Presumably, the remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic can’t hold up a newspaper with today’s date to prove that it is actually doing okay and hasn’t been quietly disposed of in a tax report somewhere, Warner Bros-style. As such, it falls to the head of current developers Saber Interactive to promise that the long-in-the-works Star Wars game is still “alive and well”.
]]>This week's announcement that Embracer are selling off Saber Interactive to new company Beacon Interactive has cast further doubt over the future of one of Embracer's bigger projects, the much-delayed Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic remake. While Embracer have yet to actually state this out loud, it sounds like the KOTOR remake will be a "joint project" between Saber and Embracer. It also probably won't be out in the next 12 months. Given the project's repeated disruptions and delays, I suspect many of us will settle for the game coming out at all.
]]>The saga of the Knights of the Old Republic remake is beginning to look increasingly like Star Wars’ own increasingly convoluted expanded universe, as two developers have reportedly now insisted that, yes, they are still working on it - despite recent reports to the contrary.
]]>It’s more bad news for Knights of the Old Republic fans patiently awaiting the remake of the classic Star Wars game, as reports emerge that the game is no longer in active development.
]]>“Baldur’s Gate II set the model, and I obviously loved that model,” says James Ohlen. “But there were a ton of people at BioWare who didn’t like it.” During leadership meetings over the course of the Canadian designer’s 22 years at the RPG studio, he’d sometimes feel totally outnumbered when talking about the importance of story. “Game developers don’t get into the industry to create stories, they get into the industry to create games,” he says. “And so there’s this conflict between game developers and story - my entire career it's been a constant fight.”
Ohlen picked his side early. He was telling BioWare stories even before he joined the company. The meeting of Minsc and Boo, one of the most enduring partnerships in PC gaming, came about in a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons game he ran as a teenager. Then a comic book store manager, he took advantage of his premises to guide no fewer than three concurrent D&D groups through their campaigns. “I didn’t really have much of a life outside of Dungeons & Dragons,” he says.
]]>Worrying signs on the horizon for fans of sci-fi stories told a long time ago in a galaxy far far away. Sony have quietly yanked posts and videos for Embracer's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake, in what could be the first indication that the publisher have finally cancelled the game, after shuffling developers and delaying release indefinitely last year.
]]>If 2023 is remembered for one thing, it's that it was a 100% critical success year for the RPG. Role-players across the land have been feasting exceedingly well these past few months, what with the stonking success of Baldur's Gate 3 (and to lesser extents, Starfield and Diablo 4), so we thought it was about time to celebrate your favourite RPGs of all time. Your votes have been counted, your comments have been sorted, and the cream of the RPG crop has been assembled. But which of the many excellent RPGs have risen above all others? Come and find out below as we count down your top 25 favourite RPGs of all time.
]]>Welcome back to another RPS Time Capsule. I will age a thousand years by writing this next sentence, but today we're casting our minds back to twenty years ago, excavating our personal favourite games from the actually quite good year of 2003. Yep, instant wrinkles like I've just been caught in a Death Stranding rain shower. I better finish this introduction quickly before I disintegrate to a pile of dust - much like all the other games from this year that didn't make it into this year's Time Capsule. Come and find out which ones we've decided to save below.
]]>Star Wars Celebration was held last weekend and the much-anticipated sequel Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is speeding toward us on April 28th. All of this nostalgia and excitement means there’s still fun to be had in a galaxy far far away, and luckily, there’s a 14-game Star Wars bundle on Fanatical to celebrate. It's currently enjoying a deep 80% discount for a limited time.
]]>The Force isn’t strong with the remake of classic RPG Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic, which has been delayed indefinitely following a badly received demo shown internally at the end of June. Bloomberg reports that the game’s design director and art director were subsequently fired from developers Aspyr Media during the week after the demo was finalised. Sources from Aspyr told Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier that the game had been intended for a 2022 release, but that 2025 was more "realistic".
