Update 7.4, “Chains in the Dark,” is now out in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

In this guide, I’m going to give you some spoiler-free steps on how to take a look at all the new content in the game. If you want to have a better gaming experience in this new content, it is very necessary to prepare sufficient SWTOR Credits!

New Story Continuation: Chains In The Dark

The biggest addition to the game in this update is a continuation of the main storyline.

You can start the “Chains in the Dark” storyline once you have completed all previous storylines, including Ruhnuk and Voss Interpreter’s Retreat.

New Story Area: Kessan’s Landing On Ord Mantell

Once you have, you’ll automatically get a quest called “Road to Nowhere” in your quest tracker.

You can launch it, which will eventually lead you to the new area on Ord Mantell called Kessan’s Landing. This is the main story, but there are some other stories and quests to pick up.

The first is Lane Vizla and Basilisk Droid story continuation. To get it, start the “Road to Nowhere” quest. The next time you log off your character and log back in, you’ll automatically be granted a quest called “Eyes on the Prize” that you can start by answering your holocom.

The second is the Ord Mantell dailies. You can pick these up after you’ve completed the main quest from the terminal in Kessan’s Landing, near where you load in. These are the repeatable quests tied to the Kessan’s Landing reputation track and rewards.

Lastly, there’s a secret quest nicknamed the “Geothermal Shielding” questline. This quest, properly called “Schematic Aspirations,” has a bunch of different quests, is well-hidden, and is picked up at the very south of the Kessan’s Landing city from a large terminal in the Runoff Control building. You do not have to complete or even start the main quest to do the Geothermal Quest. It will eventually lead you to a super hidden “Lava Problems” quest, and you need to complete the Geothermal Shielding Quest before starting Lava Problems.

Once you’ve wrapped up the main story, you might want to explore Kessan’s Landing a little more. There’s a whole hidden questline related to the Geothermal Shielding, a new Datacron, a handful of hidden achievements, and so on. And working on the reputation track for Kessan’s Landing by doing the dailies will grant you access to the reputation vendor, which includes a new armor set, a new mount, a new Nexu pet, as well as a bunch of decorations.

New World Boss

Lastly, there’s a new world boss that has a chance to drop a rare mount walking around in the north.

If you’re a newer player and you don’t care at all about all this endgame stuff, if you already finished the story, there has been some cool new stuff added for you, too.

Cinematic Lighting

The biggest one that players have been talking about is the new cinematic lighting, which is across all of the game’s cutscenes.

This changes the way that cutscenes look compared to before the update, with improved lighting. So, if things look a little different, you know why.

They also kind of overhauled the way some of the starter planets work. The most noticeable is on Korriban.

Gearing Changes

Circling back to those level 80 players, let’s talk about gear in this update.

The way that you gear up has changed quite a bit, or rather, new easier options have been introduced, whether you’re a solo player or a group player. But the treadmill to gear up has gotten longer as now item rating for almost all items goes all the way up to 344.

So, the good news for gearing is that all players, including solo or casual players, now have the ability to earn gear going all the way up to item rating 344, which is way overkill for any type of content they’re going to play. This is because you can now exchange currencies you get from different types of content for the currency you can use to purchase Rakata gear, which is the best in the game.

The downside is that is a long set of steps to take. Good luck out there to everyone trying to get their endgame gear to 344.

However, one nice little update that will make you stronger without making you go crazy is that Hyde and Zeek, the vendors that sell modifications, now go all the way up to 340.

So, if you’re already familiar with how Hyde and Zeek works, go ahead and upgrade what enhancements and mods they have available to you. And don’t forget, you can now upgrade your legendary implants to item rating 340.

GTN Overhaul

Another big change that affects all players, new and old, is the GTN overhaul.

The GTN is the player-run market where players can sell and buy items from other players. The most obvious change is that the way you search for items has changed. You’ll notice instead of seeing a whole bunch of different listings for one item, they’ll all be condensed into a singular listing. And you can see how many are for sale total, and you don’t know who’s selling them. So there, you just kind of see the lowest price there.

When you buy an item, you can also claim it straight from the GTN. Behind the scenes, when you’re selling, there is a new fee just to list an item that is non-refundable, as well as the way taxes are applied to items is a bit different. These changes are part of the economic initiative that developers started about a year or so ago to combat inflation.

This GTN overhaul seems to kind of still be a work in progress, so feel free to give feedback to the developers on the forums.

Events

Now let’s talk about what’s coming up in the future. There’s a bunch of events that are going to be tied to update 7.4 that are coming up.

First off is the limited time Life Day Event that only comes once a year. That’ll be starting on December 12th and running until January 9th next year. Life Day this year will have a new reward in the form of an armor set.

Some of the normal events will be running, for example, Swoop Event starts December 12th, Rakghoul Event starts December 26th, PvP Season 4 is running until January 29th, and Galactic Season 5 is running to February 24th.

The event that players were most excited about and looking forward to being announced is the Double XP Event, and that will be taking place near the end of the year, starting on December 24th, lasting 2 weeks until January 4th.

So, if you want to level up super fast, that’ll be the time to do it. Not to mention, it gives you bonus Valor for those of you PVPing.

Cartel Market

In addition to all of those, they also added some new Cartel Market items to the game.

They were very proudly showing off the new color, Specularity Tech and new Metallic & Pearlescent Dyes when they announced this update. However, we only recently learned how they were going to be selling them and what they would cost.

First off, all dyes included are single-use and they’re not available in collections. The developers decided to use a fear of missing out tactic to sell these dyes and said they will only be listing them for direct sale for a limited time and will be rotating them out weekly.

As of the time now, the Metallic Black and Matte Black and its reverse dyes are each for sale for 1,750 Cartel Coins, making them the most expensive dye on the Cartel Market. The Chrome White and Metallic Gold and its reverse are also available in a bundle for 2,500 CC.

Not only are they incredibly expensive, they also have this kind of timer on them. So, you have to decide whether you want to buy them or not because the only way to get them later, they said, would be from Cartel Packs, the ultimate packs, or from the GTN at really, really high prices as it seems they’ll be in very high demand.

In addition, they’ve also been showing off and will be releasing some other more normal Cartel Market items. For example, the new Suppression Trooper’s armor set, which I think is 2,200 Cartel Coins, and the new starm toy that’s 800 Cartel Coins. So, if you’re waiting for the Sabine Wren-style armor set and the Defiant Maverick armor set, just keep your eyes open for the Cartel Market.

They also announced a whole bunch of daily sales rotating each day, and most importantly, a collections-wide unlock sale starting on December 20th.