all of this, they need to be stopped.

In terms of how the story progresses, the guild board is the way to progress. New jobs become available at the start of each chapter on both the local and galactic boards. Completing jobs is how you unlock the missions to progress the story, though that number is a small amount between jobs (and some main missions will unlock immediately after one another).

While you won’t have completed all the jobs on that board for a chapter before you move onto the next – since the number of jobs will heavily outweigh the number you need to complete, you can still complete any remaining jobs no matter what chapter you are on. Every job will pay money for completion, and it is that money you will need for stimulants and other things. It is an RPG, after all.

In terms of things you can use to upgrade yourself, you have the usual equipable clothing items to increase defence/armour, one-use gadgets to be used as a distraction or attack in combat, and the stims to restore health or give you a speed boost. Levelling up as a character is not a thing here, with the attack power being handled by upgrading your weapons.

Everything in that old ship of yours had been destroyed, so you need to rebuild your stock of weapons. The only thing you had on you was a standard pistol that uses rechargeable energy to fire its lasers. Once in the first town, you’ll find better weapons, but they have a small amount of ammo at first. You’ll use upgrades to increase the amount of ammo they store, the damage they can do, along with applying add-ons that have special effects such as overcharging a shot to apply a massive amount of power.

The same can also be done for those on your team. Along with that permanent hunter who chooses to help you, you can team up with other hunters for a job. Or as many as they want to help for. You can give them upgraded weapons to use, or let them stick to what they have. After each job, they will take their cut from the earnings of it, and if their partnership term is up, return any weapons you gave them. Sometimes.

See, they’re bounty hunters. And while most will have a code of honour and trust, there’s always a few who will do anything to be better than the rest. They won’t bother trying to take a better cut than what was agreed, and will help to the best of their ability, but the weapons you give could be sold by them to make a bit extra. You’ll never know if they will betray your trust, but keeping your partner safe is a good way of making sure they don’t.

Of course, this isn’t like the Bounty Hunter game of old, where captured bounties will just jump cut from existence once the job is done. Oh, no. You’ll need to use whatever you can to bring them in – hot or cold. As such, you’ll need to transport them back to your ship. To aid in this, the handcuffs you place on them have a tether that will keep them from running away. Such will allow you to keep active in combat for when threats attempt to attack.

At the end of the story, you’ll have access to that fifth planet, which is where the final confrontation with the rival happens. They’ve been… busy. Building. Building a droid army of assassins to bring down the New Republic from the inside. After all, it worked for the Separatists during The Clone Wars. If Sidious wasn’t orchestrating the entire war, Grievous could have easily sent more of them to attack key Republic assets on Coruscant and brought a massive victory for the Separatists.

The rival intends to use the same tactic, then. Astromechs, protocol droids, server droids… Any sort of droid that the New Republic could have use for is being built here, along with war machines such as droidekas. When the attack begins, those war machines will be protecting the facility. With these machines, the rival intends to bring about a galaxy of chaos. With no governing body to rule it. And it’s already been put in motion, so once the attack has been completed and the rival defeated, you have everything you need to warn the New Republic.

The Knights of the Old Republic games might be seeing a resurgence with the ports to Switch by Aspyr along with the PS5 remake of the first, but those are old-school RPGs being brought forward for a new generation to experience. This concept of an action RPG would see a new story for all generations, bringing with it the advancements of the modern age. Plus, the fact those games are focused on the number one want of Star Wars fans, while this is focused on the second want.

Expansion of Star Wars Games
Galaxy of Racing / Corrupt Bounty / Furtive Business

Images Taken From:
Star Wars: A New Hope
The Mandalorian S2.05
Star Wars: The Bad Batch S1.09