Play the story · practical starting information
How to jump into this adventure
Where you begin
Begin on Ord Mantell with a personal crisis over your ship and livelihood. Follow the Smuggler's class missions to recover momentum before heading toward Coruscant and the wider galaxy. Corso Riggs is one of the earliest characters in your growing crew.
What you actually play
This is a caper-driven adventure involving underworld favors, a missing freighter, pirates and criminal networks. Expect comic dialogue, personal rivalries and shifting allegiances rather than a traditional Jedi war narrative. The ship and recurring supporting cast are major parts of the appeal.
Worth knowing
A strong choice for witty conversation and outlaws. It can be played with a Tech Combat Style that fits your preferred weapons, not just the traditional Gunslinger/Scoundrel pairing. Optional planetary arcs can be enjoyed without mistaking them for mandatory Smuggler chapters.
For the exact next mission on your character, open the Eras Window introduced in Game Update 7.7. Official Eras Window and Mission Log details · Official story missions. Current UI, availability, and chapter requirements can differ from the original expansion launches.
01 · Position within the galaxy
The story and the institutions it reveals
The Smuggler enters the Old Republic through trade rather than Jedi training or formal command. Ship ownership, contracts, cargo, reputation and debt become the means by which the player encounters war. The story illustrates how a border between legal commerce and criminality changes when governments authorize private captains to attack their enemies.
A deal on Ord Mantell goes wrong after Skavak steals the protagonist's ship and cargo. The pursuit introduces local separatists, Corso Riggs, criminal intermediaries and the fragility of trust in a commercial setting without reliable enforcement.
The protagonist enters the conflict in the position of Independent captain, trader and occasional privateer. Beginning on Ord Mantell, this narrative unfolds alongside the same Republic–Sith struggle explored by the other seven Origin Stories. A single storyline does not give a complete survey of the galaxy. Its conflicts and choices reveal the assumptions and restrictions facing this particular character, including who issues orders, controls travel, assigns rank, provides knowledge, and defines a mission's success.
02 · Main class narrative
Prologue and the three original chapters
The prologue begins on Ord Mantell. Follow your purple Origin Story missions, then read the three chapter sections below for story direction, important characters and the complete recap. Your current Mission Log and Eras Window, rather than a historical mission coordinate, provide the precise next objective.
I · The Legacy of Nok Drayen
What you will play
Chapter I — Pursue the theft and the Nok Drayen mystery through your Smuggler class missions. Risha's story is central, but meeting a character does not always mean they immediately become a selectable combat companion.
Story recap
Risha leads the hunt for Nok Drayen's lost fortune while Skavak remains a threat. The search crosses rival political jurisdictions and cultures of wealth, theft and loyalty.
World and character context
The quest makes inheritance into a practical problem: possession of information about an asset is distinct from physical access, legal ownership and acceptance by other claimants. The player's ship is both home and production equipment.
II · Pirates and Privateers
What you will play
Chapter II — The adventure grows into pirate, privateer and criminal-network business. The crew's reactions are a large part of the experience, so take different companions into conversations when possible.
Story recap
A conflict with Rogun the Butcher and the Imperial commander known as the Voidwolf brings the captain into cooperation with Republic Senator Bevera Dodonna. Official privateering creates new opportunities and obligations.
World and character context
The transformation from smuggler to sanctioned privateer shows that state authorization can recast similar conduct from crime into patriotic service. The resulting difference is political, not a change in the physical action of seizing cargo.
III · Final Payback
What you will play
Chapter III — Follow the personal rivalries and political consequences to their original class-story conclusion. The ending depends on the Smuggler arc, not on clearing every unrelated planet objective.
Story recap
The Smuggler confronts rival criminal and military interests and reaches a final reckoning with the Voidwolf's strategy. The story keeps the possibility of individual profit in tension with the needs of a larger war.
World and character context
The concluding campaign asks whether autonomy survives when a government increasingly depends on private contractors and captains. Economic dependence may restrict choices even where formal rank never exists.
03 · Recruit your crew
Where your five original companions join
As you progress the purple Smuggler storyline, the crew expands. The five linked recruitment cards below show where each companion joins the original adventure and what to follow next. These are not Alliance Alerts or modern combat-build rankings.
