Right, it's finally here, my full review of the Legacy Reborn story update. I don't know when these became such a big deal to me... I think that as the story updates became more nuanced in terms of character development, I just started to feel like I really also needed to talk about them in more detail to truly do the experience justice.
Anyway, if you're looking for a spoiler-free review, I'll just quickly repeat what I said on Bluesky shortly after the patch came out: "Great update. I laughed, I was sad, I went "that's so cool" many times - what more can you ask of anything Star Wars?!"
Another thing that's worth noting is that this was the first main story update since 2023 that didn't include a single KOTOR-style cut scene. As I personally haven't minded these too much, it didn't even register with me at first until I saw others talking about it afterwards and went "oh yeah, that's right", but I do believe there are players out there to whom this will be very meaningful. We'll see how the devs handle the cut scenes in 8.0 and onwards.
That's about as much as I want to say without spoilers, so below this screenshot we get into full spoiler territory. If that's not something you're looking for at this point, you have been warned.
The story starts with a long cut scene that initially shows Malgus and Shae's crew approaching Heta's fleet in a stolen Hidden Chain shuttle. Malgus makes an "I'm sensing something in the Force" face and decides to nope out of Team Shae by simply jumping straight out of the shuttle onto the planet's surface, much to Shae's chagrin.
Down on Khar Shian, we see Rivix slot Darth Nul's holocron into version three (as far as we know) of Nul's machine and Jadus explains to Heta that it needs testing. (The room that this takes place in is a great set piece by the way, with some cool visual effects when the machine gets activated.) There are a few prisoners kneeling in the background, including Sa'har and Tau (who is also here if you're an Empire player, with a side remark from Rivix explaining that she was captured during an attempt to rescue Sa'har in this timeline). Sa'har is selected as a test subject and put into the chair of the machine. As it starts up, she's clearly in pain and Ri'kan is not pleased. When she cries out in agony it's enough for him to actually make a break for it and he manages to interrupt the ritual with an angry outburst of Force power. He and Sa'har run away while Tau also breaks free and attempts to buy them time to escape.
Meanwhile our character returns to Odessen, where the Supreme Chancellor or Empress/Emperor awaits us on their flagship to talk. There's a big stand-off where they consider taking you into custody and Sal-Deron/Krovos are not happy to find out that you lost Darth Nul's holocron. Your present allies (Arn/Anri and Lana/Theron/T7, who are also there) empathically argue against this course of action when the Mandalorian fleet also arrives, with the Ordo brothers jet-packing right into the hangar. They also express their support for your side, and after some more agonising tension, Republic or Imperial leadership give in and agree to leave things be for now and tackle the threat posed by Jadus and Heta Kol first.
I thought this whole scene was brilliantly done. You can really feel the rising tension as your supposed allies from the Republic/Empire try to boss you around and you're obviously not going to take it, but at the same time both sides know that applying (lowercase) force at this point would have serious ramifications that would be hard to come back from. It was great to see your allies backing you up and talking about how great you are, with the arrival of the Mandalorians finally moving the needle enough to cause the Chancellor/Empress/Emperor to blink first.
Either way, with peace temporarily restored, the fleet jumps into Hyperspace towards Khar Shian, you catch everyone up on what happened on the Enigma and come up with an assault plan. It's agreed that you'll have to work with what you got as you are unable to call for further reinforcements. The Mandalorians, who now have some Basilisk droids thanks to Lane Vizla, agree to lead a diversionary ground assault while you and a small group of allies try to take the sneaky route to find Jadus. (There was a bit of dialogue with Lane here which sadly only seems to appear for a character that has completed the Bessi storyline, which due to the way it's set up can only happen once per account.) Meanwhile your faction will provide support from space and fight Heta's fleet there. (Side note: During the Imperial version of this bit we see that Maiya Vix from the Oricon storyline has been promoted to... captain or something? That was a nice little detail.)
As you arrive above Khar Shian, it's time to put your plan into action. You get to take part in a brief custom space combat section playing as either Daeruun and Arn or Krovos and Anri (in Krovos' ship). The devs were concerned that this could cause motion sickness for some people so it pops up a warning about that before starting and allows you to skip the whole gameplay section. The first time I ended up skipping it by accident, but I did play through it later on alts. By that point I was actually quite curious what it was like as seemingly every comment I'd read about it was pretty scathing and uh... yeah, I get the complaints about this one. It's nothing like the old space game or GSF, just a weird little section that is extremely on rails and hard to interact with.
