VG24/7 talked to Chris Avellone about Obsidian's Knights of the Old Republic 3.

“The third game involved you, as a player character, following where Revan went and then taking the battle to the really ancient Sith lords who are far more terrifying than the Darths that show up. These guys would just be monsters. These would have a level of power that was considerable, but at the same time you’d be able to dig more into their psychologies, and their personalities, their history, and even how they dealt with the player, how they talk with the player, the different powers they cultivated and developed, and for some of them like – they’re the ancients, so they’re not just ruling a solar system, [but] swathes of the galaxy.

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@GamePressure Bioware has tried to start work on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 multiple times.

Jason Schreier from Kotaku shared on Twitter some quite depressing news for Star Wars fans. According to his sources, BioWare tried several times to start work on the third installment of the legendary RPG series Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. However, the studio did not have much luck. The game project was always rejected by the publisher, Electronic Arts. Unfortunately, we don’t know any further details in this matter. We don't know when exactly the developer presented the idea for the new installment or whether Lucasfilm wasn’t the reason for rejection.

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Thanks porcozaur!

Yes the title is correct it looks like we might get KOTOR 3. A site called I Am A Super Nerd interviewed the developers of a fan project called “Project Blacklight”.

What is Project Blacklight

Project black light is a drafting project meaning it’s the equivalent of any game in the pre-production phase.

We’ve established contacts in the Star Wars gaming industry and the hope is that once our draft is done they will help us get the game pitched . . . it’s supposed to be the third [Knights of the Old Republic] game.  A conclusion to wrap it all up and transition into the MMO.

Do you have access to any of the original KOTOR 3 story and will you use those story elements in developing your own KOTOR 3 game?

Yes. I’m not able to give you names or how [I have contact] because I don’t want anyone to get in trouble but there is a lot of things that people don’t know about [the original] Knights of the Old Republic 3 game.  Going forward with this project I’ve had the privilege of actually talking with a lot of the original people that were actually working on it.

Knights of the Old Republic 3 was in development in 2005.  One big thing I guess [I will be]  publicly breaking this [but] there was actually two KOTOR 3 concepts.  One was pitched by Obsdian that some people know of, and then there is another one in which no one knows anything about and that is the Lucasarts pitch.  The in house development team was actually selected to be produced.  So most everything we obtained. . .was based on the one they were actually going to develop, which was the Lucasarts story and not the Obsedian pitch which most people think was actually going to be [made into] KOTOR 3.

Now that I’ve looked at the actual plot of KOTOR 3 that they were going to make, none of it, well not none of it, but a huge chunk of it does not translate over because of the MMO.  The MMO was not in their game plan [originally] when they were making it, and when EA Games and Bioware [started] making the MMO they were not interested in [using any existing] KOTOR 3 content.  They went completely their own way.

The game they were going to produce from the Lucasarts pitch [handled the Sith] completely different than what you would expect. The primary antagonist was a female Sith Lord who wasn’t an actual Sith, she was a Jedi who fell to the Dark Side.  The Sith, [or] the bad guys, were not the Sith we see in the MMO.  They were a further off-shoot, further down from Revan and his time.  These kind of Dark Jedi had fallen to the Dark Side [but were] not true Sith.

There was a handful of different characters they tossed around.  Obsedian’s plot is a much more known plot in which it was all about the coming of this true Sith Empire from some unknown region, with these super powerful Sith Lords, and this unholy sized army which infiltrated the Republic [in order] to bring the galaxy to a crushing apocalyptic end.  That is the behind the scenes, under the cover, basic plot that people are more familiar with when they think of KOTOR 3. [That plot] was actually shot down in its entirety and Lucasarts went entirely, entirely different with it.

VGU.TV has a new article were they talk about the possibilty of EA making KotOR III.

Late last year EA bought the rights from Disney to make games based on the Star Wars saga for a decade. Currently there are three games in the works that we know of. First is Battlefront, which is a rethinking of the original Star Wars: Battlefront series, this time done by DICE who knows what needs to be done as it is their Battlefield series that Battlefront aimed for in 2004 and 2005. Second is the title being worked on at Visceral Games, the developer of the Dead Space trilogy. Finally, is a game from Mass Effect developer BioWare. What I present now is what I want the BioWare Star Wars game to be.

 Portfolio.com is reporting that the next KotOR is to be an MMO.

