KOTOR3

Has anyone heard anything subtantial reguarding KOTOR3? Even a good rummor?

I expect we will find out in the next month or two, if not at E3 in May.

With Empire at War out there now is nothing known about future Star Wars games... which is strange. They aren't going to stop, that's for certain, which means they're planning something. With the novels they've decided to take a gamble and start doing something original rather than Luke Saves Galaxy Story #45621 so its possible they will be trying something a bit different or non-film based for the games as well. Its also possible they will just go with the safe option of a game where you play a Jedi and so can plaster the walls with lightsaber posters to attract buyers.

Either way... last summer LucasArts announced they were moving to a bigger site and expanding their development studios because they didn't like having to hire external companies to develop games. This probably reflects the problems they have had in the past with companies like Totally Games (creators of the XW series) whose relationship with LucasArts ended badly over an ownership fight over who owned the starships Totally Games had designed specially for the XW series - I expect Totally Games wanted royalties for every time LucasFilm used a Preybird fighter in a story or something. Naturally Totally Games lost but its the reason why there isn't ever going to be a sequel to XWA and why LucasArts don't like external development.

This is a problem though as LucasArts are traditionally useless at creating their own games. The most successful Star Wars games were not produced in-house. KOTOR was made by BioWare for example. Most of the recent, and coincidentally successful, games have not been made by LucasArts themselves. They don't like this though. Surprisingly enough they even cited KOTOR as an example, saying they would have prefered to have developed it themselves and not had to have BioWare do it. I'm sure I'm not the only person who worries how good a Star Wars RPG KOTOR would have been had LucasArts made it rather than a proven RPG company like BioWare.

That said, when they announced their relocation and expanding last summer they also acknowledged their poor performance in recent years, cashing in on multiple games rather than spending time releasing fewer, better quality games, rather than tons of bad games. Its good that they at least realise this... probably because they also realise that now the film hype is gone they actually need to make their name by producing good games, not just ones with the Star Wars label on them. This also brings up another point, that due to the lack of hype its possible they are keeping things secret so that they can spring a new game on us and hope people buy it in the sudden hype and excitement, if they announced it months in advance it would give the "Its a new Star Wars game! YAY!!!!" hype time to die down.

All things considered, I'm expecting another one or two Star Wars games later in the year, probably one in the summer and one christmas time at the end of the year. KOTOR3 is possible but they have been very secretive about that, when they announced they were moving site they said KOTOR3 development had been cancelled, that may have only meant for the duration of the move, or that they were cutting ties with Obsidian/BioWare and instead wanted to design it in-house at their new site. They will have had a good two years to design a new RPG so it should be good (considering KOTOR2 only had 12 months development time - hence why it was extremely rushed). I'm also expecting some kind of sequel to Republic Commando, an "Imperial Commando" game doesn't seem unlikely, something where you play a stormtrooper during the height of the Empire.

JA appears to be reaching its last days, its reached the level of popularity XWA was at two or three years ago, so I imagine we'll see some form of new Jedi Knight game either announced for 2007 or released later this year... though whether its actually a Jedi Knight game is questionable. They might try to cash in on the remaining ROTS hype (and the inevitable hype of the theatre 3D re-release of ANH in 2007/8) by basing it on the period between ROTS and ANH (sensible really, as it would bridge the real life period between ROTS last year and the ANH re-release next), a game about one of the few Jedi Knights to survive the Purge is possible. There is also a vague indicator that a JK4 could be on the way as Kyle Katarn's name has been popping up in very loose story snippets about what he was up to during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and shortly after (supposedly heading to a place called the Cloak of the Sith after hearing rumours that the Sith had returned). Theres been a lot of speculation about where that story came from, as its not featured anywhere, it just... appeared in a few sourcebooks and documents about Kyle's history, without anyone knowing where the story originated from. If, like with the books, they're planning to just take a gamble and do something totally unrelated to the films then this is a possible JK4, as it'd be totally different, and explain where this story originally came from. If it doesn turn out to be the case it will mean JK4 will have had about 18 months to 2 years development from when the storyline first leaked. The Sith are confirmed to be returning in the upcoming new novel series, set a few years after when this Kyle Katarn story is meant to be set, so it might end up being a tie in to explain what the Sith had been up to before publically making their return.

Anyway, just my thoughts, and to fill everybody in on the various rumours and official announcements.

I expect we will have to wait until E3 for them to unveil the next-generation of games though.