Bounty Hunter class playable in SWTOR

In a video documentary you can watch on Eurogamer TV, BioWare has confirmed that it will have a Bounty Hunter class in its Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic.

The Boba Fett-style class joins the already-revelaed Jedi and Sith. In the video, a Bounty Hunter is shown using blasters and a jet-pack in combat. "Many other classes" are in development, according to lead designer James Ohlen.

Each class will get its own epic story arc, in addition to the main storyline of the game, said lead writer Daniel Erickson.

"You're going to have as much choice in that one class as you would have had in an entire Bioware game before, because every single class gets its own story, and that's a story personal to the player. He gets to have his own Star Wars trilogy," Erickson said.

Erickson also filled in some background on the general setting of The Old Republic, which takes place 300 years after the Knights of the Old Republic games, and 3000 years before the Star Wars films. Jedi and Sith are apparently locked in an uneasy truce, characterised by skirmishing rather than outright war.

"Everything is very, very tense. We are not talking cold war, we are talking constant border and skirmish war, because nobody is quite ready to say 'OK, let's throw the entire galaxy back into conflict again'," he said.

That's the same scenario used by Blizzard for the Horde and Alliance factions in World of Warcraft - a sensible setup for an MMO, since it allows for both player-versus-player action, and player-versus-environment content that can be enjoyed by both sides.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is in development for PC. Its release date is unknown, and probably far, far away.