In my perusing around the web, I happened upon an incredibly intelligent and well documented editorial titled Don’t Be Surprised if Aliens Are Class-Specific. Instead of commenting on the article, I thought I’d write my retort here because I do disagree with the general thesis. I don’t see aliens being class specific because it contradicts so much that BioWare has been talking about for the game.

The overall purpose of the game is to bring your Star Wars fantasy to life. Now you can play as a Jedi Knight. Or, you can play as Darth Vader–I’ll admit, seeing a bunch of heavy breathing robotic Sith Warriors is going to irk me. And, you can shoot lightning. It would be incredibly limiting if I had to play the Sith Warrior role as only one or two alien species.

Therefore, I don’t see them making that a possibility. That doesn’t mean, though, that there won’t be faction-specific species.

First off, as mentioned in the article, Daniel Erickson specifically stated that, “The Chiss are actually the only aliens we’ve shown that are fully allied with the Empire, the Empire tends to actually be very anti-alien.” This is very much a grab from the Empire from the movies. It makes no sense for the Empire to be very anti-alien because the Emperor fought alongside the likes of original Sith such as Naga Sadow who was a Sith/Human hybrid.

But, I get that the Chiss are a faction based species. But, that’s about as far as that can go. If BioWare tries to take the Chiss and say, “Well, since Admiral Thrawn was a Chiss and he was similar to the Imperial Agent, we’re going to make the Chiss all that,” it defeats the overall experience. There have been Chiss force users. For example, Sev’Rance Tann was a Chiss who learned the Dark Side. So, there’s no reason why a simple switch could allow a Chiss user to be also a Force user.

Now, I can understand where Matt is coming from. Little evidence currently presented to us suggests that alien races are open to everything. But, there is also little evidence to suggest that BioWare is trying to create a game that goes with the archetypes. Its classes were archetypal–if you want to play as a smuggler, chances are, it’s because you love Han Solo–but there’s no evidence to suggest the same for the species. As mentioned above, Thrawn is the favorite Chiss. So, when talking about archetypes, he is the Imperial Agent. But, since there isn’t any evidence to suggest that species has to be connected to an archetype, I see no reason why it is going to appear.

As his evidence goes on to show in a lot of the work there after, it appears as if the aliens won’t be class specific. Sure, the media has shown some instances of class specific aliens, but in reality, it’s shown only single instances. So, it’s not likely that the class will be the deciding factor for the alien.

Instead, what you will see are classes only available as NPCs. For example, you won’t be able to play as a Hutt. You won’t be able to play as a Wookiee. The Hutt will be too difficult to play because you’d have to create entirely new armor for it and the Wookiee because everyone would play as a Wookiee then. If I am wrong and there are Wookiees, you at least have your smuggler or bounty hunter role because there won’t be any force sensitive Wookiees.

I am with Matt when I say that I really hope BioWare doesn’t make class specific aliens. They will limit the aliens to bipedal ones because that’s the easy to suit in armor. But, they won’t do much to limit who can play as what species. A Jedi Knight Rattataki won’t be impossible even if everything suggests that they are always dark side. Unless BioWare says otherwise, I see them being free to everyone. So, while the Gormak does look a bit evil, there’s nothing stopping him from being a Trooper–if he is even released as a playing species.

But, you can expect to see some faction specific aliens. The Chiss have to be Empire because they are in the Empire territory. It doesn’t mean you might not see a Chiss NPC who is Republic, though. Players just won’t have the opportunity to play that.

With such little information available right now about aliens, it’s hard to make a choice on what is going to happen. But, because BioWare has talked about fulfilling that Star Wars fantasy and, more importantly, allowing customization where ever they can, I don’t see them infringing on people’s playing by limiting aliens to different classes. So, it is with great enthusiasm that I say aliens won’t be class specific.