Star Wars: KOTOR 3 Still Interests "a Lot of People" at Obsidian

It's far from an indication that such a game will ever be made, but a number of employees at Obsidian Entertainment continue to be interested in making a third game in the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series. Speaking with IGN, Obsidian's Josh Sawyer says, "I think there are a lot of the people at the studio that would like to do Knights of the Old Republic 3."

That's a statement that's sure to grab fans' attention given that it's been almost a full decade since Obsidian released Knights of the Old Republic II in 2004. Sawyer explains that, with LucasArts previously being "focused on what they considered to be extreme, extreme blockbusters," that didn't leave much room for KotOR and its awkward-looking acronym to get a new entry.

In light of LucasArts' past focus, Sawyer says, "[I]t just never seemed like something that was going to happen at that time. Having said that, a lot of time has passed. I know there are a lot of people at the studio who are really interested in doing a project like that."

The prospect of making a new KotOR continues to be discussed at Obsidian, producer Brandon Adler says, but that doesn't mean any formal plans for such a game have been laid out. "It's something that comes up every three to six months," Adler says. "We bring it up and talk about it. Not anything terribly serious, but we just say, 'Wouldn't it be cool if?' and just develop some ideas for what we'd do with that stuff."

EA signed a multiyear deal to produce Star Wars games last year, so any KotOR game would likely need to be published by it. Another wrinkle: Lucasfilm announced in April that, going forward, all Star Wars content will be canonical, including games. That means the plot of a new KotOR game would have to fit into the overall Star Wars story--it can't be a side "Expanded Universe" story like in the past.

Prior to either of those developments, Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart revealed that the studio had pitched the idea of a new Star Wars RPG set between Episode III and Episode IV. The pitch was made to LucasArts, but as of early last year had not yet been discussed with Disney, which acquired Lucasfilm (and, by extension, LucasArts and the Star Wars franchise) in 2012. Sawyer and Adler--both of which are currently working on Pillars of Eternity--indicated they were unaware of where that project stands.

There has been little official news on the KotOR front in recent years. BioWare's original game was re-released on iPad last year (where it plays surprisingly well), and fans have continued to work on a long-in-development, unofficial mod that restores incomplete content that was left out of KotOR II by Obsidian.

EA has at least two Star Wars games in the works: Star Wars: Battlefront from Battlefield maker DICE and one from Dead Space developer Visceral Games that is rumored to be an open-world game. We learned this week that Battlefront's release will not necessarily coincide with the launch of Episode VII next year.

If it's ever made, what would you like to see from Knights of the Old Republic 3, meatbags? Let us know in the comments.