Is Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Coming Back? Here's What We Know

A lot of fans really got into BioWare games after they played the OG Xbox version of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic from back in 2003. It was a marvel for the time, combining RPG mechanics with action-oriented gameplay and choice-based dialogue interactions. The game became heralded for its innovative mixture of classic CRPG-style mechanics with console-style controls and high-end cinematic visuals. It's no surprise that gamers would be absolutely geeked to find out that there could be a new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic in the works. Well, don't get your hopes up too high because the whole thing sounds like it was just a mistake.

According to the Star Wars Game Outpost, they originally reported on a blurb made by Unseen64's Liam Robertson during a podcast about things he had hard about from the BioWare Austin studio. He offhandedly talked about possibilities of a new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game being in the works, and not an MMO like the Star Wars: The Old Republic, which kind of floundered its way onto the market.

According to the original reports, there were rumors that BioWare was prototyping a new Star Wars game set within the Old Republic universe and that it was going to be a revival of the franchise, turning it into a new experience for gamers who may have missed out on the original or are looking for a new entry in the famed series.

What Robertson said began metastasizing with previous rumors, morsels of information and tidbits of hope gleaned from comments made by other staff or insiders who heard things about BioWare working on a new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game. The rumor became full blown news. Except, it isn't news.

Kotaku later reached out to Liam Robertson and managed to get a more clear-cut picture of the story. According to Robertson's e-mail to Kotaku, he stated...

But hold on! There's more.

Kotaku notes that there does appear to be some truth to BioWare having prototyped gameplay for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. However, they state that the project wasn't greenlit for production. Furthermore, Robertson stated in his e-mail to Kotaku that while Knights of the Old Republic may not be the project BioWare Austin is working on, they are working on something that's possibly Star Wars related.

At this point we don't know exactly what's going on but it's definitely possible that EA may have BioWare working on a Star Wars project. It's not unlikely that some big publishers have multiple studios work together on large AAA projects, and BioWare could be helping with some outsourced material from Visceral's new Star Wars project. It's not unheard of to have multiple studios collaborating on projects of that scale.

Additionally, BioWare is also working on another top secret sci-fi project codenamed "Dylan," and Robertson points out that this may be what they are working on full time. Perhaps they could have been prototyping some features from The Old Republic to see how well they worked for their upcoming game? It's also not uncommon to use old assets from previous games for prototyping purposes, so maybe that would explain why some people thought they were prototyping a new Star Wars game when in reality it could have been prototypes for "Dylan."

Anyway, we're basically back at square one when it comes to news regarding Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and it doesn't sound like it's coming anytime soon.