All I can say here is "woo-flippin'-hoo!" I absolutely loved the original. It blended my interests in star wars, good story lines and purdy graphics and introduced me to the rpg genre (apart from Chrono Trigger on snes).

Given the title's popularity, it's hardly surprising that a sequel would be in the works. What is surprising is that LucasArts has opted to go with a fledgling developer for the sequel, which has been dubbed "Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords." Rather than go to BioWare for the sequel, LucasArts has tapped Southern California-based Obsidian Entertainment to craft a follow-up to one of the most critically acclaimed and successful games of 2003.

Basically set five years after the original, in a much more sinister time for galactic politics, the scars left by the war with Darth Malak have worn hard. The worlds of the Outer Rim have been left to fend for themselves as the Republic draws in to the Core Worlds, trying not to stretch its resources too thinly. The Sith take this opportunity to grow in strength.

Your role in the game starts off rather clouded, as is your past, due (once again) to a rather severe case of amnesia. Hey, if it ain't broke... It's always the amnesiacs who seem to have pivotal roles in galactic history.

Personally, I can't wait. Full story from gamespot here. promoted forum item

Awesome news and nicely written to

I was really impressed with the story to the first and this one sounds like it has some potential as well. I hope the amnesia bit is the only thing similar to the original though, it would suck if you find out at the end the same thing you did in the first.

I'm not usually one for RPGs, I enjoy the stories but the game play is always so dull that I end up giving up half way. KOTOR deffinitely has a better style of game play to other RPGs but I hope they give you more hands on stuff than the first. Needs more bike races and shooting from the turrets, but also something new like maybe the oppertunity to fly the Ebon Hawk a bit or something. I need something that requires skill and quick reactions to keep me intrested and although the original gave some of that, it would be nice to see more.

Edit: Now spoiler free

last edited by Deadly-Fly at 18:03:50 06/May/04

Can't wait, KOTOR rocked.

Well from the list of games that some of the guys at Obsidian Entertainment have worked on it looks like some of them are from the late Black Isle Studios.

The quintet's collective resume includes work on an impressive array of well-known games, such as Fallout, Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate, Dark Alliance, and Planescape: Torment. All totaled, the circle of men brings to the table a little more than 40 years of experience making games.

KOTOR rocks. Can't wait!

edit: deadly fly, that's sort've a spoiler for people who haven't played the game ;/

last edited by shrapse at 17:34:19 06/May/04

f***ing oath, KOTOR was one of the few games i have enjoyed these past few years, hopefully the switch to the new developer wont destroy it for me....but another amnesia storyline? They could have changed it and based the story around someone without a mysterious past, i know it added a really good twist to the first one but i get the feeling im gonna see it comming this time.

especially one that i've never heard of, and probably have no experience with making pc games or pc ports as kotor is and kotor2 will be.

Thats what I thought at first, till I found out Obsidian are basically Black Isle and have a metric f***tonne of experience, not only making PC games, but making RPGs. Not only that, but they were personally chosen by Bioware to make the sequel, so I have faith.

new poll for qgl: can AcidDrone read?

and w00t! newsified!

Sifn't playing through Chronotrigger on the SNES right now.

I want the musak (that's *not* ReMixes).

Clicky, Jerds.

Nice post, Ben.

Thats what I thought at first, till I found out Obsidian are basically Black Isle and have a metric f***tonne of experience, not only making PC games, but making RPGs. Not only that, but they were personally chosen by Bioware to make the sequel, so I have faith.

Fallout, Fallout2, Planescape tornment, Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 ... what else has Black Isle made?

Obsidian is:

Feargus Urquhart, who has worked on these games.

Chris Parker, who has worked on these games.

Darren Monahan, who has worked on these games.

Chris Avellone, who has worked on these games.

And Chris Jones, who not only played Tex Murphy in Under a killing moon, Pandora Directive and Overseer, but also worked on these games.

So between them, yeah, I stick to my original statement. They have a metric f***tonne of experience :)

I miss my Tex Murphy games..I think I've gotta re-install them again one day and take a walk down memory lane. Assuming they will work in XP and not chuck a spack! Damn old games!

