James Ohlen talks SWTOR’s upcoming Legacy system

In an interview with GameSpot, BioWare director James Ohlen dropped a few details on what type of Star Wars: The Old Republic content players can expect in the coming months, including the introduction of the Legacy system.

A character’s “Legacy” is unlocked at the end of Chapter 1 of their story quest–around level 30–but as of right now, there aren’t any actual features or perks tied to it. Beyond picking a surname for your character and all other characters on your server, the only other thing you can do with it is level it up in the same way you earn normal experience. In an upcoming update, that’s set to change.

“We wanted to have a system that encouraged players to create alts and to play the game through the different story paths,” Ohlen said. “So the legacy system is meant to do that. It essentially allows you to, instead of just having a bunch of alts that have no relation to each other, you can actually create a family tree where your alts can be related to your main character, either as, you know, a sibling, a son, a father, a family friend, or a husband and wife.

“You can actually choose the relationship your characters will have with each other. And then you gain legacy experience points and legacy levels, and with legacy experience points and levels, that gives you–that allows you to unlock abilities, perks, a whole slew of different advantages, essentially, that all the members of your legacy tree will be able to enjoy.”

Ohlen didn’t go into detail on what sort of abilities will be unlocked through SWTOR‘s Legacy system, but he did say that “it will contain abilities which will make leveling up more enjoyable by allowing players to customize the experience.”

Source: GameSpot (via VG247)