]]>The most despicable, awful and down right evil thing I’ve ever done in a video game was during a Dark Side playthrough of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic. At the end of the side quest Honest Debt, you convince a man to either spare or gun down a rather horrible chap who wronged him greatly. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about that - I’ve encountered the same thing dozens of times in games - but what comes after is a real doozy.
Not content simply with nudging the fella into giving in to his worst impulses, I then proceeded to persuade him to wipe the very memory of his nemesis from the galaxy, up to and including hunting down his friends and family members. Bastilla Shan, noted Jedi do-gooder, pointed out that neither she nor the Jedi council would approve. I was giggling like a schoolgirl.
]]>Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Remake was announced during tonight's PlayStation livestream. This is confirmation of what had been long rumoured, including the detail that the remake would be developed by Aspyr. There's a teaser trailer below.
]]>Once again, lips are flapping with rumours of a Knights Of The Old Republic remake. No one has officially announced they're redoing the BioWare RPG set years before Star Trek, but rumours have gone round for a few years, often with Aspyr Media attached as the developers. Well, those same rumours have come back round again. KOTOR is one of the few BioWare games I haven't played (DS9 was more my bag), so I have to ask: would you still recommend it to me today? Or tell me if you're clamouring for a KOTOR 3 instead?
]]>Whether you prefer wizards, sword-and-board warriors, the irradiated wasteland, vampires, or isometric text-heavy stories, the RPG is the genre that will never let you down. Accross the dizzing number of games available where you can play a role, there's something for everyone - and we've tried to reflect that in our list of the best RPGs on PC. The past couple of years have been great for RPGs, so there are some absolute classics as well as brand spanking new games on this list. And there's more to look forwards to, with rumblings of Dragon Age: Dread Wolf finally on the horizon, and space epic Starfield in our rear view mirror. Whatever else may happen, though, this list will provide you with the 50 best RPGs that you can download and play on PC right now.
]]>Oh look, it's Star Wars Day and to celebrate of course an entire galaxy of Star Wars games are on sale. There are discounts to be had on all yer old favorites from back in the day and some of the newer laser sword adventures of the decade as well.
]]>Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic was the first big boy game I played, so the possibility that people are working on a remake/sequel/some sort of sequelley remake does make me go a bit tingly. One of the two tipsters claiming to be in the know has been right about Star Wars goss before, and they say it's a straight up remake. Another source suggests the project will take elements from both KOTOR and KOTOR 2 and spin them into something more like a sequel.
I'd be game for either. I want to meet my space friends again, even if they will be different and weird.
]]>Last year was a good year for Star Wars games, since we got the release of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and there are more Star Wars game adventures to come, so it seems like a good time to check in on the best Star Wars games on PC. 2024 hasn't started off quite so well, with EA cancelling the Star Wars FPS game Respawn were working on. But there's a new Jedi game in the works there, Star Wars Outlaws at Ubisoft, and the mysterious Star Wars Eclipse at Quantic Dream. That's a lot of Star Wars still coming down the laser cannon, so you'd better get some practise with the Force in now. There are, of course, a lot of Star Wars games, from Lego adventures to podracing, amnesiac Sith and everything in between - which is why our list of the best Star Wars games is so useful. Whatever kind of Star Wars story you're after, you'll find something to enjoy on our list of the 10 best, right here, right now.
]]>It's still early days yet, but there's a Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic film in development. As reported by Buzzfeed last night, Laeta Kalogridis (Writer on Altered Carbon, Shutter Island, Alita: Battle Angel among others) is nearly done on a script for the first in a possible KOTOR film trilogy. I'm surprised that the whole Old Republic setting hadn't been tapped for any film or animation projects previously, as it's jam packed with fun worlds to explore, strange new aliens for the CGI crew to flex their artistic muscle on, and a straightforward story, if they're following the game itself.
]]>It has happened. The day spoken of in legend. After two years, I am finally to be set free of the Curse Of Steam Charts. All its taken is entirely leaving my job in four days time to end this purgatory. The only decision left is to whom I shall pass this vexation. That, and how to avoid mentioning the actual games for one more week. And this time I've come up with a self-indulgent doozy.
