What to expect in Update 7.8 in SWTOR! Pursuit of Ruin / Galactic Threads

The developers have released a ton of info about what is coming up in Update 7.8, the next big update to Star Wars: The Old Republic! Update 7.8 focuses on the continuation of the main storyline, and the new Dantooine Biomes area and special bosses! UPDATE: 7.8 is live as of December 9, 2025!

Video:

Watch Video

What is in Update 7.8?

• Galactic Threads Storyline (new story)
• Wreckage on Dantooine (Biomes new area)
• Dantooine Stronghold
• PvP Season 9
• Life Day (Dec 16 – Jan 13, 2026)
• Anniversary Event (Dec 16 – Jan 6, 2026)
• Double XP Event (Dec 23 – Jan 6, 2026)
• Cartel Market:
  • Reforged Havoc Squad Armor Set
  • Yavin Utility Decoration Bundle
  • Yavin Equipment Decoration Bundle
  • Collections Unlock Sale Round 2 (Dec 16 – Jan 6, 2026)
  • Master the Fight: Mobile Market Edition Bundle (mobile gtn/mailbox)

They also launched a Collections sale running now! 50% Off Collections Sale – Active: Nov 19 – Dec 9, 2025

When is Update 7.8?

December 9, 2025!

Twitch Drops

From now until December 4th, to get the Voss Poster Decoration watch 1 Hour of any SWTOR streamer starting at launch until the end date 14 days later. By the way, I’m live every morning 8 – 10 am Pacific every weekday morning, at twitch.tv/swtorista if you want to come say hi! If you aren’t familiar with Twitch Drops, here’s the how-to!

Once 7.8 launches December 2025, to get the Twilight Acklay watch 4 Hours of any SWTOR streamer starting at launch until the end date 28 days later. By the way, I’m live every morning 8 – 10 am Pacific every weekday morning, at twitch.tv/swtorista if you want to come say hi! I’ll be streaming plenty on launch day. If you aren’t familiar with Twitch Drops, here’s the how-to!

Collections Sale (November 19 – December 9, 2025)

A collections sale popped up to celebrate the news bout 7.8! November 19 – December 9, 2025 get 50% off collections.

Collections allow you to unlock Cartel Market items across your entire account for all your characters, including armors, mounts, crystals, and weapons, for a Cartel Coin cost. If you want to learn more about unlocking items in Collections, visit the Collections Guide. If you’ve never unlocked anything before in collections, I recommend unlocking:

• 1 crystal you like, so you can always get a free crystals whenever you can a new weapon on any of your characters
• 1 mount you like, so you always have a mount ready for all your characters
• Any armor set you want to use across multiple characters

The unlock cost is different for each item, but the general rule of thumb is that unlocks cost 60 Cartel Coins for bronze rarity items (only 30 on sale!), 240 Cartel coins for silver rarity items, 400 cartel coins for platinum rarity items, and tunings cost 600 cartel coins to unlock – all 50% off during the sale. Galactic Seasons items are also often really cheap to unlock during the sale.

Don’t forget you can also look for items on the GTN and then unlock them cheaply in collections, rather than buying them straight from the Cartel Market!

If you miss it, there will be another later in the year! Collections Unlock Sale Round 2 (Dec 16 – Jan 6, 2026)

Subscriber Token Event (Now Over)

From September 9 to December 9, 2025, active Subscribers could get a new type of Log In Reward named Subscriber Login Tokens in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Subscribers who log in at least four times a week will receive these tokens and will be able to redeem them at a special vendor that carries a variety of fun and useful rewards. This included some awesome easy-to-get- endgame gear! Subscriber Token Event Guide

SWTOR Subscriber Login Token Event – September 9 to December 9, 2025

Story Update – Galactic Threads

Update 7.8 will bring the next part of the SWTOR story to the game – after almost a year’s gap since the last story due to the voice actor’s strike, the story will pick up where we left off, and is called Galactic Threads due to the four different story threads that players will be following during this update.

