Star Wars: Republic Commando is one of Star Wars' most iconic video games, but one thing some fans may not realize is that Delta Squad's story continued after its cliffhanger ending. The game, which was released in 2005, ended with the fates of its main characters uncertain, laying fertile groundwork for an eventual sequel that never came. While Republic Commando's Delta Squad has since made appearances in other canon properties, their story has also been continued in greater detail in a series of Legends novels, set in the previous franchise continuity.
In Star Wars: Republic Commando, players take command of Delta Squad, a group of four Clone Commandos: elite clone troopers that received special training which resulted in many of them adopting Mandalorian culture and forming strong bonds with their squad mates. By introducing this concept to the universe, Star Wars: Republic Commando changed clones forever. The commandos of Delta Squad - Boss, Scorch, Fixer, and Sev - each had distinct personalities and quirks, showing that clones could have individuality and weren't just weapons of war. Republic Commando also showed the darker side of the Clone Wars, as Delta Squad is ordered to leave Sev for dead at the conclusion of the game's final mission. Delta squad begins to prepare for their next assignment, which players would never get to see.
Several tie-in novels exist to supplement the story of Star Wars: Republic Commando, but only one of them definitively showed what happened to Delta Squad in the aftermath of the game's story. In 2009, the novel Imperial Commando: 501st by Karen Traviss was released, continuing the story of Traviss' previous Republic Commando novels. Imperial Commando: 501st was actually inspired, at least in name, by the canceled Imperial-focused Republic Commando sequel. The book featured remnants of Delta Squad, as well as other commandos from the previous novels, serving as an Imperial black ops unit dedicated to hunting down Jedi and clone deserters.
Star Wars: Imperial Commando Showed Delta Squad Hunting Jedi After Order 66
The conclusion of Star Wars: Republic Commando took place not long before Order 66, so Delta Squad wasn't given much time to mourn the loss of their brother, Sev. When they were transitioned into Imperial service, they were simply given a replacement commando to round out their squad and sent to hunt down their former comrades. Unfortunately, publishing issues and changes to canon resulted in the Imperial Commando series ending prematurely. When the Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon retconned the history of Mandalore and the Mandalorian people, much of the culture and history detailed in Traviss' novels was rendered obsolete, which made even the completion of Imperial Commando: 501st difficult. Star Wars may have a post-Purge saturation, but it still would have been nice to get closure for the stories of Delta Squad.
Star Wars' Legends timeline may not have fulfilled Delta Squad's potential, but the new canon can still do them justice. Delta Squad appeared briefly in an episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, and Scorch specifically later appeared in Star Wars: The Bad Batch, in which he was still on the side of the Empire. In future Star Wars properties, the stories of Delta Squad may be explored once again, this time in accordance with the canon timeline, and potentially bringing Sev back for the first time since the original game. Given its reputation as a cult classic - and with new Star Wars FPS games on the way - Star Wars: Republic Commando deserves to be brought back into the spotlight.