]]>Lawyers from Lucasfilm have shut down Apeiron, a fan remake of BioWare's 2003 RPG Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic (one of the best PC games, according to us). It's little surprise that The Suits have stamped this out, though of course it is a bummer - and doubly so because Poem Studios put three years of hope and work into Apeiron before it caught the The Suits' cruel eye. The Suits even want them to destroy all their work. Our Alec seemed hopeful (well, by his standards) and called Apeiron "extremely pretty" back in 2016, but so it goes.
]]>Have You Played? is an endless stream of game retrospectives. One a day, every day, perhaps for all time.
When people ask me about the first game I ever played, I tell them it was Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. That's not accurate, but it was the first one I played that made me realise the unique power games had to transport me to other worlds, and into the shoes of another person.
]]>All right, picture this. There's five podcasts tied to a train track, and you're on a train speeding toward them. On another track, there's just one podcast, the Electronic Wireless Show. Do you swap tracks and kill one podcast to save the other five? Or do you forge ahead? Take your time, it's a difficult moral choice - exactly our topic this week. Think hard about it. No, listen, you should think about it very carefully. No, listen--
I know, but--
You can't just p--
Ha ha, okay, stop the train. Joke's over.
Stop the train.
STOP THE TRAIN FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP THE TR--
]]>I've recently started playing with a new Dungeons & Dragons group, drafted in after one of their numbers upped and left town. It's my second time playing table-top D&D, after a splendid stint a couple of years back with Jim Rossignol (late of this parish) DMing, and it's a properly good time. And what I've learned is that it becomes a much better time the more flaws you introduce to your character. Which got me thinking: wow, do PC RPGs not follow that rule at all.
]]>Kickstarter's been pretty good for RPGs. We may not have seen the next big leap yet - Divinity: Original Sin 2 is looking pretty damn special, mind - but it's certainly breathed new life into the classics. Wasteland and Pillars of Eternity are both returning. Numenera went down well, despite a little over-promising. Divinity was superb.
Have I left anyone out? (Oh yeah, don't forget Taz.)
Oh. Yes. Tyranny. If you thought that game kinda landed and faded quickly, you're not alone. Despite being a very solid half of a game, even Obsidian/Paradox have admitted that when it came to it, "everyone was hoping that it would do better." I think it deserved to. The thing is, I'm not sure this should have been a huge surprise.
]]>So, a confession. My plan for this week was to talk about Obsidian's Tyranny [official site] - the game, not any rumours of Feargus Urquhart openly stealing puddings from the company fridge no matter how well labelled! Unfortunately, that plan hit a tiny snag... I haven't had a chance to play much of it yet. A shame, simply because the genre is well overdue a game that, to quote, Kakos Industries, Does Evil Better.
This week then, a tribute to and call out for the games that at least did evil interesting.
]]>Feels like it's far too soon to be remaking Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic but a) they've rebooted the Spider-Man movies 48 times in 18 months and b) KOTOR is, in fact, 13 years old oh god I'm so ancient how did this happen help help. So maybe the time isn't too un-wrong for someone to take a crack at making one of the most beloved 3D-accelerated Star Wars games look a whole lot more modern. Waitaminnit: isn't this just like George Lucas and his bloody Special Editions? SHUT IT DOWN SHUT IT DOWN SHUT IT DOWN.
The fans making Apeiron carefully classify it as a mod rather than a standalone project, in the hope that Ian Disney won't force-choke it to death. It's a remake of KOTOR in the Unreal 4 engine, and while it's a million parsecs away from completion, or even from showing how it will function as a game (including an apparent move from third- to first-person blasting), we do get a look at some extremely pretty and really quite Star Warsy environments.
