How To Get More Characters In Star Wars: Galaxy Of Heroes

One of the best aspects of EA’s turn-based tactical RPG, Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes, is how many different characters you can eventually have at your disposal. Drawing from both the original and prequel trilogies — and even throwing in a couple selections from the upcoming Star Wars: The Force Awakens — the roster of light side heroes and dark side villains is vast, allowing you to assemble exactly the five-person (or droid) squad you want.

You just can;t do it right away. Play Galaxy of Heroes for just an hour or two and you’ll end up with a pretty decent light side team and begin to make some headway on the dark side as well. Getting more characters takes some time and patience or the willingness to spend real money.

Since the latter option is self-explanatory, we’ll focus on the former. How can you get more characters in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes simply through normal play? There are several ways, but first …

A Word About Shards

If you tap the “Characters” button on the left-hand side of the main screen, you’ll being up a list of all the characters you currently own, plus their star tiers, levels and gear slots. Below those, you’ll see every character you have yet to add to your personal roster, along with a number that looks like a fraction, like 1 /25.

Don’t break into a cold sweat — there’s no math involved here. That number simply tells you how many shards you have for that character against how many are needed to unlock them. The higher the number of shards needed to unlock a character, the rarer it is (and more powerful, at least initially).

You can also keep collecting shards once you own a character in order to promote them to to the next tier, making it more powerful and, at some tiers, unlocking new active or passive abilities.

With that said, let’s move on to the different methods to acquire shards or earn new characters instantly.

Buy Some Data Cards

Data Cards are your primary method for acquiring new characters of all kinds. There are two different tiers at launch:

Bronzium Data Cards – The most common Data Cards, you’ll be using these left and right on a daily basis. You’ll earn five of them for free each day just for playing, and you can buy one at any time for 250 Ally Points. Bronzium cards can drop 1 or 2-star characters outright, but more often, you’ll simply earn a shard or two toward a character. Even more often, you’ll get gear, materials or training droids, so if you get a character this way, consider it a nice bonus.
Chromium Data Cards – You can buy these with Crystals, either earned during play or purchased with real money. They’re expensive but somewhat worth it, because they can drop 1 to 4-star characters or shards … and nothing else. You’re still at the mercy of fate (or maybe the Force, in this game), but at least you’re making progress toward some character every time you buy one.

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Look into Arena Shipments

Battles in the PvP arena can earn you a special kind of currency called Arena Tokens. These can be exchanged for character shards in the “Shipments” menu you’ll find at the bottom of the arena menu screen.

As I write this, you can turn in 400 Arena Tokens for 5 shards for a variety of characters. If you play your maximum amount of arena battles each day and concentrate on earning shards for a single character at a time, it won’t take you all that long to unlock one using this method (though it’s worth noting you can only exchange Arena Tokens for a specific character’s shards once per day).

Tackle the Squad Cantina Battles

Clear Regular Light and Dark Side Battles on Hard

Once you’ve defeated every light or dark side battle in a particular stage, you’ll be able to replay some of those same levels on Hard difficulty. Doing so costs twice as much energy (12 points as opposed to six for normal difficulty), and as the name suggests, the battle will be tougher.

Yet the rewards are also better, because most Hard stages earn you a guaranteed character shard the first time you beat it and the chance of dropping the same one every subsequent time you clear it. Like the Squad Cantina Battles, you can use sim tickets to instantly clear one after you’ve defeated it once for three stars, but every Hard stage can only be simmed a few times a day — unless you spend 50 Crystals to pay for the privilege of getting more chances, but I wouldn’t.

Next: How to Level Up Characters in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes

Knock Out Some Achievements

Clearing achievements in Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes only earns you shards toward one character, but it’s an awesome one: Darth Vader. nearly every achievement in the game will earn you one or more Vader shards plus a nice amount of credits. The Dark Lord of the Sith takes 80 shards to add to your collection, but my guess is he’s probably worth the effort. I certainly wouldn’t suggest otherwise!

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