So, for the past few years, the wiki has based the dates of SWTOR on real life years, correlating each IRL year to one year in-universe, per this forum post. However, the last two SWTOR story updates have been delayed (almost certainly due to SAG-AFRTRA strikes) for several months.
Here's what happened:
- SWTOR 7.5 "Desperate Defiance" released in May 2024, meaning it takes place during 3623 BBY.
- SWTOR 7.6 "Galactic Threads" was intended to launch with full story in December 2024, but the story content (let's call it "Galactic Threads Part 2") was delayed all the way to 7.8 (Holiday 2025). The dynamic encounter content still launched in December 2024.
- SWTOR 7.7 "Dynamic Worlds" (originally titled "Master's Enigma") launched in May 2025, meaning it takes place in 3622 BBY. However, the story content was also delayed, to 7.8.1 (now called "Master's Enigma), which is planned to release in Spring 2026.
Basically, this means that, IRL, the story content for 7.6 and 7.7 was delayed several months from their intended release date, but other aspects of the updates also released.
Basically, what I'm trying to propose is that, when 7.8 and 7.8.1 release, we should treat 7.8 "Galactic Threads Part 2" and 7.8.1 "Master's Enigma" as taking place concurrently with 7.6 and 7.7, respectively. This means that 7.8 would take place in late 3623 BBY and 7.8.1 would take place in 3622 BBY.
After that, we would see what the release schedule for future updates becomes and decide what to do moving forwards.
Anyways, I'd like to see what you guys think about this and whether or not we should put it to a consensus vote. AwesomeMutation (Talk) 17:45, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
Discuss
- Some things I forgot to mention!
- I wanted to mention that story-wise, it just doesn't make sense for a year and a half of time to take place between Desperate Defiance and Galactic Threads Part 2.
- If any Dynamic Encounters or Non-Story content releases in 7.8 or 7.8.1, I think they should take place using the IRL year rule. So, any Dynamic Encounters released in 7.8.1 would take place in 3621 BBY. AwesomeMutation (Talk) 18:57, 8 September 2025 (UTC)
- This makes sense. As long as our date notes refer to an official SWTOR post about the intended time of release to explain the placement then that's okay. OOM 224 13:00, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
- OH and I do recall a conversation not too long ago about the new Dynamic Encounters and how some of them may make more sense taking place during the time of the respective world's main storyline rather than in the expansion dates. I'm not to familiar with that, but there are others who can explain it better. OOM 224 13:03, 19 September 2025 (UTC)
- Regarding the general update dates, I do agree it should reflect the intended release dates and not the altered release schedules. Regarding Dynamic Encounters and similar content, I have played enough of them in recent weeks to be of the opinion they're something we need to judge on a case-by-case basis because there's some that pretty clearly take place in the timeframe of whatever planet they're on, and not the release date timeframe. For example, some of the Coruscant ones involve the Justicars' Brigade and the Merchants' Guild Crisis or the Sith forces embedded in the Jedi temple ruins, at least one of the ones on Hutta involves the gang war between Nem'ro's gang and the Fa'athra clan that also take place during the Prologue/Act I, and several of the ones on Ord Mantell involve objectives against the Mantellian Separatist Movement, which is pretty definitely defeated long before the 3620s BBY where the game's present timeframe is currently. The game already has this odd precedent of every area being frozen in time, with any NPCs and situations on a given planet being locked into whatever time a given player character first visits that planet unless it's someone/something the player is headed back to later (i.e. all the times a Jedi character returns to Tython, the smuggler returning to Tatooine in Act III to confront Rogun, all the times the player returns to their faction capital world, etcetera etcetera). I think it's pretty clear a lot of the Dynamic Encounters are occurring in the year their planet is set in and they're immediately accessible to players at the level that planet is meant for (literally, just earlier tonight I was starting up a Bounty Hunter playthrough and walked out the Jiguuna cantina at level one right into a Hutta Encounter). I'm aware though there's also some that have context that means they only can take place later (User:Rakhsh mentioned on Discord there's one that explicitly mentions Darth Xarion as a councilor, which doesn't happen until after the Zakuul invasions at the very earliest). In my opinion, the site is going to have to do the annoying but necessary task of treating each one's date on a case by case basis. Fan26 (Talk) 04:14, 20 September 2025 (UTC)