LucasArts-Bioware announcement coming Oct. 21

Last week, Nintendo denied it was working on a DS redesign...72 hours before it announced that it was working on a DS redesign. Electronic Arts has been doing a similar publicity pas de deux about the " next-generation entertainment product" that its BioWare studio announced last October.

Despite rumors pegging the project as being a massively multiplayer online role-playing sequel to its acclaimed RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, BioWare kept its wall of silence clamped firmly down for over a year. Speaking with GameSpot after the EA buyout, studio cofounders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuck deflected questions about the game in development at their new-ish Austin studio. "We haven't revealed any details about the game," said Muzyka. "It's supersecret right now."

That secrecy evaporated this past July when EA CEO John Riccitiello casually revealed that, yes, a KOTOR MMORPG was in the works. Since then, details on the project--which other EA executives still refuse to speak of--have been nonexistent, with its platforms, price, and exact launch date still unknown.

"LucasArts and BioWare invite you to attend the official unveiling of the game that's been rumored about for years," reads the invite before providing event-locale details. The gathering will be held in San Francisco on the afternoon of October 21, just more than a month after the release of the latest Star Wars game, The Force Unleashed. At a presentation at the Game Developers Conference this past March, producer Hayden Blackman said that the fast-selling game was settled on after a proposed third single-player KOTOR game was ruled out.