German & French Delay

There is an important caveat for the non-english voice acting (German & French): At the launch of Update 7.8, players using a French or German client will be able to play Galactic Threads with English voices, and subtitles in their native language, but German and French recordings will be coming in the future, date to be announced. The reason the voice acting for these two language is likely delated even with the SAG-AFTRA voice actor’s union resolving their strike is that German and French voice actors do not have a unified Voice Actors union, unlike the US having SAG-AFTRA. This makes any negotiation with voice actors  complicated and per-person or per-agent, so it sounds like the developers have decided to at least get the English voice acting out rather then delaying the story even further.

Caught Up

If you are trying to find out if you are caught up, these are all the areas and quests you would need to complete to start the new story:

• Ossus
• Dantooine
• EXPANSION: Onslaught (Onderon & Mek-Sha)
• FLASHPOINT: Objective Meridian
• Echoes of Oblivion
• Spirit of Vengeance
• FLASHPOINT: Secrets of the Enclave (Dantooine Flashpoint)
• EXPANSION: Legacy of the Sith (Manaan)
• FLASHPOINT: Ruins of Nul
• Digging Deeper
• Manaan
• Ruhnuk
• Interpreter’s Retreat on Voss
• FLASHPOINT: Shrine of Silence (Optional)
• Kessan’s Landing on Ord Mantell
• Minboosa District on Hutta

Story

SPOILER WARNING: Skip this section if you do not want any story spoilers about what is coming up in the story!

Story teaser video:

Watch Video

In Update 7.8 we will be…

• Pursuing Darth Malgus and Shae Vizla
• Investigating Darth Nul’s holocron
• Addressing the threat of the Hidden Chain
• Uncovering Darth Malgus’ plans for the galaxy

Let’s talk about the characters that we’re going to be interacting with in Galactic Threads. We’re going to have the Ordo brothers back, we have Jekiah and Ras that are going to show up on Odessen, and obviously, Shae Vizla’s gone. It’s tense. Jekiah Ordo, for those who don’t know, is the arbiter of the Mandalorians, and he was appointed that by Shae, to be her second-in-command, her right hand. He handles a lot more of the leadership stuff a little better, whereas Shae is more of a hands-on, ‘I need to go do’ type of person.

Jekiah doesn’t necessarily agree with how Shae is handling things, and he thinks it’s wrong the way she went back on her alliance with the player, and he’s going to be the one that steps up and honors that alliance with the player. He brings Ras and the rest of their soldiers to Odessen, and commit to the partnership and help clean up all these messes.

Ras is there as well, he’s usually our happy-go-lucky everything’s going to be A-OK companion, but he sees this abandonment by Shae as a huge betrayal, going against everything that Mandalorian should stand for. He is desperate to also find Shae, but probably for different reasons than Jekiah – he wants to see justice done, but his idea of justice might be tainted a little bit by his anger about why she did what she did. We’re going to get a lot of time with Ras, and we will be working with Ras specifically to track down someone who can hopefully help us point the way to Shae.

On the Republic side, we have Arn Peralin for our Republic commanders. Arn is someone who has been helping do more of the research efforts of looking into Darth Nul and finding out who she was and what she was all about. Now that there’s been a breakthrough in the dig site at the temple on Elom, Arn’s obviously going to want to show up and find out what was down there.

Arn has been looking into Nul for a very long time, so he is going to be also like a representative for the Republic’s interests. to be able to take information that we find in the dig site back to the Republic, who are very concerned about what Malgus is planning now that he’s broken out again.

The dig site on Elom has expanded because they’ve been able to excavate more of what was in the temple, so… There’s a lot of really cool stuff, that you’ll get to explore in this space. The breakthrough is literally breaking through the ground.

On the flip side of that, for the Imperial commanders, Major Anri is going to be that liaison between the Empire, making sure that their interests are represented, and that they’re getting all the information that they should be getting from the dig site. Since Manaan and Ossus, Anri has really proved herself, and because she impressed Dart Krovos so much, she got a little bit of a promotion.

She’s something like a liaison, an attache for Darth Krovos. and she’s going to be reporting back to her with everything that they learn. One degree away from Darth Krovos can be a good thing… or a bad thing.

