Same-sex romance heading to Old Republic

Bioware’s MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic will have same-sex relationship options added with its upcoming Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion.

The game launched just over a year ago, and recently switched to a free-to-play business model.

In a "State of the Game" blog post, Bioware executive producer Jeff Hickman apologized for taking so long to implement same gender relationships, explaining that the free-to-play transition had put new relationship options on hold.

"I realize that we promised SGR to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character," wrote Hickman.

"Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of."

The new SGR NPCs will appear on the expansion’s new planet: Makeb.