Rumor: BioWare is “prototyping” a KOTOR reboot right now (Update: May not be happening)

Update April 11, 10:15 a.m. PT: Liam Robertson explained to Kotaku in an email that he doesn’t believe Knights of the Old Republic is a current project:

Going to hold my hands up here – I think I just misheard some of the Austin stuff when I was talking on Skype, so I may have misspoke there. There’s also the element that I had no notes in front of me and just sort of rambled on from memory. I did not expect these few select statements to blow up (oops). I’m used to having the opportunity to just release follow-up notices on the Patreon with any updates and corrections. My bad there.

Let me clarify that I don’t think KOTOR’s a current project. From the same people I learned about Dylan from, I did hear that they prototyped a KOTOR revival at Austin a while back. I believe it may have evolved into something else since then or fizzled out since then. I’m still confident Austin is doing something Star Wars related though and I’m confident in that. I actually did know that they were contributing towards Dylan since I originally found out about it when I was researching Austin’s Shadow Realms, so if I said exclusively, then that was admittedly a mistake.

Definitely a strange situation all around. This is something I admittedly did not expect to blow up the way it did. As such, I’ll probably be reviewing my process for reporting on rumors into the future.

Original story:

By the look of things, we may have a new Knights of the Old Republic game on our hands soon enough.

While only a rumor for now, EA’s BioWare Austin—which developed the Star Wars MMO, The Old Republic—is apparently “prototyping” a new KOTOR game.

This bit of information comes by way of gaming journalist Liam Robertson, who discussed the topic recently on his Patreon page. Note that as Robertson did not reveal his source(s), this falls very much into the “rumor category” for the time being.

“I’ve learned now that [BioWare Austin is] pretty much now exclusively working on Star Wars games and they’re going to be doing that for the indefinite future,” he said during a podcast segment. “What they’re currently working on right now—and I have this on good authority—is a sort of remake/revival of Knights of the Old Republic. I don’t know when this is set to come out, but it has been in development for a little while now.”

Promo image from the first KOTOR game.

Robertson, who is known for his work with Unseen64 and Did You Know Gaming?, added that while the game began as a KOTOR remake, it has since transitioned into a new project.

“I don’t really know how that game’ll end up,” he said. “I’ve heard that it isn’t exactly a remake anymore, but it started as a remake/revival. Now it’s kind of going from that blueprint in sort of its own original thing. I guess we’ll see what that turns out to be, but they are prototyping it right now.”

Robertson later speculated that this game won’t be a straight-up KOTOR III; instead it’ll offer a new take on the Star Wars universe.

“I think this is sort of like wiping the slate clean,” he said. “I think this is going to embrace the new Star Wars universe lore because Knights of the Old Republic was sort of just pushed into the expanded universe, the Legends canon of Star Wars.”

You can listen to Robertson’s full podcast on his Patreon page. As note, you’ll need to donate US$1 or more to gain access to his “early access/exclusives” reward tier to be able to listen to it.

Promo image from the second KOTOR game.

Interestingly, Robertson’s words mesh nicely with some other recent tidbits regarding KOTOR.

Jordan Maison, the editor-in-chief at Cinelinx, reported last September that a remake or remaster was in the works for KOTOR. However, that project was put “into stasis” by EA after internal issues.

Robertson’s report appears to line up with Maison’s story that there was a KOTOR “remaster” in development at one point. Assuming Robertson’s sources are correct, it seems that it may have moved out of stasis and into a new project.

Adding fuel to the fire is this tweet from last month by BioWare’s Drew Karpyshyn, who was the lead writer on the first KOTOR game:

,@jenjen1936 Yes, but that's all I can say. Hell, I might already have said too much. 🙂

— Drew Karpyshyn (@DrewKarpyshyn) March 29, 2017

Note that this is just speculation that Karpyshyn is working on the rumored KOTOR game, but it’s an interesting coincidence nonetheless.

It will certainly be interesting to see how information on this game develops. I know a lot of people would really enjoy a return to the KOTOR franchise. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll hear more about the game at Star Wars Celebration next week or perhaps at EA PLAY in June, but I’m merely speculating here.

Of course, as with many things in the gaming world, there’s always a chance this project will be cancelled before it sees the light of day.

Do you think we’ll see a KOTOR reboot any time soon? Share your thoughts in the comments below, or chime in via Twitter or Facebook.

(Top image source. Second image source. Third image source.)