Akavi Spar will also be joining us, originally a Smuggler companion, but everyone got to recruit her, when we were first hunting Heta kol, because Akavi is a very experienced, well-seasoned bounty hunter – who better to help us look for a hidden chain defector? There’s someone who has defected from Hidden Chain, decided they don’t want anything to do with Heta anymore, but whatever it was they did really made Heta mad, and they have people on their tail now. They reach out to the player for help, they’re hiding out on Tatooine.

Who better to help us brave the desert sands of Tatooine to try and find one person and go through all the underworlds that they had to go through to stay hidden stay hidden, than somebody who has tons of experience doing this thing.

Talos Drellik will be joining us on Elom, at the huge dig site, with lots of new information about Darth Null being unearthed every day. Talos is the person who’s overseeing it, and he is the person who reaches out to the player to tell them that something has happened, and that they need them to come quickly so they can investigate it. There is a great moment, however, even though he’s on Elom, he needs a very specific bit of technology that can only be found on Nar Shaddaa.

But even though he is very smart, he’s not very streetwise, and he needs someone to come ‘hold his hand’ so he can find who he’s looking for, and make sure he doesn’t wander down any alleys.

Last but not least, we have Lana Beniko, who’s actually going to be joining us as a companion in the field again.

We will be returning to Ilum. The first time Malgus tried to take over the Empire for himself, it did not go well for him, and the emperor’s fortress, which is a giant stealth space station that Malgus took over, ended up crashing to the surface of Ilum.

Now, in this update, our people on our team have actually located the ruins of the Emperor’s Fortress. Lana goes with us to investigate, because we’ve lost contact with our team, and there’s a bunch of spooky, scary, mysterious stuff there, and we’re going to delve down and try to find all the secrets that Malgus was looking for.

Wreckage on Dantooine

The Dantooine Dynamic Encounters (aka Biomes) are on the Public Test Server for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and will be available to everyone in Update 7.8 in December! This interesting new area has been on the PTS (Public Test Server) and has been fun to explore, with a main quest called Wreckage on Dantooine leading you around the area.

The story is that a ship of unknown origin crashed onto Dantooine’s surface. It was originally built to preserve various species from across the galaxy, but the crash damage caused the ship’s systems to behave erratically, infinitely expanding the three biomes it was sustaining, causing havoc in the local ecosystem. Players in the area can work together to help GSI study the ship and protect Dantooine, by completing Dynamic Encounters in the different biome areas.

Dantooine Biomes

The main quest and the biomes are designed for level 80 – a majority of the quests are solo-friendly, but the final boss is designed to be done with a group of four skilled players. Luckily, if you are a solo player, there is still plenty to do and explore around the area. What’s really interesting is that the Dynamic Encounters in the area are really well-designed to work with many other players around, even if you are not in a group – everyone in the area will contribute to the quests, even if they are playing alone.

SWTOR Dantooine Biome Dynamic Encounters Guide

I’ve covered a lot of the Biome mechanics in the Biome Dynamic Encounters Guide if you want to learn more! The biomes themselves are quite beautiful to explore, and each one has unique hazards to navigate.

Orbital Core Boss Fight

As you complete encounters, the biomes level up, which chains what’s available in the area, and eventually unlocks the final boss.

The fights in Orbital Core are incredibly difficult, and are designed to be Master Mode level fights, only completable by the most skilled of players. However, the idea is that over time, you unlock powerful buffs that will make you stronger for these fights, as you explore more of the crash site and move up the reputation rank.

SWTOR Orbital Core Quest Guide

Biome Rewards

The Dantooine Biome rewards seem to come from a variety of sources, with the star reward being a new stronghold on Dantooine! There will also be decorations, mounts, pets, titles and armor sets that you can get from random drops, the reputation vendor, or from secrets and achievements. Here’s some of the new rewards the developers have shared, including lots of mounts with room for a pet!

Want to see more? Those are just my favorites, but I’ve catalogued everything I’ve found so far on the rewards preview page!

New Dantooine Biome stronghold and decoration rewards from the PTS (Public Test Server) Preview!

Dantooine Stronghold

The Dantooine Stronghold is a reward form the Dantooine biomes area, unlocked over time! The keys are part of the reputation track for the area.