The problem is that you're supposed to shoot targets on a large enemy ship, but your own ship's path is completely locked in and the point of view is straight ahead where most of the time you can't actually see your targets. While you can technically turn the camera to look around and see where they are, the moment you let go to actually click on a target, the camera snaps right back to the default view that barely lets you see anything. I eventually settled for just spamming tab target until it would lock onto something off screen, and then fire rockets at that whenever it would let me. While a slightly awkward process, it does eventually get you where you need to be. It's a shame because I feel I do understand what the devs were trying to do with this section; the implementation just ended up being poor.
While all this takes place, your character descends onto the surface in a stolen Hidden Chain shuttle of your own with Lana and either Theron or T7-01. The Mandalorians also try to land their ground forces but are repelled by a shield. Since you can pass through with the stolen shuttle, you have the option to suggest having a look at taking said shield out from the ground.
As you approach the area to land, you see Ri'kan and Sa'har running away, and are given the choice to fire at either them or their Hidden Chain pursuers. Then you perform another one of your by now infamous crash landings. If you didn't shoot at her, Sa'har will briefly help you fight off the Hidden Chain but then still nopes out of the situation since she promised Ri'kan to stay with him and the two of them just fly off unscathed either way. It was funny to me that Lana says at this point "I can't believe Sa'har stayed to help us fight" because all I was thinking was "I can't believe Sa'har just ran off like that".
You and your allies enter Naga Sadow's old fortress via a rocky tunnel. You feel the pressure to locate the shield generator as soon as possible as the Mandalorians are struggling and your faction's fleet is under attack by a giant ion cannon (always those ion cannons). Eventually you find a strange droid that looks like something off Iokath and which is attached to the fortress via dozens of cables. It attacks and when you kill it, the fortress' shields go down.
After this, we see a cut scene of Shae's team taking down one of Heta's lieutenants just as he's on the comm with her, and Shae tells Heta that she's coming before advising her team to split up. Heta meanwhile (still in the room with the machine) finds her eyes drawn to an ancient Sith blade (presumably Naga Sadow's) and picks it up. Nothing bad ever came from grabbing ancient Sith weapons, right?!
Jadus watches her with no more than mild interest while Rivix tells him that the machine should almost be fixed up/ready again after the test got interrupted earlier. Jadus tells Rivix that this means it's time for the latter to leave and prepare "for the next phase of the plan". Rivix is taken aback but Jadus assures him that he's the best judge of how to deal with the way events are unfolding.
With the shield down, the Mandalorians are finally landing, and we pivot to Lane, Rass and Jekiah in their new Basilisk droids - which we get to control and use to wreck the fortress' ground defenses, though the Mandalorians are eventually forced to continue their assault on foot. The attack of the Basilisk droids is another vehicle section where we get to take control of another character - this time it's Jekiah Ordo in his Basilisk, with Rass in his own as his "companion". This section was much more fun than the space bit, even if the droid handled like a drunk elephant sometimes. Listening to Rass go from complaining to being excited about his Basilisk was amusing.
In general, it was very clear by this point why the devs chose to have these sections playing as another character in this update. When it was first mentioned in the dev stream, I had no strong opinions on the idea but it seemed a bit random to me. Seeing it in action, you can tell that it was a deliberate choice to better convey the grandeur of the battle to the player. During this fight over Khar Shian, a lot of things happen at the same time that your character simply can't be there for, which would've meant either adding even more cut scenes to an already pretty cut-scene heavy update, or simply summarising things that happen elsewhere in a couple of sentences of NPC dialogue, which wouldn't really have done them justice. Having seen Broadsword's solution in action, I think it was very effective in this update and really allowed us to take part in everything that happens even when our character is not in the room for a particular event.
While the Mandalorians assault the fortress, the fleet once again calls you for help against the ion cannon, and Lana agrees to split off to activate the fortress defenses while you continue towards where you think the machine is. So in the next segment you get to play as Lana and Theron/T7 for a bit, fighting and slicing your way towards some orbital defense controls. You/they manage to activate it for one big shot that at least is enough to disable the ion cannon.