]]>After seventeen years in the scribbler's hotseat, writer and designer David Gaider has left BioWare. Gaider joined the RPG-builders back in 1999, putting in some time on Baldur's Gate 2 before moving onto Knights of the Old Republic. His contributions to the Star Wars universe include snarky murderous human-hating droid HK-47 (a terrifying vision of our machine-doomed future presented as comic relief) and Carth Onasi, a sad space-man. Gaider's greatest contribution to CRPGs came as lead writer on Dragon Age: Origins, the beginning of the series that, along with Mass Effect, has come to define modern BioWare.
]]>I had twin criteria for this. The first was 'is it a decent game?' and the second 'does it meaningfully evoke the spirit, themes or characters of the movie in addition to having Quite Good Guns And Graphics?' The second saw quite a few games which would otherwise qualify ruled out. This year's Mad Max, for instance, was an agreeable murder-romp but it's much harder to argue that it nails the desperation or oddness of the films it's based on. Star Wars: Battlefront, meanwhile, is an OK online shooter with marvellous graphics, but it's too mechanical to 'feel' like Star Wars once you get beyond the spectacular presentation. Ah, 'feel'. That's the thing, isn't it? Does a movie game make you feel like you're a part of that movie's wider world, or is it just wearing its skin?
]]>Since the dawn of RPGs, two things have remained constant: heroes require armour, and players will always want to find out what happens if they strip it all off and run around. Some would call it a secret test of a game's devotion to world simulation - that if characters react, it says good things about the developers' devotion to detail. Others just think it's really funny. (To be clear, it's very rarely even close to sexy.)
This week then, a random sample will answer the question the world has been waiting to realise it should have asked - objectively speaking, which RPG is the best? Specifically, if they all forgot their PE kits and had to go quest in their pants.
]]>Obsidian's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II doesn't quite reach the level of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines on the Oh Gosh Imagine If It Were Actually Finished-o-meter, but it has folks who go to bat to it. Like Bloodlines, for a decade KOTOR 2 has relied on fans to fix bugs, restore and finish cut content, and improve support for modern systems. Unlike Bloodlines, KOTOR 2 apparently still has some sort of official support.
Yesterday brought a new KOTOR 2 patch on Steam, adding native support for widescreen resolutions and controllers, Steam Workshop for mods, and more.
]]>As wonderful as RPGs are, some tropes and cliches and just general bloody annoyances really do spoil the fun. Some of them might only crop up occasionally, others just won't go away. Some, you might think, are just petty irritations. But no! All these incontrovertible sins must be destroyed at once! Here's a few of my least favourite offenders. What others would you add to the cursed list?
]]>Star Wars started as cinema and ended up as something else - lots of things, from pillow cases to theme park rides. But chief among them, the form that best captures the core of Star Wars now, is games. The last Star Wars I enjoyed watching was released two years after I was born, in 1983, but since then games have given me dozens of dogfights, blaster battles and lightspeed adventures layered with the nostalgia, hope and acceleration that is essentially Star Wars.
]]>Hey cats, it's hip to like Star Wars again rather than feeling dirty every time it's mentioned. Of course, once JJ Abrams releases two hours of lens flare and nonsensical deus ex machinas it will be deeply uncool to like Star Wars again, so make hay while the sun shines. Star Wars videogames certainly are: first we get GoG re-releasing a bunch of previously out-of-print titles, and how the latest Humble Bundle is all about games from A Long Time Ago. For whatever you want to pay, you get KOTOR, Jedi Knight 3 and Dark Forces, which ain't a bad set. There are more games if you want to pay more, but Republic credits are no good out here.
]]>We now live in a world where The Sims: Star Wars or Need for Speed: Tosche Station could become things. I'm not saying it's likely (though the former would not shock me in the slightest), but Star Wars is under new management, so who knows? For now, all we can say for sure is that BioWare, DICE, and Visceral are actively adding their own chapters to the space opera, but we won't see results from those initial efforts until at least mid-2014 - and much later, in all likelihood. You'll remember, however, that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II developer Obsidian also has a rather ambitious idea floating around, and - last we heard - it was about to lay it before the greatest Sith Lord of them all: Mickey Mouse. So then, what happened there? And where does Obsidian's new Star Wars RPG end up now that EA's pulling the strings? I got in touch with Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart to find out.
