"The way LucasArts has put it to us when we asked the question 'Is Knights of the Old Republic part of the canon?' is: they don't say that it's not, they don't say that it is. So what was BioWare's understanding at the time of whether or not its game would belong to Star Wars canon? Then, ILM posted a concept art gallery for Rise of the Skywalker which featured a mural that had KOTOR's Darth Malak and Revan in, and KOTOR 2's Darth Nihilus in. The eternal debate! First, there was all the talk surrounding Kylo Ren's lightsaber, and then Revan, the famous KOTOR character, was directly referenced in a Rise of the Skywalker merch book. "What LucasArts had initially expected was us to do a paintover of Baldur's Gate, and it was going to be a 2D, side-scrolling Star Wars game." "When we first signed the deal, all that was known was it was going to be a Star Wars role-playing game done by BioWare," he says. The game LucasArts signed up for, however, was quite different. "And," Ohlen says, "we were all enormous Star Wars fans." Publishers know it, banks know it and shoppers know it. (Coincidentally, Obsidian also seriously considered A Game of Thrones a few years later.)īioWare settled on Star Wars because it was, and probably is, the world's most well known fantasy. "That never went anywhere," he adds, "but that's how I started reading it - after the first book I was like 'holy s***!' and ran downstairs to the bookshop." "And one of them was the book A Game of Thrones by George R. "Strangely enough, before we picked Star Wars, I remember Ray coming into my office and throwing a couple of books on my desk and telling me to read them because we were negotiating with the authors," Ohlen recalls. It was the year 2000, the turn of the Millennium, and BioWare was trying to figure out what else it could do. Originally, Star Wars was only one of a few licenses BioWare was considering. "I was like, 'We need to make a Baldur's Gate! We can't give up on it - we need to make something inspired by the Baldur's Gate franchise!'"įrom the death of BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic 2, Mass Effect and Dragon Age were born. "I was the only person who left to eventually start concepting on the Dragon Age universe and game," he says. Mass Effect was something we decided we had to do instead of another Star Wars game."Įveryone from the core KOTOR team moved onto Mass Effect except James Ohlen. "In order for a company to be successful and control its own destiny you need to own your own IP, and we didn't own Dungeons & Dragons or Star Wars. "It was a very smart decision on their part," Ohlen says. BioWare bosses Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk called it off. "He was training you to essentially be his enforcer, a Dark Lord to conquer the universe, and he was going to become the main villain." Dun dun duunnn!īut this KOTOR 2 concept never made it any further. That character was going to train you in the first part of the game but then you were going to discover this Yoda figure was actually not the good Yoda you expected. "The initial twist in the first two-page concept we had for Knights of the Old Republic 2 was you were going to be trained by a Yoda-like figure," Ohlen says, "someone from the Yoda race.
#KOTOR 2 GAMEPLAY 2017 MOVIE#
"It feels like Star Wars, an episodic movie series, needs cliffhangers and twists, so we wanted a twist from the start" Yes, Yoda would have been the perfect tool for deceiving you. These days he's creative director of BioWare Austin, and he's working on Anthem. James Ohlen was also lead designer of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins, and director of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the online game. "We felt like Yoda was the ultimate - everyone trusts Yoda," James Ohlen tells me, lead designer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Not the actual Yoda, because canonically he's untouchable, but someone a bit like him we know so little about Yoda's almost nonexistent species even someone in his likeness would have the same effect: trust. Because once upon a time BioWare was - and it came up with an idea.
#KOTOR 2 GAMEPLAY 2017 HOW TO#
How do you follow a game like Knights of the Old Republic, the most famous original Star Wars tale a video game has ever told? Forget about Obsidian's sequel for a moment and imagine it was BioWare staring at a piece of paper wondering how to follow a twist like Revan's. There are spoilers ahead for Knights of the Old Republic. This piece was originally published in December 2017. With the recent news of a Knights of the Old Republic remake, we thought it'd be fun to return to this look behind the curtains of BioWare's groundbreaking original.