• Barn Key – Requires Rank: Newcomer, Costs: 500,000 Credits
• Cave Key – Requires Rank: Friend, Costs: 500,000 Credits
• Landing Area Key – Requires Rank: Friend, Costs: 500,000 Credits
• East Farmhouse Key – Requires Rank: Hero, Costs: 650,000 Credits
• West Farmhouse Key – Requires Rank: Champion, Costs: 750,000 Credits
• Greenhouse Key – Requires Rank: Legend, Costs: 1,000,000 Credits

PvP Season 9

PvP Season 9 will be themed Gladiators of the Outer Rim. It will begin with the launch of 7.8 in December and run for 16 weeks with lots of interesting new rewards this time around including a decoration set, flairs, and of course new armor sets, with one being previewed of the four.

Class Balance Changes

Class balance changes are in the works for 7.8 and you can view and give feedback on them here. The classes and items slated for changes are:

• Mercenary/Commando
• Powertech/Vanguard
• Marksmanship/Sharpshooter
• Sorcerer/Sage
• Lightning/Telekinetics
• Madness/Balance
• Marauder/Sentinel
• Annihilation/Watchman
• Cut to Pieces tactical
• Aggressive Treatment implant

Cartel Market

As always, new items are being added to the game!

Reforged Havoc Squad Armor Set

A new armor set that is closer to the original Havoc Squad armor from the trailers is coming out with 7.8 on the Cartel Market!

Apparently it dyes well too.

Yavin Utility Bundle

This bundle contains the following Stronghold decorations:

• 1 Yavin Appearance Modification Station
• 1 Yavin Cargo Bay
• 1 Yavin Galactic Trade Network (Kiosk)
• 2 Yavin Galactic Trade Network (Wall)
• 1 Yavin Guild Bank
• 1 Yavin Item Modification Station
• 1 Yavin Legacy Stronghold Storage
• 4 Yavin Mailbox
• 4 Yavin Mailbox (Wall)

Yavin Equipment Bundle

A new Yavin themed equipment bundle comes with a ton of new decorations! What’s especially cool is the rainbow lights and color-shifting lights. Below is a complete list of what is included:

• 6 Hanging Scaffolding Light
• 8 Industrial Hanging Light
• 15 Mountable Multi-Purpose Light
• 10 Small Freighter Work Light
• 8 Ceiliing-Mounted Power Coverter
• 8 Yavin Industrial Generator
• 12 Mounted Junction Boxes
• 12 Small Freighter Wall Switch
• 12 Wall-Mounted Surge Protector
• 15 Freighter Lamp
• 12 Sets of 3 Freighter Lamps
• 10 Sets of 5 Freighter Lamps
• 15 Freighter Lamp (Default Blue)
• 12 Sets of 3 Freighter Lamps (Default Blue)
• 10 Sets of 5 Freighter Lamps (Default Blue)
• 15 Freighter Lamp (Default Green)
• 12 Sets of 3 Freighter Lamps (Default Green)
• 10 Sets of 5 Freighter Lamps (Default Green)
• 15 Freighter Lamp (Default Color Changing)
• 12 Sets of 3 Freighter Lamps (Default Color Changing)
• 10 Sets of 5 Freighter Lamps (Default Color Changing)
• 15 Freighter Lamp (Default Multicolored)
• 12 Sets of 3 Freighter Lamps (Default Multicolored)
• 10 Sets of 5 Freighter Lamps (Default Multicolored)
• 15 Freighter Lamp (Default Yellow)
• 12 Sets of 3 Freighter Lamps (Default Yellow)
• 10 Sets of 5 Freighter Lamps (Default Yellow)
• 20 Flat Power Conduit (Double Bend)
• 20 Flat Power Conduit (Single Bend)
• 20 Flat Power Conduit (Straight)
• 20 Pipe Power Conduit (Double Bend)
• 20 Pipe Power Conduit (Offset)
• 20 Pipe Power Conduit (Single Bend)
• 20 Pipe Power Conduit (Straight)

Updated Ceiling Hooks

The large ceiling hooks in strongholds have also been updated to accommodate a lot of the new decorations added to the Yavin bundle, including the small lights and pipes, so you can also place a big light with smaller pieces around it.At the moment, on the test server, these only can hold a few different items.

