Star Wars Galaxies

Star Wars Galaxies was released by studio Sony Online Entertainment in 2003 in collaboration with LucasArts, and differed markedly from the other MMOs of its time in the degree of freedom it offered players. Instead of fixed classes and a linear story, the game was built on an open profession system - a player could be a merchant, carpenter, musician, doctor, entertainer, or warrior, and freely switch between professions depending on what type of gameplay they were enjoying at the moment, without having to start a new character. The game's economy was largely player-driven, with players manufacturing nearly all equipment, gathering resources, and building their own shops directly in the world.

The game took place across several planets from the Star Wars universe and also offered the building of player-run cities by player groups, flight and space combat in the later expansion Jump to Lightspeed, and the taming and breeding of exotic creatures. This breadth of systems was both a strength and a weakness - the game was complicated and not very clear for newcomers, but it offered an extraordinary freedom and depth of everyday "life" in the world that the competition of the time lacked. In 2005 the game underwent an extensive overhaul of its combat system, nicknamed by fans the Combat Upgrade and New Game Enhancements, which provoked strongly divided reactions among part of the player base and led many longtime players to leave.

Star Wars Galaxies is remembered today above all as an ambitious and unconventional experiment in the MMORPG genre, one that offered players the feeling of a genuine life in the Star Wars universe beyond fighting with a lightsaber or blaster. The servers were shut down in 2011, but the game remains in fans' memory as one of the most distinctive titles of its era, and unofficial fan servers still keep it alive today, trying to restore its original form from before the aforementioned overhaul.

Why play: For Star Wars fans looking for an unconventional experience beyond lightsaber or blaster combat - an ambitious experiment now kept alive only by unofficial fan servers.