It’s been almost a year since the official launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR). In the 11 months that the MMORPG has been out, it’s released five major game updates and switched from subscription to a free-to-play option. But what we haven’t got yet is a new warzone. That will soon be changing with the release of the Ancient Hypergate warzone, which will add a fifth map to the PvP rotation.

SWTOR Senior Designer Rob Hinkle has penned a new blog to explain more about the Ancient Hypergate warzone and how players can achieve victory in what he describes as a “combination of a 2 point objective map, team death match, and a multi-flag game of capture-the-flag.”

In short, there are two energy pylons that players can gain control of. If your team is holding a point at the end of a charge cycle, it will release an energy burst into the hypergate, gaining points for your team. The amount of energy released by the pylon is based on how many players your team killed during the cycle and how many released energy orbs you managed to return from the generator in the center of the map. Holding one pylon is essential, but both are better.

Strategically, it is important for each faction to hold at least one of the energy pylons when each power cycle comes to a climax, as they are direct multipliers to how much power is discharged into the gate. Holding both pylons results in double the power, while holding neither results in no power discharged at all. After each cycle, each pylon sets off a large explosion that forces the players to either seek shelter in the failsafe shelter or be defeated. Once the explosion has finished, control of each of the pylons is reset and the power cycle begins anew. At the start of each new power cycle, the current count of players killed for each faction is reset and the amount of power gained for each kill and each orb capture is increased. This gives teams who are behind in the early cycles a way to get back into the game by performing exceptionally well in the later cycles when the stakes are higher.

The new warzone is scheduled to release with Update 1.6: Ancient Hypergate and is currently available for testing on PTS. Get our early impressions of the new Ancient Hypergate warzone and tell us what you think in the comments below.

Source: Developer Update: Ancient Hypergate