Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

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Editor's Note: This entry contains spoilers for Star Wars: KOTOR and the remake; read at your own caution.

About

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, often abbreviated by fans as KOTOR, is an RPG video game series set in the Star Wars universe thousands of years before the events of the Star Wars films. The game was created by the company BioWare, which is also known for creating Baldur's Gate as well as Mass Effect and the Dragon Age series. KOTOR is often regarded by fans as one of the best Star Wars games ever made, and in 2021, it was announced that a remastered version would release for PS5 exclusively.

History

BioWare announced on July 2000^[1] that they would be collaborating with LucasArts to create a Star Wars game set 4,000 years before The Phantom Menace.^[2] The first game, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was released on July 15th, 2003, for the Xbox console.

In the game, the player controls a custom character enlisted by the Republic Army to protect Bastila Shan, a Jedi who possesses the unique force power called "Battle Meditation." After being ambushed by the Sith Army and rescuing Bastila, it was discovered that the player character is force sensitive. With special permission, the player character is trained to learn the ways of the Force in order to backtrack the footsteps of the fallen Jedi Revan and Malak and locate the Star Forge. The trailer shown at E3 2003 was uploaded to the YouTube^[18] channel NateLogan on March 15th, 2008, where it has gained 63,000 views in 13 years (shown below).

A sequel titled Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords was released for Xbox on December 6th, 2004.^[3] This game was instead developed by Obsidian Entertainment. KOTOR 2 is infamous for its short development cycle due to LucasArts pressuring Obsidian to have the game ready for that year’s Christmas. As a result, a lot of content was cut from the final game.^[4]

In the sequel, the player controls Meetra Surik (who the game refers to as simply "the Exile"), a veteran of the Mandalorian Wars who was exiled by the Jedi Order for her involvement in the war. After drifting through the galaxy, Surik is suddenly hunted down by Sith assassins and bounty hunters. Under the guidance of a mysterious woman called Kreia, Surik must travel across the galaxy and find the lost Jedi Masters to battle the new Sith threat. On November 15th, 2007, the YouTube^[19] channel Reldur4 uploaded the trailer for the sequel, earning 250,000 views in 14 years (shown below).

On October 21st, 2008, BioWare announced that they would be developing an MMORPG called Star Wars: The Old Republic.^[5] The game is set 300 years after the events of KOTOR 2 and released for PC on December 21st, 2011.^[7] A cinematic trailer of The Old Republic, titled "Deceived," was released at E3 2009.^[6] On September 24th, 2011, the trailer was uploaded to YouTube^[20] by the official swtheoldrepublic channel, where it earned 6.1 million views in 10 years (shown below).

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Remake

On September 9th, 2021, during the PlayStation Showcase, a remake of KOTOR was announced. It was announced to launch as a timed exclusive for the Playstation 5, but it will also release on PC. It is being developed by Lucasfilm Games and Aspyr.^[8] The trailer for the remastered game was later posted to IGN's official YouTube^[21] channel, where it gained 1.6 million views in 10 days (shown below).

Reception

The original Xbox release of KOTOR has a 94/100 rating on Metacritic.^[9] In 2003, KOTOR won the "Game of the Year" award across 17 different media outlets.^[10] The Xbox release of KOTOR 2 has a lower Metacritic rating at 86/100, which is often attributed to the rocky development cycle.^[11] The Old Republic has an 85/100 Metacritic rating and has its eighth expansion planned to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the game.^[12]

Online Presence

Since their release, the KOTOR games are fondly remembered by fans. On Reddit, the games have two dedicated subreddits /r/Kotor and /r/KOTORmemes. Memes of the KOTOR games are occasionally posted on the /r/PrequelMemes subreddit due to the fact that because the games take place 4,000 years before A New Hope, they technically qualify as a Prequel Meme. An example of a KOTOR meme being posted to the /r/prequelmemes subreddit can be seen with the post by the Redditor^[22] NoybNoob on August 9th, 2019, which received 380 upvotes in two years (shown below).

The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification

The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification, or TSLRCM for short, is a mod for KOTOR 2 that aims to restore most of the content that was cut and fix the game-breaking bugs that were present in the final game. The project was initially started by Zbly2 and DarthStoney after a previous group called Team Gizka, who at the time was working on a similar restoration project, had dissolved.^[13] The first version of the mod was released on September 24th, 2009. In later versions of the mod, the team was expanded to include Hassat Hunter and Varsity Puppet.^[14]

On July 21st, 2015, Aspyr announced on Steam that KOTOR 2 would be available on Mac and Linux and that they and Windows would receive an update. Among what was included is support from the Steam Workshop. Aspyr stated that they collaborated with the TSLRCM team to have the mod be available on the Steam Workshop.^[15] As of September 13th, 2021, The TSLRCM was downloaded over 310k times on ModDB, over 128k times on DeadlyStream^[16] and has over 466k current subscribers on Steam.^[17]