Master the Fight Bundle: Mobile Market Edition

The Master the Fight: Storm I Edition Bundle will be dropping November 25, 2025 to January 13, 2026! This bundle contains:

• 180 days of fixed sub time + 600 Cartel Coins per month
• 5500 Cartel Coins granted instantly
• BN-4UC GTN Access Droid
• BN-LTR Mail Delivery Droid
• BN-T0 Utility Droid Minipet
• Gray/Red Vulcanized Dye x5 (per character)
• Red Vulcanized/Gray Dye x5 (per character)
• GDU MG Droid Carrier Mount
  • Companion & Minipet Compatible
  • Rideable at level 1
  • Has a probe droid deploy flourish
  • Base speed as fast as Speeder Rank 5

SWTOR Master the Fight: Mobile Market Edition Bundle – November 25, 2025 to January 13, 2026 – $99 for 180 days sub time, 5,500 CC, mobile GTN/mailbox, unique mount and metallic dyes

Collections Unlock Sale Round 2 (Dec 16 – Jan 6, 2026)

Life Day

A new life day mount will be available as part of the holiday event! The Vectron Tinsel Taxi has a mount flourish which contracts the mount, and has place for a pet on the back. Life Day will be December 16 to January 13, 2026 this year. Life Day Guide

ctrl+z mount flourish squish

Anniversary Event

The game’s 14th anniversary will fall on December 20, 2025, and the anniversary event with free gifts will be running December 16 – January 6, 2025. The T0R-14 Astromech Droid is the new reward for this year celebrating SWTOR’s 14th anniversary. Anniversary Guide

SWTOR Anniversary Event Guide & Free Rewards

Collections Unlock Anniversary Sale

A second 50% off collections unlock sale will tale place December 16 – January 6, 2026 in addition to the one starting now. Collections Guide

SWTOR Collections Guide

Double XP Event

A double XP event will take place December 23 – January 6, 2025. Event Guide

Double XP Event Guide

PTS

Dantooine’s Dynamic Encounters are on the PTS right now! In order to leave feedback, head over to the SWTOR Forums to let the devs know what you think about the encounters, the environments, the boss encounter, and class balance changes!

You can also join Eric Musco for a special PTS playtest Twitch stream session on November 21 from 1pm – 3pm CT! If you wanna join at twitch.tv/swtor – and I, Swtorista, will probably be online too at twitch.tv/swtorista including the three hours before the event at my normal times.

How to Download & Play on the SWTOR PTS (Public Test Server)

After  7.8

What will be coming up after 7.8? While we don’t have many hints yet, we do know that there will eventually be…

Road Map for 2026

It sounds like we might get a road map for all over 2026 by the end of 2025. Keep your eyes on swtor.com for the quarterly letter from the Executive Producer.

German & French Voice Acting for Galactic Threads

At the launch of Update 7.8, players using a French or German client will be able to play Galactic Threads with English voices, and subtitles in their native language, but German and French recordings will be coming in the future, date to be announced. The reason the voice acting for these two language is likely delated even with the SAG-AFTRA voice actor’s union resolving their strike is that German and French voice actors do not have a unified Voice Actors union, unlike the US having SAG-AFTRA. This makes any negotiation with voice actors  complicated and per-person or per-agent, so it sounds like the developers have decided to at least get the English voice acting out rather then delaying the story even further.

Master’s Enigma Story

The Galactic Thread storyline is finally coming out with Update 7.8! We know the next story will be the Master’s Enigma story to follow in 7.8.1.

Date Nights

There are about 28 romanceable companions and the developers were hoping to release more date nights in the cadence of 1-2 Companion Date nights per Galactic Seasons.

Two Date Nights targeted for 7.8.1:

• Torian
• Kira

We do not have a date for 7.8.1.