Since Game Update 4.0, original class companion conversations unlock through class story progress, not an affection threshold. Companions can fill healing, damage and tank roles, with their gear serving a cosmetic purpose. Speak with them aboard your ship between planets.
Returning after an expansion? Since Game Update 7.9 (June 2026), Companions & Contacts has an Ineligible for Story tab. It lets you use narratively unavailable companions in gameplay without changing their story status. The older Companion Locator Terminal is disabled. Official 7.9 companion changes
Corso RiggsOrd MantellEarly class storyAfter the opening freighter trouble, Corso is the first original crew member.Companion story and recruitment →
BowdaarNar ShaddaaClass storyThe Smuggler's Nar Shaddaa plot brings the Wookiee gladiator into the adventure.Companion story and recruitment →
RishaEnd of Chapter IMajor story milestone · spoilersRisha's involvement begins earlier, but full companion status follows the Nok Drayen plot.Companion story and recruitment →
Akaavi SparBalmorraClass storyThe Mandalorian enters the Smuggler's crew through the Balmorra campaign.Companion story and recruitment →
Languss 'Guss' TunoHothClass storyThe Smuggler meets the former Jedi trainee during the Hoth storyline.Companion story and recruitment →Connected companion research
Explore Bowdaar beyond combat
Bowdaar's reputation as an undefeated arena fighter hides a much less celebratory history: repeated victories produced money and status for owners rather than security or autonomy for the person compelled to fight.
04 · Practical gameplay orientation
How to play this story without confusing it with a Combat Style
Choose this story for dialogue-heavy adventure, trade networks, flexible moral choices and a crew built from strikingly different social backgrounds. Its older Scoundrel and Gunslinger labels do not limit which Tech Combat Style can accompany the Origin Story.
Starting world: Ord Mantell. Class-story ship: XS stock light freighter. Original Advanced Class associations: Scoundrel and Gunslinger. Those associations describe the game's historical class presentation, not exclusive 2026 fighting options.
For all 16 fighting options, weapons, and disciplines: See the full Combat Styles guide →
Open the navigation-first mission walkthrough →
As of the 7.0 system, you choose the narrative Origin Story and your Combat Style as distinct character-creation decisions. Force-based stories select from eligible Force styles and tech-based stories from eligible Tech styles. Further eligibility, switching and additional styles depend on game unlocks, character status and current rules. For precise combat mechanics, compare the official 7.0 rules with the newest published patch notes; avoid using pre-7.0 ability lists as current build advice.
For a first playthrough, preserve your original class missions and speak with companions between major planets. Story decisions may change dialogue and relationships, while later shared expansions can converge on the same broader galactic events. Use the Eras Window to find the next main mission when returning after a long break.
05 · IDS anthropology dossier
Smuggler: social meaning of the playable career
For anthropology of economic life, the Smuggler provides the most revealing encounters with informal credit, protection arrangements, ownership and state licensing. It suggests that illegality is often a classification produced by political jurisdiction rather than a trait that belongs permanently to a person.
Each Origin Story establishes a particular social location rather than an unbiased historical perspective. The character's access to knowledge, legitimacy, patronage and mobility depends on institutional context. For this class, the most productive themes are underworld economies, independence and patronage, privateering. These themes are analytical questions applied to fictional material. They should not be mistaken for official authorial explanations, nor should outcomes chosen by one player be presented as the only possible version of the narrative.
An ethnographic analogy requires restraint. The game designs situations in which missions, dialogue menus and reward structures shape action. It cannot supply observations of real communities or evidence that a political theory is true. Its educational value lies in asking how a player learns to act within a social institution, what actions the mechanics reward, and whose experiences remain outside the story's field of view.
Follow the story
Where will you travel next?
Meet the companions, revisit the eight Origin Stories, or discover the expansions that continue these adventures.
06 · Source trail
Sources and continuity
- Smuggler complete class story overview · official SWTOR Encyclopedia excerpt
- Smuggler · official SWTOR Holonet class overview
- Official 7.0 patch notes · Origin Stories and Combat Styles
- Imperial Dark Sector Old Republic chronology
All storyline details are Legends material; the game's possible decisions cannot all describe one single character's history. The independent analysis on this page is clearly labeled and should be read in conjunction with primary story material.