KOTOR MMO News Coming Soon?

While still officially unannounced, there has been plenty of buzz on the Internet about the Knights of the Old Republic MMORPG ever since Bioware and LucasArts announced their collaboration on a “Ground-Breaking Interactive Entertainment Product” last October. There have even been recent rumors that official news on the KOTOR MMO could break any day now.

Destructoid has an article up claiming that the UK newspaper The Daily Star will soon be “blowing the lid off” the Bioware MMO project. If this is true, not only will this be the first official confirmation of the game even existing, but it also heralds the entry of a staunch new competitor into the MMO market. Bioware’s role-playing game résumé is, to put it mildly, stacked: the Baldur’s Gate series, the Neverwinter Nights series, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and of course, KOTOR. All of that experience coupled with rich source material leaves Bioware primed to deliver a giant of an MMO (assuming, of course, that all of this is real).

Of course, this wouldn’t be the first Star Wars entry into the MMO arena. Sony Online’s Star Wars Galaxies was released way back on June 26th, 2003, but was notoriously buggy throughout its existence. It also underwent extensive overhauls to its combat system in response to early criticism, alienating a large portion of its fan base in the process.

All in all, I feel that a Knights of the Old Republic MMO would be a great addition to the MMORPG market. For one thing, there’s absolutely no reason why a license this well known and beloved, particularly among gamers, shouldn’t have a thriving virtual world. And setting it within KOTOR’s time frame as opposed to the original trilogy’s gives Bioware and LucasArts a lot more leeway with just about everything, from story-telling to enemy creation to player classes and abilities. One of the main complaints in the early days of Galaxies (I was there on launch day, btw) was that Jedi were absurdly rare and it was a random occurrence that allowed players to become one. In the world of KOTOR, however, Force wielders should be plentiful, along with the usual assortment of smugglers, nobles, bounty hunters, you name it.

If you’re like me and can’t wait to see what LucasArts and Bioware are cooking up, you won’t have to wait long: it was recently announced that they’ll be unveiling their project on October 21st. We’ve got our eyes and ears peeled for news today.