Welcome back to another edition of The Blog Unleashed.

The official announcement of the Jedi class and first information about how it will work is answered some of our questions about the class but raised some new ones as well. First of all, I was pleased to hear that the Jedi Guardian was indeed an influence on the class. Upon reflection, having the Jedi Knight class start out in the Mace Windu vein makes a lot of sense. While Jedi are versatile, I'd be lying if I said the main appeal to me of playing one would be the chance to grab a lightsaber and go out and kick bad guy butt.

But does this mean that there won't be some sort of specialized/advanced/prestige classes for Jedi later in the game? What about Jedi (or maybe even Sith) who choose to walk the gray path? Surely BioWare won't forget about the players who would want to make a character like that, right?

I'm betting that they didn't. And for those sort of players I think that the Jedi Shadow would be just what they're looking for. A fairly new addition to SW lore, Jedi Shadows specialized in hunting down and destroying anything related to the Dark Side. You might think of them as a sort of black ops/secret police among the Order as, unlike Jedi Sentinels, most rank and file Jedi didn't even know Jedi Shadows exist.

Like Jedi Sentinels, Jedi Shadows were trained in skills like hacking, demolitions and stealth. But what makes the Jedi Shadows truly unique is their ability to use some Dark Side powers without falling further to the Dark Side. A fine line to walk to be sure. But being able to turn the power of the Dark Side against itself is a powerful ability and something I'd imagine a lot of gamers would love to try.

The two best known examples of Jedi Shadows in SW lore are Maw from the Dark Forces series and Celeste Morne from the comics. Maw is a perfect example of what can happen should a Shadow fall fully to the Dark Side. So it should be no wonder that he was a formidable foe to Kyle Katarn.

Celeste Morne is a more complicated case and I can't say much about her without spoiling some very cool stories from the comics. Let's just say that she's the only person SW history that I know of to walk away from a duels with both Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. And that's not even the most impressive stuff she's done. But for that you should read the comics.

So are Force Lighting wielding Jedi in the future of SW:TOR? For now we can only speculate. But to be sure the game is set during dark times for the Jedi. And where there is darkness you'll find shadows.

Written by :

Skyrocket