Again, I actively loved this, in particular as it gave me flashbacks to KotET chapter eight and wondering why the heck three people can't split up to assist both Torian and Vette - but in a good way. Sometimes splitting up simply is the smart choice, and I appreciate the devs letting our characters be smart here, while at the same time reminding us that Lana and Theron are really quite capable on their own as well.
Meanwhile the Alliance Commander encounters Shae. Rass and Jekiah show up shortly after and there's a confrontation involving lots of shouting, during which Rass in particular really goes off on Shae, though Jekiah as usual pushes for calm. Then Heta joins the fray, ancient Sith weapon glowing ominously.
Within moments, her and Shae are at each other's throats like rabid dogs, and a wild brawl ensues as you and the Ordo brothers join in. At the end it segues into a cut scene during which Heta's sword makes the crystals in the room resonate somehow so that they zap everyone. You knock off Heta's helmet and we can see that she's already been physically corrupted by the Sith weapon. Shae then pushes Heta into the crystals so that they both get electrocuted (?) plus Shae also gets stabbed by Heta in the process. Heta dies surprisingly easily from the crystal zaps, while Shae stumbles back into the room one more time to expire tragically in Jekiah's arms (after uttering some appropriately dramatic last words).
While my description above is a bit flippant, I thought it was an appropriate ending for a character as important as Shae Vizla, who's been with us since the pre-launch trailers, sparred both against us and by our side in Shadow of Revan, as well as fighting Arcann's skytroopers for us on Darvannis. The way she became obsessed with hunting down Heta personally was ultimately her tragic weakness. She clearly never became fully comfortable in her leadership role and relished the opportunity too much to just run off and hunt on her own again.
I've seen some discourse here whether it wouldn't have been better if we as the player character got to stand judge over her, and as far as that one goes - I'm kinda eh. The stereotypical light side choice of all being forgiven and her coming back into the Alliance wouldn't have worked here - as she says herself, she doesn't think she has anything to be sorry for, and both the Republic and Empire were very pissed at her as well. I can see why a dark side scenario of killing her could've been appealing for vengeful characters, but I think whatever the outcome/fallout with Heta and the Ordos would've been from that would then have felt unsatisfying in a different way. Basically, I was fine with Shae having that particular spotlight for a moment (not like I personally cared about hashing it out with Heta myself for the umpteenth time anyway) and being able to respond to her dying words with either respect, affection or a variant of "I would've preferred to kill you myself, but whatever" worked well enough for me.
While the Mandalorians deal with the expiration of their Mandalore and any remaining Hidden Chain forces, you continue onwards alone. You find a trail of dead Jadus acolytes left behind by Malgus, which segues into a section where you play as him fighting his way towards the room with the machine.
When he arrives, he's confronted by a vision of the Empress or Emperor, his former master, but he successfully dispels it to identify his real opponent: Darth Jadus. A duel between the two of them ensues, during which you play as Malgus and win. (Though Malgus is panting like an old man at the end, which made me chuckle.)
He picks up the holocron and inserts it into the machine before sitting down in the chair and starting it up again, which is when our character arrives. You can approve of him using the machine or try to stop him, but something odd happens anyway - you realise that the machine hasn't really been on, but you seem to be trapped in some kind of illusion projected by the Sith meditation sphere hanging above you. Another vision appears, this one of Darth Malgus' old master (whom he killed in the Return cinematic), Darth Vindican, who warns you about Malgus' treachery, but the latter urges that you just need to get out of this together.
What follows is a very fascinating descent into Malgus' psyche. You attack the meditation sphere's anchors around the room but to no success, and instead more visions seem to spring forth from Malgus' brain, including of his former rival Lord Adraas from the Deceived novel. He gets lost in trying to fight it and even attacks you, forcing you to beat some sense back into him. However, he then immediately sees another ghost from his past: Eleena Daaru, his old Twi'lek lover (also from Deceived and the old trailer of the same name). He seems to briefly get distracted by her affections but eventually kills her again, just like he did in life.
This section is so incredibly cool if you're familiar with some of the lore involved. I read the tie-in novels years ago so it's not like everything was still fresh on my mind, but as things slowly started to come back to me, I became more and more engrossed. Oh right, it's the guy from the Return cinematic. Lord Adraas who...? Oh right, that guy! Now all that's missing is Eleena - and oh snap, there she is.
