They obviously recognised what worked.Īfter BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic 2 was scrapped, they focussed their energy and experience into creating their own series. However, aspects of KotOR’s special abilities and the introduction of “biotic” powers as a substitute to the “force” are present in the Mass Effect games, so not all was scrapped.Īll of this can be attributed to the fact that the majority of the team that had worked on KotOR went on to work on Mass Effect, with the same writer in Drew Karpyshyn and the same director in Casey Hudson. Instead, Mass Effect has a more dynamic real-time combat system that involves actually aiming and shooting instead of clicking the mouse and watching to see if your character will hit the target or not. BioWare also continued with the two-street morality system that allowed players to pick between good and bad actions, leading to their characters being viewed as good, evil, or left in a somewhat neutral stance. The Ebon Hawk became the Normandy and your crew of companions shifted from Jedi and Mandalorians to Asari and Turians. It is unsurprising then that, after seeing what features were beloved in their first space opera RPG, the team at BioWare would inject a healthy dose of KotOR into the Mass Effect series. The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From the KotOR While we may take this for granted in our games today, KotOR added a layer of focus onto the emotional states and backgrounds of your crew, making it feel like you were working together as a team, if not always for the same goals. In another review of the game, Greg Kasavin writes for GameSpot that KotOR does a “fine job” with the character and companion customisation, while also praising the character interactions throughout. Boulding also seems enamoured with the vast quantity of recorded dialogue lines, pointing out that you will never be able to hear them all in the one playthrough – as many depend on player actions that are mutually exclusive to other avenues of gameplay. In his review, IGN’s Aaron Boulding pointed specifically to the function of the Ebon Hawk (your very own, very stolen in-game spaceship) as a base and mini-level and called it “one of the most brilliant aspects of the game”. The contemporary reviews seem to have nothing but admiration for the unique approach and the initiative that the development team implemented into their work. The combat moves are calculated using dice rolls, armour and weapons require different proficiencies to use, and while it is a bit light on dungeons, there is at least one dragon.īut KotOR is so much more than a Star Wars skinned D&D. The game utilises many Dungeons & Dragons features, such as the selection of a class at the beginning and putting points into different skills throughout. Released in 2003, KotOR is a third-person role-playing game set in the Star Wars universe some 4,000 years before the adventures and tragedies of the likes of Anakin Skywalker, Boba Fett, and Dexter Jettster.
It spurred BioWare on to continue their run as the dominant RPG developers we revere them as now, and the world of Star Wars could well find that its future is set to revolve around the era of the Old Republic. Make no mistake, KotOR is genuinely one of the most important video games we’ve seen to date.
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Over the 17 ½ years since it was released, it has proven to be a game that has influenced various different mediums of entertainment from the film series that spawned it, to the generation defining games that came after it. There isn’t even a single Wookie in The Creation of Adam.
Now, I am not going to try and convince you that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic ( KotOR) is in some way comparable to Michelangelo’s painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, or the engineering works of Isambard Kingdom Brunel – that would be unfair. These leaps change the game and take elements of works from before and combine them with a unique vision to create something so powerful it changes the landscape around it. But some of these steps are bigger than others – some of them are leaps. As a result, any form of art takes incremental steps forward. There is always a precursor in style or technique that can be identified as an influence. Just how far does the influence of BioWare’s iconic Star Wars RPG reach?Īrt is never created in a vacuum.
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