]]>Well, it's official: Chris Avellone has joined the Torment: Tides of Numenera team. Kickstarter's overwhelming monetary might has pushed another old band back together again, and now this one's ready to give belabored brain birth to another tale for the ages. And dimensions. And whatever other creative gravy giblets they can fit into their twisted turducken of a setting. But Torment's hardly the only thing on Avellone's increasingly busy mind, as he's also got both Project Eternity and Wasteland 2 to worry about. Oh, and let's not forget that exceedingly tantalizing Star Wars pitch Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart was so thrilled to discuss. It's tough, then, to imagine that Avellone has even a spare second these days, but he somehow managed to shove aside a few for a chat, so we used it as wisely as humanly possible. To discuss kindly stick figure knights and giggle at bad naming jokes, of course. Also, all of the above, Avellone's role on Torment, and what an Alpha Protocol sequel would look like in a post-Walking-Dead world.
]]>Obsidian's a company that's always stricken me as bizarrely restless. Despite its near-legendary Black Isle legacy, the Project Eternity and South Park developer's rarely had an easy time finding a comfortable place in the industry. But then, when you think about it, that's not entirely surprising. Both RPGs and storytelling in games - Obsidian's wheelhouses - have spent countless years in constant flux. And though recent times and a massively successful Kickstarter have given the developer some solid ground to stand on, the eager hands of change are once again threatening to yank the rug out from under it. Uncertainty's permeated the entire industry as of late, but Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart has no intention of blindly following the future. His plan? To redefine the whole RPG genre. During the recent DICE Summit in Las Vegas, he and I chatted about that.
]]>Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II was utterly masterful. Sure, it had more rough edges than a Sarlacc Pit who's also a door-to-door woodchipper salesman, but the underlying tale mixed oppressive darkness, moral grays, and an eye for exactly what makes Star Wars tick to stirring effect. Personally, I think it far outstripped KOTOR 1, but to each their own. Naturally, though, I nearly grinned my face in half when Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart told me his Black-Isle-based collective is lobbying heavily to develop a new Star Wars RPG. "I would say it's within the top three pitches we've ever come up with," he told RPS during a recent interview. But wait, what about the EA-shaped Death Star hovering over The Old Republic? Well, Obsidian's new tale is set in a very, very different time period.
]]>Obsidian's legendary/notorious Star Wars RPG is currently on a daily deal sale 75% at £1.74/$2.49 off until Friday 6pm GMT/Saturday 10am PST, likely the cheapest it'll ever be on Steam. For that reason, today I'll be providing a guide to getting the Steam edition of Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords working well on modern machines.
Widescreen resolutions, extra content, crash-dodging - this will make the infamously unfinished but ambitious and wonderfully-written RPG look and play far better than it did upon release.
]]>Vaguely controversial statement time! I far prefer Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 to KOTOR 1. I mean, BioWare's original Death Star laser blast into a rather bland Star Wars gaming scene is a classic for a reason, but KOTOR 2 - for all its flaws - showed sparkling glints of actual brilliance. Unfortunately, a lot of people skipped it due to BioWare's lack of involvement, bugginess, and an ending that sort of, well, didn't exist. But that was then, and now - as of today - KOTOR 2's finally on Steam. So I'm going to show you how to turn it into the game it should've been all along.
]]>How much do you think you'd pay for Star Wars: The Old Republic? Signs point toward BioWare/EA opting for an old-school subscription model, as well as charging for a boxed copy of the game to start - so very 2007. So, perhaps £30 for the game and £8-£10 a month thereafter? You'd be happy with that? Well, some rumours revealed by NeoGAF, as posted on BetaCake, seem to suggest you could opt to pay an awful lot more for a special edition. A special edition with an awful lot of stuff.
