Descent into the Smuggler's Moon
Nar Shaddaa, the Smuggler’s Moon, is SWTOR’s invitation to step properly into the Star Wars underworld: a place where the lights never really go out, the authorities are whoever has the biggest guns, and the Hutts sit smugly at the centre of it all. Hanging in orbit around Nal Hutta, it has long served as a refuge for smugglers, gangsters and anyone else who would prefer the Republic and the Sith Empire to mind their own business, and in the Old Republic era it is already a dense, planet‑sized city devoted to profit and vice.
Your first impression on arrival is usually vertical. Nar Shaddaa’s skyline is a forest of skyscrapers and towers, their sides hidden behind cascades of neon, holographic adverts and animated billboards for everything from casinos and spice dens to unlicensed clinics and cybernetic “enhancements”. The upper promenade levels are comparatively clean, all polished floors and garish luxury, but even there you’re never far from a balcony edge dropping into atmospheric haze and traffic streams far below. At ground level in sectors like the Nikto or Corellian districts, the mood shifts to cramped streets, industrial scaffolding and alleyways patrolled by gang enforcers, mercenaries and droids, with repulsorlift traffic rumbling overhead and the constant background murmur of deals in progress.
The Hutt Cartel is the thread tying all of this together. Officially neutral in the larger galactic conflict, Nar Shaddaa is run to maximise Hutt profits rather than to uphold anyone’s laws, and the Cartel’s reach runs from the high‑end clubs on the Promenade right down to the sweat‑shop factories and prison complexes of the lower levels. Spice routes, weapons shipments, slave trading and more subtle financial operations all pass under Hutt eyes and, one way or another, pay Hutt taxes. Other syndicates operate in the gaps—the Exchange, the Shadow Syndicate and assorted local outfits—but they do so either with Hutt blessing or at considerable risk.
For players, Nar Shaddaa has always been an important economic and social crossroads. In the early years of SWTOR the Galactic Trade Network kiosks on the moon and on Tatooine were the neutral hubs where Republic and Imperial players could effectively trade across faction lines, using Nar Shaddaa as a black‑market clearing house. Later changes made all GTN terminals cross‑faction, but the image of Nar Shaddaa as the place you went to move goods between enemies has stuck. Beyond trading, the planet’s quest lines and class stories are thick with jobs for smugglers, bounty hunters, spymasters and corporate fixers: infiltrating rival syndicates, sabotaging industrial plants, and cutting deals in cantinas that can go sour in an instant.
The moon also plays host to content that sits slightly sideways to the main class arcs. Various dailies and exploration achievements draw you into out‑of‑the‑way corners of sectors like Shadow Town, the Red Light district and the industrial zones, each with its own mix of prisoners, experimental droids and local toughs. Later expansions add further layers on top: the Star Fortress instance orbiting Nar Shaddaa, for example, becomes the route by which you can recruit Veeroa Denz, a former Sith slave turned Force‑sensitive fugitive who has made the Smuggler’s Moon her home. Bringing her into your crew involves cutting through one of Zakuul’s occupied battle stations and then negotiating terms with someone who trusts the Alliance only as far as it helps her keep living in the shadows.
What makes Nar Shaddaa stick in the memory is the way it balances glamour and squalor. One moment you are standing on the upper Promenade, bathed in neon and watching luxury airspeeders cruise past giant holo‑Hutts; the next, you are down in a rust‑streaked maintenance corridor in the Duros or Nikto sectors, dodging gang patrols under flickering strip lights. It’s a place where opportunities are everywhere but always come with strings attached, and where a single misjudged alliance or careless step off a platform edge can be very final. As a portrait of the Star Wars criminal underworld, the Smuggler’s Moon captures that mix of danger and temptation perfectly: fortunes can be made here, but nobody ever really counts on growing old.