Fallout, Fallout2, Planescape tornment, Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale 2 ... what else has Black Isle made?

i think u forgot a series most people consider some of the best games of all time -> baldurs gate (havnt clicked links so donno if those 4/5 guys were involved in bg series but yeah), oh and didnt they make neverwinter nights too? or was it some1 else

this should be good, while i liked kotor, i didnt love it as so many other ppl did, i still prefer my older rpgs - black isle ones, d2 etc and the new one sacred, so hopefully with "black isle" behind it this sequel will rock

also heard rumours of bg3 and fo3 - wonder if obsidian are behind them too

It's interesting how some really long games with deeper storylines are made by smaller studios. Makes me wonder how iD supposedly attempting a story with Doom 3 could turn out.

i think u forgot a series most people consider some of the best games of all time -> baldurs gate (havnt clicked links so donno if those 4/5 guys were involved in bg series but yeah), oh and didnt they make neverwinter nights too? or was it some1 else

No I didn't ... Black Isle didn't make the Baldurs gate series of games, Bioware did.

a bunch of people who worked on some games

Look at the bottom of each of the game descriptions all of them have "This does not imply employment by these companies.". It looks like a big percentage of them where working as Black Isle which really hasn't made many games, they really only made a few games, and even fewer quality games.

It is much easier being a third party Producer, Designer or QA guy than it is to be in the actual company physicaly making the game.

It's interesting how some really long games with deeper storylines are made by smaller studios. Makes me wonder how iD supposedly attempting a story with Doom 3 could turn out.

iD is actually a smaller studio :)

Also I don't think that it is hard to include narrative, I just think game companys have been lax in hiring people who know how to construct interactive narrative elements.

Yeah that's why I'm wondering about it ;)

No I didn't ... Black Isle didn't make the Baldurs gate series of games, Bioware did.

that must be why theres a black isle intro in every game in the series....interesting

Look at the bottom of each of the game descriptions all of them have "This does not imply employment by these companies.". It looks like a big percentage of them where working as Black Isle which really hasn't made many games, they really only made a few games, and even fewer quality games.

I dont know about the others, but Chris Jones definately worked for Access and made all the Tex Murphy games, and they were some of my favourite games ever so thats enough reason for me to have faith :)

hmm i loved KOTOR, by far not the best RPG ever, but on the other hand, by far the best Star Wars game ever. the title is very interesting, however, the amnesia thing is slightly disappointing, unless they pull it off brilliantly.

why Lucasarts would go with such a new and perhaps inexperienced developer is beyond me however. Lucasarts have made some pretty daring yet unsuccessful decisions in the past, so i hope this isn't the case here. why would they get rid of BioWare? if it aint broken, why change it? just the BioWare name alone popularised the original amingst cynics so i hope this new company live up to the original.

why Lucasarts would go with such a new and perhaps inexperienced developer is beyond me however. Lucasarts have made some pretty daring yet unsuccessful decisions in the past, so i hope this isn't the case here. why would they get rid of BioWare? if it aint broken, why change it? just the BioWare name alone popularised the original amingst cynics so i hope this new company live up to the original.

They didn't get rid of Bioware, they offered it to Bioware, and Bioware went "Dude, we've love to, but we're working on this other cainer XBox RPG at the moment called Jade Empire and we just wouldn't have time. Tell you what though, some good buddies of ours, who are also cainers, have started this new company called Obsidian, and we reckon you should give it to them". So Lucasarts did.

that must be why theres a black isle intro in every game in the series....interesting

Black Isle was the RPG arm of Interplay and Interplay used to publish Biowares games. Don't get me wrong, Black Isle did some good stuff, but in all honesty they mostly acted in a publishers role.

bioware has all of the games they made on their page.

hehe nice impersonation khel :P

I second that. :-)

I can picture the reply now, on nice crisp office paper with a Bioware letterhead.

because not everyone has played every single rpg under the sun. some of them think that rpgs are boring and think of geeks and D&D. not that that's me.
and i didn't post it on the main page. i posted it here. in the users forum. because that's what i am. a user. just like many others here. someone up there decided that it was written well enough to be newsified so stfu.

also, try it with pointy brackets next time. we use proper html tags here.

jimeh, with that attitude, no need to ask where to sign up b/c no one would read ur article b/c ur stuck up and think ur higher up in the gaming food chain...but in a reality, there is no such chain so you needa fix ur ego problems.

so what if the original KOTOR was the first RPG he ever played? do u really need to be experienced with RPGs to post a news item? sure, if it was a review i'd like the author to have a little more experience with the subject at hand, but u hardly need to know much if it's just a news item. anyways, even if he doesn't know that much about the RPG scene, his opinion was quite valid, as KOTOR did bring RPG to the masses, instead of keeping the genre to a group of fanatics, many of whom (if not most) are geeks.

i really didn't see the point of ur reply jimeh. there was nothing constructive and the only possible purpose for it was to boost ur ego and make u show off ur "experienced and well-informed" opinions on a forum...much like what a typical geek like to do.

jimeh = hamster

I liked the BBS tags LOL LOLLOL.

I just finished playing KOTOR and loved it. I was excited to see that KOTOR II was under development, but was a little concerned when I noticed Bioware weren't working on it again, though after reading this thread it seems the game is in good hands. Can't wait for it's release!