Planet Hoth features in SWTOR

By Oli Welsh Published 21 May, 2010

Icy wasteland contested by factions.

BioWare has revealed that Hoth, the iconic ice planet of the Star Wars universe, will feature in its MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Videogamer has the exclusive info as well as some frosty screens and art.

Hoth, of course, was the setting for the memorable opening scenes of the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this week. Yes, you are that old.

In The Old Republic, the planet is an ungoverned wasteland contested by the Imperial and Republic factions. It's a starship graveyard, littered with wreckage from a major battle in the Great War.

Pirates are attempting to salvage the technology, which includes prototype ships, using an army of droids and mercenaries - but now the Republic and Empire are back to reclaim what's theirs.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is scheduled for a spring 2011 release. Last week we revealed its advanced classes system; you'll find gallons more info at the Old Republic gamepage.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • ZuluHero #1 2 years ago

    Why would anyone care about some remote backwater ice planet, with no strategic or tactical advantage on the galactic scale? While i知 sure the game will be great and i知 really looking forward to it, sometimes blatant fan-service stuff really annoys me.

    And i知 a fan! :S

  • tomjoadsghost #2 2 years ago

    awesome, so, in empire, the rebel alliance discovered their obscure hiding place by the equivalent of watching a discovery channel DVD boxset of famous historical galactic battlefields.

    i can remember when this was all fields y'know.

  • Branoic #3 2 years ago

    This is such a non-story. Why *wouldn't* it be in the game? It's a well known SW location! Its like proclaiming that the LOTR game features the Shire, or a Superman game takes place in Metropolis.

  • Boomerang #4 2 years ago

    Because the mere mention of words like "Hoth" will have fans scurrying for the Kleenex :)

  • tomjoadsghost #5 2 years ago

    @branoic, isnt it kind of like declaring that the shire had been a focal point in the battle of good vs evil for thousands of years or that metropolis was built on the summit of mount olympus.

    The fiction of the place specifically states that hoth is an obscure place with no significance, history or record of settlements, now apparently the good guys are just squatting in an abandoned gift shop.

    ..and to think i didnt even want a godforsaken canon, as far as im concerned the only decent star wars canons(sic) fire frickin laser beams.
    Edited by 2 at 21/05/10 @ 10:13

  • Zapatero #6 2 years ago

    If they called it Colth no one would mind

  • Demiath #7 2 years ago

    Planet Hoth in a Star Wars game? Wow, that's a surprise. Don't tell me there are light sabers in the game, too...

  • Benno #8 2 years ago

    Shut up whinging bitches. Hoth is awesome. I don't care if it doesn't make perfect timeline sense. I just want to mess around on the planet and blow shit up

  • tomjoadsghost #9 2 years ago

    @zapatero. exactly.

    In all fairness its got to be quite difficult to decide between generating another generic planet or to risk using something which has been featured before, its a pretty thin line between including enough recognizable elements to appease the casual fan while not upsetting the canon thumping fanatic.

    I suppose a lot of snow can fall in 4000 years, and taun-tauns and wampas are always fun (as long as were not gonna be treated to any paradigm shifting backstory for them anyhow).

  • levitate #10 2 years ago

    -"You scruffy-looking nerfhearter!"
    -"Who's scruffy-lookin'...?"

  • cw- #11 2 years ago

    brb, am off to prepare to fire giant boob nipple gun!

  • Lemming81 #12 2 years ago

    ZuluHero wrote: "Why would anyone care about some remote backwater ice planet, with no strategic or tactical advantage on the galactic scale? While i知 sure the game will be great and i知 really looking forward to it, sometimes blatant fan-service stuff really annoys me."

    Given that this is set a thousand years or so before The Empire Strikes Back, who's to say what significance or tactical advantage the planet has? Actually, I think it's pretty neat that something that was important a thousand years ago ends up being considered a pointless ball of ice by some unsuspecting rebels.

    That said, I admit the ever-unchanged Tatooine in Star Wars games gets a bit grating.

  • ZuluHero #13 2 years ago

    @Lemming81

    Good point! But I guess the thing we have to consider is that if the rebels hadn't have used it as a base in Empire - would we still be fighting for dominance over it a 1000 years earlier? :)

  • evilrobot #14 2 years ago

    These people moaning about the series calling themselves fans, pfft. I bet half the people reading weren't even born when it came out! i've been collecting star wars for 25 years and i am happy with the Hoth decision and Levitate it's Nerf herder.

  • ZuluHero #15 2 years ago

    Oh...I only saw Jedi in the cinema under first release... but i saw the first 2 on Betamax. I guess that discounts me as a "fan" then :(

  • Markitron #16 2 years ago

    Wow, a fresh change from the 'my console is better than yours' arguements to 'im a bigger star wars fan than you' arguements.
    :)

  • sonicyoda #17 2 years ago

    Star Wars related setting appears in Star Wars game. Hot scoop!

  • tomjoadsghost #18 2 years ago

    @evilrobot.

    not heckling you man, please don't think i am.

    but wasn't 1985 a weird time to start collecting, was it an age thing or did you just clean up in the post original trilogy fire-sale?

    @markitron.

    If you're smart you'll cross reference this with the normal fanboy arguments, sell the resultant data to the highest bidder and you'll have, well, more wealth than you can imagine!
    Edited by 1 at 21/05/10 @ 12:59

  • Monkey_Puncher #19 2 years ago

    I don't think a Star Wars game is a Star Wars game without some kind of visit to Hoth.

    It was exciting back in the days of the N64's Shadows of the Empire, I can't say this news is anything but predictable all these years on.

  • Markitron #20 2 years ago

    @tomjoadsghost

    I dont know, I can imagine quite a bit........

    (Apologies to all those that just groaned, I will always pull the trigger on a set up like that)

  • Shrike #21 2 years ago

    It's too early in the process to get outraged, surely? If their Hoth story involves something about how secretly under all the ice it's actually the birthplace of blahblahblah, sure, they're overdoing it. If it's just a scrap over something on the planet that could easily have been removed/destroyed/lost over 4000 years, what's the problem?

    That said, this "terrible secret under Tatooine" thing they're doing is seriously lame. Subsequent Star Wars stories have rendered two lines for A New Hope entirely stupid:

    "If there's a bright centre of the universe, this is the planet it's farthest from."

    and

    "I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other, and I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen *anything* to make me believe that there's one all-powerful Force controlling everything."