N. Evan Van Zelfden in Los Angeles warns, watch out World of Warcraft. In an interview at E3 this week, Electronic Arts chief executive John Riccitiello said that EA is working on the next version of Star Wars game Knights of the Old Republic, and it will most certainly have a massively multiplayer online component to it.

"We've got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development," said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. "And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about -- in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it."

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online?  "Yes," he said.

1UP are saying a tipster has contacted them with a script for the possible new Bioware MMO.

Today, a tipster contacted 1UP with portions of a script for what was said to be a "Star Wars online" game. The script's description of the game reads:

 

"This is a role-playing game set in the historical past of the Star Wars universe. Jedi and Sith battle across the galaxy with the power of the Force and are joined by soldiers, politicians and nobles. Players must choose the destinies of heroes and villains in a thrilling and dangerous universe."

Historical past? Jedi and Sith battling across the galaxy? To we Star Wars nerds, that sounds quite a bit like the "Old Republic" timeline, which BioWare Senior Writer Drew Karpyshyn helped flesh out with the KOTOR series and by penning the Darth Bane novels.

 

GamesRadar has posted a tidbit on the possiblity of some artwork for KotOR 3 surfacing on the webpage of  LucasArts concept artist James Zhang. While there's no indication these images are confirmed for any version of the series, fans may want to check them out anyway. Here's the link to the pics, and this is from the article itself:

A batch of images rumoured to be for Knights of the Old Republic III has popped up on JZConcepts.com, website of LucasArts' concept artist, James Zhang. Question is, are the images from his pitch for the project or the real thing?

We'll probably never know if the images are from KOTOR III, unless LucasArts puts us all out of our misery and confirms the title's development.

ShackNews posts a statement from EA concerning the status of a KotOR 3 project which seems to indicate a sequel to Bioware's and Obsidian's Knights of the Old Republic series is not actually in development at this time, though the language is fairly non-committal and leaves the door at least partially open:

Addressing the alleged sequels to BioWare's Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Criterion's Black, publisher Electronic Arts has clarified that such products are not necessarily under development at this time.

Reports of the titles emerged yesterday, after a slide... presented to analysts by EA CEO John Riccitiello suggested that future KOTOR and Black projects were underway at the EA-owned studios.

"The slide in John's presentation is titled 'Best Creative Talent'--it addresses future and past titles," EA told Shacknews. "KOTOR, Black, Boogie, Skate and some other titles on the slide speak to past portfolio releases and the pedigree of the studio but do not specifically address future sequels."

Outside of the slide, Riccitiello did not mention KOTOR or Black, though it was implied that the listed properties denoted new or upcoming releases. Many of the other properties in the slide, including Skate, were revealed to be receiving future iterations in a later presentation.

"The [previously announced] MMO in development at BioWare Austin is listed a 'New MMO,'" EA's statement continued in an attempt to prevent future misunderstandings. "We apologize for any confusion this may have caused."

LucasArts also weighs in with this statement at IGN:

In contacting LucasArts about its works with BioWare, and the possibility of a future KOTOR product, the company stated that, "Yes, we are working with BioWare. We've announced that we're working with the developer on a project, but it has nothing to do with Knights of the Old Republic."

It's not official until it's official but a BioWare-developed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 seems certain with "KOTOR" listed as one of BioWare's upcoming titles in EA's recent analysts report.

You can read Eurogamer's newsbit here and view a screen of the list at Shacknews. 

Rumours of Knights of the Old Republic III just won't go away.  Last time the gossip was that BioWare Austin had formed a new studio to make a KotOR MMORPG and now CVG is citing XBM with speculation something might be released for Christmas:

A rumour has arisen in the US Official Xbox Magazine suggesting that the third title in BioWare's awesome KOTOR series could be with us as soon as Christmas or at least in 2008.

Towards the end of April we reported that BioWare had formed a new internal studio to create a Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic massively multiplayer online game. No further details were reported and BioWare still remain tight-lipped on anything to do with any possible new KOTOR games and what platforms they might appear on, though you've got to think that Xbox 360 is a safe bet.

Here's my take recorded for posterity: no chance.

Not really a surprise, but in an interview with Business Week, Nancy MacIntyre, VP of global sales and marketing at LucasArts says, that:

"We’ve also got Star Wars franchises like Knights of the Old Republic and Battle Front that we will not leave behind. It’s very important to us that we grow those franchises."