I do wonder how well this section lands for people less familiar with the background material. Presumably more people have seen the trailers than read the tie-in novels, so I can imagine some being able to make the connections to those at least, but there are probably even more who didn't recognise any of these characters from Malgus' past. While the in-game context makes it clear enough who they are and why they matter(ed) to Malgus, I imagine it must be somewhat less impactful if you're only just meeting them all for the first time so to speak.
Back in orbit, the fleet is noticing increasing levels of power from the fortress, and your faction's leader wants to order a strike of the location to take the machine out, though Arn/Anri and others warn them that you and other good people are still down there.
Meanwhile on the surface, you and Malgus are confronted by a vision of Jadus next, and you realise that Malgus didn't actually kill him - Jadus is sitting in the meditation sphere and causing all these visions. His projection tells you that he's modified the machine so that it won't just awaken the Force in people but will also fill them with terror of both the Jedi and Sith, with Jadus offering the only way out.
You fight and win against this projection, which results in the real Jadus leaving in the meditation sphere, while Malgus sits down in the machine again. You can (unsuccessfully) try to stop him one more time, but he does manage to call out to the galaxy. We see a number of shots from various locations with known characters reacting to the voice in their head, from Satele Shan and her students (hi, Syl) to the overseers on Korriban. (It's been pointed out that it's strange that Overseer Ragate is alive here when we seemingly killed her in the Korriban Incursion flashpoint. I guess the old lady is more robust than we gave her credit for and was only "defeated" to eventually get up again. Or the devs forgot that she was supposed to be dead. Take your pick.)
I really liked how the views of various other locations also incorporate past choices into the scene. We see Petra on Ord Mantell, alone or with her sister Mina by her side. In the Odessen Force Enclave, we see Sana-Rae and Kira, but depending on if they are alive/you invited them, you might also have Arcann and Senya, and/or Jemala and Ora in the background.
Now that everyone knows that the machine is on, your old faction's leadership orders that the fleet bombard the fortress. You and Malgus get buried under a bunch of rocks (with it being notable that even as a non-Force user, the Force seems to have been awakened in you) and credits roll. When you exit, you just appear on Odessen.
Whew, that's a bit of a cliffhanger, isn't it? I'll admit that this part was a bit disappointing to me, not so much because I'm against cliffhangers in principle, but just because of how utterly detached it is from the rest of the game. What I mean by that is that there's always a bit of a clash between the single-player story and the open world MMO elements - the story might tell you that you're in a race to save the planet, but you can opt out of following that storyline any time to do something else without any negative effects. However, it's one thing for the player to decide to break their immersion for a bit and another for the game to do it for you.
Imagine if Knights of the Fallen Empire chapter one had been released as a standalone back in the day, with chapter two coming out a week later. Imagine ending with your character being frozen in carbonite in the story, and then being spat out on the fleet just to be told to come back later to find out what's "canonically" supposed to be happening to you right now. It just feels wrong to me. Maybe it will make more sense when 8.0 comes out and future players will have a smooth transition from that being-buried-under-rocks scene to whatever aftermath comes next, but right now it feels a bit bad.
All that said, as a whole I found this update pretty damn brilliant. We'd been building towards this for such a long time, with so many different characters with different motivations pursuing their own agendas, it was bound to be epic and Broadsword delivered with what's probably the biggest cast featured in a single story update since the game's launch. Who'd have thought we'd be eating this well fifteen years into the game's life? Shae and Heta's arc finally reached a satisfying conclusion, and I think Malgus is supposed to be dead as well now, though I'm not 100% sure with him. It would be a good time for him to go in my opinion, after that nostalgia trip through his past.
The sudden cliffhanger aside, I'm okay with not everything being tied up in a neat bow. What happened to Tau? I have no doubt that we'll be dealing with Rivix again, but she just seemed to disappear without any fanfare. Do we still have reason to care about the Kateen siblings now that Ri'kan finally got fed up with Heta and they've both run away? I guess we'll see sooner or later, though I suppose the more pressing questions are how our character survives being bombarded from orbit and what impact the broadcast from Nul's machine had on the wider galaxy.
Also, even though I just wrote over 4000 words about Legacy Reborn, I do think I'll have more to say about it still, as well as about Legacy Sith as a whole, now that its story has finally come to a conclusion. Stay tuned!
