Grave Gamer News & Views — knights of the old republic II

Obsidian is Itching to Make Another Star Wars RPG

Though Bioware takes credit for ushering the mountain-sized mythology of Star Wars into the choice-driven, action-RPG domain with the original Knights of the Old Republic, you’ll be hard pressed to find a gamer in this galaxy willing to downplay the Force-radiating brilliance of Obsidian’s 2004 sequel, The Sith Lords (even despite that pesky lack of an ending).

Shy of a decade later, Obsidian is dead set on returning to Star Wars with an idea for an RPG that CEO Feargus Urquhart is confident enough to place within the company’s “top three pitches” for a game.  But unlike Bioware’s The Old Republic and their own Sith Lords, Obsidian wants the game’s backdrop to fit snugly somewhere within, but separate from, the film saga’s chronology.

“We pitched a between-Episode III and Episode IV game [to LucasArts],“ Urquhart said to online PC scribes Rock Paper Shotgun.  "We think that time frame is super interesting. It’s the fall of the Republic, the extermination of the Jedi, it’s Obi-Wan going off and making sure Luke is okay. You have the Sith, but you have the extermination of all Force users except for very, very few. So it was an interesting time to set a game, and you know, Chris Avellone [Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas] came up with a really cool story.”

There’s just the one highly publicized snag: the new boss in town, family-friendly overlord Disney, made firm its position to move the franchise away from consoles and focus on the handheld and mobile markets (take a moment to cringe).  “It changes things a lot, but you know, we’re gonna push on it,” said Urquhart, noting that after pitching the project to LucasArts, Obsidian received very immediate, very encouraging response.

All that’s stopping Obsidian from delivering us another dose of Star Wars RPG excellence, according to Urquhart, is one conversation with Disney.  Here’s to hoping it’s a goddamn good one.