Romanceable Companions

• Akaavi Spar
• Andronikos Revel
• Arcann (Update 7.4.1)
• Aric Jorgan (Update 7.5.1)
• Ashara Zavros
• Corso Riggs
• Doc
• Elara Dorne
• Felix Iresso
• Jaesa Willsaam
• Kaliyo
• Khem Val
• Kira Carsen (Upcoming Update 7.8.1)
• Koth Vortena (Update 7.4.1)
• Lana Beniko (Update 7.4.1)
• Lieutenant Pierce
• Lord Scourge
• Mako
• Malavai Quinn
• Nadia Grell
• Raina Temple
• Risha
• Tharan Cedrax
• Theron Shan (Update 7.4.1)
• Torian (Upcoming Update 7.8.1)
• Vector
• Vette (Update 7.5.1)
• Zenith

Seasons

We will see the continuation of PvP Seasons and Galactic Seasons – Galactic Seasons Season 10 will be starting in Update 7.8.1,  and PvP Seasons Season 10 will start with 7.9.

Dynamic Encounters

Dynamic Encounters are now available on many planets, with more likely coming in the future.

• Tatooine
• Alderaan
• Ilum
• The two Capital planets:
  • Coruscant
  • Dromund Kaas
• The four smaller starter planets:
  • Tython
  • Korriban
  • Ord Mantell
  • Hutta
• Dantooine (Biomes)

DirectX 12

In a previous developer post, the devs said…

With 64-bit now in the game, and DirectX 12 is the next item on the list the developers are working on in the background. They posted some updated information on the progress in late 2024.

We got a little more info in July 2025.

In November 2025, on a developer stream, the Executive Producer said we would get more info in his quarterly update letter by the end of 2025. Watch swtor.com for that.

Other

Dye Changes

In the 7.6 Developer stream, the developers mentioned some changes to dyes might be coming. We have not heard more since.

Graphic Updates

The developer have been working on graphical updates on multiple planets. So far we have seen graphical updates on…

• Character Modernization (lighting, textures, colors – ongoing)
• Preview Window
• New Alien Skin Colors
• Metallic Dyes and Textures
• Tython (waterfalls and trees)
• Korriban (lighting and textures)
• Hutta (lighting, ambient fog and trees)
• Ord Mantell (newer area)
• Ilum (ice and textures)
• Hoth (ice and textures)
• Banks / Cargo Holds
• Character Select Screen

We will likely see more in future updates over time! But with none scheduled for 7.8, this may be the point they are focusing on other areas.

GTN Changes

In addition to the recent changes to the GTN, the developers spoke in the past about potentially adding a buy-order system – you can put in a request to buy an item at a certain price, and other players can fulfill the order. Whether this will be added or not still is unclear, now that the new GTN is up and functional. This has not been brought back up in a while and may have been shelved in favor of other projects.

Additional Servers

All SWTOR servers are now on the cloud, and the Shae Vizla server has been running for a while as the APAC server, with transfers opened with 7.4.1. A new Fresh Start server may come in the future, players have been asking for one in North America. Read More

Crafting Update

New level 80 high-end Augments were added to Crafting in Update 7.6 and 7.7, but will there be a significant re-haul of the crafting system in the future?

From an interview by Vulkk.com with the developers:

The official answer stated that while the developers “cannot provide a definitive timeline right now, a change to the Crafting system will not be implemented in the immediate future. At this time, players can continue spending credits on augments.” When the time comes that a crafting revamp will happen, BioWare said that they will give everyone plenty of time to adjust to the changes accordingly.

Based on BioWare’s answer, it seems that they are planning a more significant rework to the crafting system in line with other modernizations we’ve gotten with 7.0. Furthermore, it should theoretically be pretty trivial to just add another crafting tier if that’s all they wanted to do. – August 2022

Master Mode R-4

Master Mode R4 is currently the only outstanding item on the list from the tenth anniversary, originally shared on a livestream July 1, 2021. Since then, another single-boss Operation called the XR-53 Propagator has come out including its Veteran and Master modes, and a Master-Mode level 4-person fight in the Dantooine Biomes in 7.8, so it seems unlikely that a Master Mode version of the R4 operation will be worked on / released. The developers said in May 2023,

MM R4 is not on our roadmap. The priorities for our encounters team right now is focused on making more impactful, engaging bosses in story content, delivering Flashpoints in all modes with modern boss mechanics, and making additional challenging 8-player encounters. Now, all of that said. I want to express that we very much understand how critical aspirational endgame group content is. Whether that is delivered through MM Flashpoints, World and Lair bosses, or even Ops. It is still something we will prioritize as a part of our roadmap going forward.