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The Old Republic update 2.4 kicks off the Dread War

Star Wars: The Old Republic.

“CONFRONT THE DREAD MASTERS AND COMPETE IN THE WARZONE ARENAS OF DEATH!”, suggest BioWare in anticipation of SWTOR’s next big update. If you find yourself in the Deathzone Arenas of War, you’ve taken a wrong turning. You’ll know you’re in the right place if you can spot new endgame operations, story missions and 4v4 arenas.

BioWare aren’t telling precisely when Game Update 2.4 will show up, but you can expect it sometime in October. That’s when the powerfully terrifying and terrifyingly powerful Dread Masters will show up. They plan to terrorise the galaxy from the comfort of their own ancient fortress compound – which means you’re going to have to go in there with some friends and ruffle them up a bit.

The Dreads are based on Oricon, a brimstoney sort of place home to two Level 55 Operations: first The Dread Fortress, where you’ll hack your way through dedicated servants to reach a sole Dread Master; and second The Dread Palace, where you’ll find the rest of the Masters and an end to the tale that began on Belsavis.

Once you’re done there, you won’t want to shed your allies just yet – new 4v4 Warzone Arenas come in ranked and unranked flavours on Makeb, Tatooine and an Orbital Station, and should be worth a look-in from launch.

“The Arenas are small, intimate, and places the focus on skill-based player-versus-player combat,” write the dev team. “Here, teams of four will battle against each other in a best-of-three deathmatch and compete for glory, credits, and more!”

BioWare promise more details in the coming weeks. Until then, you’re going to have to subsist on these screenshots:

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who self-identifies as ‘Dread’ before. What d’you think they’ll be like?