Update: Kotaku's Jason Schreier has now entered the fray with a KOTOR counter-rumor, stating that his understanding is that BioWare Austin "played around" with a new KOTOR prototype, but "it hasn't been greenlit and is not currently in development." He believes that the bulk of the Austin studio is actually working on the company's new IP, which Robertson also touched on in a Patreon post, that's expected to be revealed at E3.
Robertson now thinks that he "misheard some of the Austin stuff," and thus "may have misspoke about it," he told the site. "There’s also the element that I had no notes in front of me and just sort of rambled on from memory. I did not expect these few select statements to blow up (oops). I’m used to having the opportunity to just release follow-up notices on the Patreon with any updates and corrections. My bad there."
"Let me clarify that I don’t think KOTOR’s a current project. From the same people I learned about Dylan from, I did hear that they prototyped a KOTOR revival at Austin a while back. I believe it may have evolved into something else since then or fizzled out since then. I’m still confident Austin is doing something Star Wars related though and I’m confident in that."
That's quite a turnaround from stating unambiguously that "BioWare Austin is working on Knights of the Old Republic... something," and I should probably emphasize—again—that all of this is entirely unsubstantiated and subject to change, and may even be completely wrong. Such is the nature of rumors.
Original story:
Here's a rumor, courtesy of industry insider guy Liam Robertson, that BioWare Austin, which was originally created to develop the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO, is now in the early stages of work on a new Knights of the Old Republic game. Robertson revealed the info, based on his anonymous sources, as part of his Patreon-exclusive podcast last week, the good bits of which were then shared with the rest of us by The Star Wars Game Outpost.
“I’ve learned now that [BioWare Austin is] pretty much now exclusively working on Star Wars games and they’re going to be doing that for the indefinite future,” he said. “What they’re currently working on right now—and I have this on good authority—is a sort of remake/revival of Knights of the Old Republic. I don’t know when this is set to come out, but it has been in development for a little while now.”
The game apparently began as a remake of KOTOR but has now evolved into its own thing, although what exactly that "thing" will ultimately be isn't nailed down yet. Roberston described the project as "sort of like wiping the slate clean," in order to embrace the new Star Wars canon.
“I don’t really know how that game will end up,” he said. “I’ve heard that it isn’t exactly a remake anymore, but it started as a remake/revival. Now it’s kind of going from that blueprint in sort of its own original thing. I guess we’ll see what that turns out to be, but they are prototyping it right now.”
It's a thin rumor, definitely, but even so it seems like a pretty good bet. EA now has exclusive rights to Star Wars videogames, a license it no doubt wants to utilize as much as possible—and what better way to flex that muscle than with a new KOTOR? Let us also remember that Drew Karpyshyn, the senior writer on the original KOTOR, left BioWare in 2012 but returned in 2015. What's he up to these days?
,@jenjen1936 Yes, but that's all I can say. Hell, I might already have said too much. :)March 29, 2017
Karpyshyn said in a separate tweet that despite being back at BioWare for well over a year, he did not work on Mass Effect: Andromeda. Interesting, no?