]]>Just when we thought E3's videological seed was spent, Bioware release their multiplayer footage for The Old Republic, which I've posted below. The blurb explains: "Commander Narlock readies his troops for an Imperial assault. As he does, all four Republic classes; a Jedi Consular, Jedi Knight, Smuggler, and Trooper join together to assist in fighting off the attack." And it's pretty much as you'd expect for an MMO of this kind, except, perhaps, for that little Bioware dialogue sequence. No surprises in the combat bit, but I think SWTOR's strength could be in the story and companion cleverness rather than doing anything mechanistically interesting too far outside of the standard MMO template.
]]>The Old Republic is quietly rumbling away in the background of our consciousness, and it seems to gradually be gaining momentum. It was always going to be a big deal, but with PvP and such being revealed at E3 this week I think we will start to see it really begin to grip the fevered minds of the MMO masses. And frankly, from everything I've seen so far, there are reason to be interested in what Bioware are doing. Below are the most recently animated outpourings from the dev army, a look at the Sith class, and an animated short about the battles for Alderaan.
WARNING: For some reason the videos both auto-play, so you might want to pause one unless you've got two attention centres in your brain, or something.
]]>Almost forgot there was another Bioware game in the offing (two, in fact - Mass Effect 2 also looms) amidst all this cheery chatter about Dragon Age. The Old Republic remains The New Hope of both Star Wars games and mainstream MMOs, and while we're all lacking a clear picture of quite how it's going to play, Bioware are at least providing a steady drip-feed of new info. This time, some of their thinking behind the Jedi class, and the revelation of what another class will be - boo-hiss-baddies, these ones...
]]>As spotted by a keen-eyed Eurogamer forumite, the KotOR 2 Restored Content Project has gone into open beta. You're just a 15MB download away. Details below.
]]>Talking of Knights of the Old Republic, part two of my adventures as Simon Evil, the galaxies most evil Jedi, is up on Eurogamer today. After the squirm-inducing antics of Part One, Simon Evil's continuing douchebagging his way around the planets seemed to become slightly easier. Perhaps too easy...
]]>As mentioned in the last podcast, for Eurogamer I decided to perform the horrendous task of playing the original Knights of the Old Republic, making all the most awful dialogue and action choices available. The first part of this story, covering Simon Evil's actions on Taris, is now up. It begins like this.
]]>Oddly, the story we ran four months back about EA letting slip that Bioware were working on a Star Wars: Knight of the old Republic MMORPG is one that continues to pick up sporadic comments even now. Seems there's a lot of very, very strong feelings about KOTOR, with a lot of people concerned that it moving online means they'll never see another single-player outing or have the various dangling plot-threads resolved. Even without any details whatsoever, there was a lot of spitting, expletive-filled fury about the game's mere existence, much of which we removed in the name of peace, harmony and not having this site be the number one Google hit for "F*CK YOU EA!!!!!!!"
]]>I've been playing lots of Mass Effect recently, because as a leading games critic it's essential I stay ahead of the curve and keep my finger on the pulse. A mere nine months after buying it on 360 and then never playing it, and then blagging a PC version only three months after its second release, I'm on the case.
It would probably be controversial to say that BioWare's three most recent RPGs, Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect, are all exactly the same game in a different setting. Because Mass Effect's setting is quite similar to KotOR's. But what's rather fortunate is that they change the combat style in each, so there's always something unique to complain about on a forum. What's also important to note is that they're all three flipping ace, and I love them. They just... they just tend to do this one really silly thing.
]]>It's a big day for Bioware. First, Dragon Age scrubs up very nice indeed, and now EA have only bleedin' gone and revealed they're planning Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: The MMO. Yes, with Bioware at the till. [Pauses for internet-wide cheer]. "As if millions of voices suddenly cried out in rapture and were suddenly fanboys..."
It's been rumoured for ages, but E3 saw EA's John Riccitiello drop a conclusive bombshell. Quote'n'that under the jump.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'd better be able to play as a Jawa.
]]>
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