Galactic Season 5 Story Review

Galactic Season 5 is still in full swing, and I could have left writing about this until my usual end-of-season review, but I thought I had enough to say about it to justify a separate post. Also, for some reason the devs decided that the GS5 story would end at season level 40 instead of something closer to the end... I guess it's got something to do with metrics relating to how far the average player makes it into the season.

Anyway!

We don't tend to think of seasons as something with a story - after all, their primary purpose is to get us to revisit old content and maybe try something new for the sake of special rewards. Still, there's been an evolution to the themes and narratives of seasons that's been very interesting to watch:

• Season 1 had a KOTOR-style intro conversation with Altuur and that was it.
• Season 2 had a similar conversation with Fen Zeil, but then he offered two more conversations on your ship, tied to his influence level.
• Seasons 3 and 4 both had extended intro quests for PH4-LNX and Amity that actually had you do more than talk, again followed up by two more missions each based on companion influence level, and those missions also required you to actually go out and do some stuff.

Finally we arrive at the current season, which no longer features a special companion, but instead simply includes a story that consists of three parts. The missions are still done in a style that only requires a minimum amount of resources, with KOTOR-style conversations and all the NPCs speaking alien gibberish, but they are a bit more involved than before and actually include some choices that lead to slightly different outcomes.

I'll get into spoiler territory now, so read on at your own risk if you haven't played through the whole story yet and want to see everything for yourself.

Part one, "Dark Tidings" has you encounter an Imperial astromech droid called EV-1L (subtle!) on the fleet who is a bit like an evil version of T7-O1, enthusiastic about teaching people about the dark side and recruiting them to serve its mysterious master. This includes trying to recruit you and it gives you a "dark side trial" that you're supposed to pass. When you walk away, an agent from the Strategic Information Service/Imperial Intelligence (depending on your faction) contacts you to let you know that they've been watching the odd droid and would be interested in hearing what you find out during your interactions.

As if the droid's way of talking wasn't enough of a giveaway of how silly this story is, its "dark side trial" has you controlling a mouse droid in a cantina and basically committing a bit of vandalism and bothering the patrons. This is a little mini game that's decent fun and also a recurring seasons objective. If you find the prospect of doing this too silly however, you also have the option to announce that you'll prove yourself by defeating some powerful foes instead, which results in an alternative mission to kill five strong enemies each in selected heroic areas on Coruscant/Dromund Kaas, Taris/Balmorra and Nar Shaddaa. The droid approves either way, but leaves you none the wiser.

In part two, "Price of Victory", EV-1L recalls you to present you with the second trial: to assassinate three people on Rishi, Nar Shaddaa and Mek-Sha. Your intelligence contact informs you that they are complete nobodies and that it doesn't seem like the droid really knows what it's doing, so they suggest you just steal an item from each person and pretend to have offed them. Again, you have the choice to either comply and pick the non-violent option, or to kill the targets as originally requested. They really are nobodies though, super low-level NPCs that die in a single hit if you do decide to kill them. EV-1L explains afterwards that they had to die because they rejected or insulted the master, calling him names like "sucker".

Finally, part three, "Chains or Freedom" has EV-1L telling you that it's time for your final trial - you shall duel it to the death on Tatooine, so the winner can take their place at the master's side. When you get there, you find that the droid has been upgraded to EV-2L however, making it about five times the previous size and a champion mob that actually makes for quite a formidable opponent. On death it drops a datapad which you pass on to your intelligence contact and they identify it as a cipher that can be used to decode the droid's previously intercepted transmissions. It points to a certain "Lord Umbral" hiding out on Mek-Sha.

You make your way there and find that said Lord Umbral is a red Twi'lek who fancies himself a Sith Lord, and while he does have the Force he's also incredibly clumsy and inept, with seemingly more of a talent for mechanical stuff (thus the droids). You can capture him alive or kill him, plus there's also a third option to take pity on him and let him get away. I found the latter quite hard to achieve in spite of all my characters generally approaching him in a manner that wasn't too hostile, as he's incredibly trigger-happy and will initiate a fight to the death in response to a lot of things. A forum post tipped me off that you can also send him to the Order of the Cold Moon if you have Amity with you to chime in on the conversation. Either way you get a final wrap-up with your intelligence contact on the fleet, and that's the end of the story. 

I gotta say, I really enjoyed it! The introductory mission immediately sets the tone for this to be something more light-hearted, and the mouse droid mini game is pretty good fun for what it is. Part two is admittedly the weakest one in the series as the mission objectives basically require you to travel to three different planets just to click on one thing either way, which isn't super satisfying. However, I was properly intrigued by the end of it, wondering just what kind of person this "master" was going to turn out to be.

And I'm happy to say... the finale made perfect sense! It showed his ineptitude but that he also had a certain degree of engineering talent, as demonstrated by the battle against the upgraded astromech. I even felt a little sorry for him when he commented that both Republic and Empire had rejected him and killed his "friends" before, with the camera panning over more destroyed droids. I thought it was a bit of a shame that it seems to be quite hard to achieve an outcome that doesn't result in him dying or immediately being imprisoned, but I guess he isn't meant to be a recurring character.

I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about this new approach with more of a focus on story and no new companion, but I really liked it, despite the low production values. We've come pretty far from Altuur simply introducing himself in a few sentences and that being the entirety of the season's "story". I hope that with some practice and (hopefully) more positive feedback, the SWTOR devs will be able to expand on this idea.