Massively

At this year's Galactic Gathering community event, the team behind Star Wars Galaxies announced big news for the coming year: the battle of Hoth will be added to the game as the next Heroic encounter! The ice planet Hoth was originally seen in the movie Empire Strikes Back. That film has always been in the future of SWG's continuity, and thus perpetually out of reach. The advancement of the game's timeline has been requested by players for years. Even though this isn't a traditional expansion with a full new planet, the implications of moving forward in the Star Wars universe's timeline are endless.

Whether that movement is actually happening is still a question, though, as precious few details were available at the event. The developers did say that the instance will focus around the fight at Echo Base. According to this week's Friday Feature, the Heroic Encounter should feature Snowspeeders, AT-ATs, and snowtroopers - as well as many of the main protagonists from the original Star Wars movies. Other future highlights touch on things we've heard about before: re-confirmation of the Meatlump theme park for Chapter 10, the Droid Commander expertise system, and promises to examine Beast Masters and traders in Game Update 5.

This is some amazing news, with the possibility of some big implications for the game. We'll be sure to keep you posted as we get further details.