http://www.swtor.com/
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55470
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55470
Ending years of silence and rumors, BioWare and LucasArts today revealed that they have joined forces to produce a Star Wars massively multiplayer online game set in the Knights of the Old Republic Universe.
Dubbed Star Wars: The Old Republic, the title is expected to launch at some point in 2009, going by past reports. The specific platforms that will receive the game have not yet been revealed, though a PC version is likely.
The story-based MMO will be set roughly 300 years after BioWare's 2004 single-player RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC, Xbox) and the Obsidian-developed sequel, which took place roughly 4,000 years before the classic film series.
"We're making KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and beyond--this game is that big, it's got that much content in it," explained BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka. "It's very innovative--it's story based."
"We thought of a Howard the Duck MMO, we thought it was a little too crazy," he joked.
While the Star Wars setting was confirmed by BioWare owner EA in July, both the developer and license holder LucasArts have remained silent about the project until today. BioWare has been quietly tinkering away on its MMO since the 2006 formation of BioWare Austin, after which the studio licensed all sorts of middleware technology.