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Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (video game)

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"KOTOR" redirects here. For the town, see Kotor.
2003 video game
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic PC box cover
Developer(s)BioWare
Publisher(s)LucasArts
Designer(s)David Falkner
Steven Gilmour
Casey Hudson
Derek Watts
Drew Karpyshyn
James Ohlen
Preston Watamaniuk
EngineOdyssey engine
Platform(s)Xbox, Windows, Mac OS X
ReleaseXbox PC
Genre(s)RPG
Mode(s)Single player

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) is a role-playing video game originally on the Microsoft Xbox platform and later for PCs running Microsoft Windows and then for Mac OS X. The game was developed by BioWare and published by LucasArts and released for Xbox on July 15, 2003, and for PC on November 19, 2003. Its tagline is "Choose your path".

KotOR is the first computer role-playing game (RPG) set in the Star Wars universe. The game's system is based on the Star Wars Roleplaying Game from Wizards of the Coast, which is based on the d20 System, a role-playing game system derived from the Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons rules. Combat system is round-based. Time is divided into discrete rounds and combatants simultaneously perform actions. The number of actions a combatant may perform in each round is limited. While the duration of each round is a fixed short interval of real time, the player can configure the combat system to pause at specific events or at the end of each round. The game also allows the player to either be good (light) or evil (dark) using an alignment system that tracks actions, from simple word choice to major plot decisions, based on whether they are aligned to the light side of the Force or the dark side.

Template:Spoiler

Story

Template:Spoiler Knights of the Old Republic is set in the Star Wars universe about 4000 years before Episode I takes place, during the time of the Old Republic. The story begins as a Republic ship, the Endar Spire, is ambushed by Sith fighters while in orbit around the planet Taris. As the ship is destroyed, the player and Carth Onasi land on the planet in an escape pod. Their first priority is to find Bastila Shan, a young Jedi who was accompanying them on the Endar Spire and who knows how to use the rare Force Power of Battle Meditation. One year earlier, Bastila used Battle Meditation to lead an assault against Darth Revan, the Dark Lord of the Sith; as she was battling Revan, Revan's apprentice Darth Malak attacked Revan's ship and usurped the title of Dark Lord. Now Malak seeks Bastila because he fears her power; he will either turn her abilities to his use or remove the threat she poses by eliminating her.

The player's character is a male/female (depending on the player's choice), who escapes the attacked Endar Spire with fellow Republic soldier Carth Onasi. Their escape pod crash lands in the upper city of Taris where they begin the search for Bastila. The rescue of Bastila allows them to leave Taris moments before the planet is destroyed. The companions go to Dantooine where the player learns the ways of the Force. The Jedi Council gives the player and his/her companions a mission to find certain star maps which will locate a mysterious Sith weapon called the Star Forge that allows the infinite production of Sith warships. In the middle of their mission, a confrontation between Malak and the player reveals that the player is actually the former Sith Lord, Revan, who had lost his/her memory after Malak's initial betrayal. Also during this incident, Bastila is captured and eventually turned to the Dark Side.

After all the clues are found, the player travels to the unknown world of Rakata Prime where he/she crash lands. The player goes through difficulties with the natives but finally is able to reach the temple where Bastila is waiting. After a confrontation, the player chooses to not go with Bastila and help his/her companions reach the star forge and defeat the Sith threat(Light Path) Or the player chooses to go with either Bastila and take the throne of Sith Lord from Malak (Dark Path). The Light Path has been confirmed as canon, and the following games of the series, though allowing you to choose the outcome of the first game, build on the fact that after saving the galaxy, or conquering it, Revan left for the Outer Rim.

Locations and characters

File:Kotor 8.png
Ahto City, the only above-water city on the ocean-world Manaan

The game is played over numerous planets in the Star Wars universe:

File:Kotor 11.png
Fazza's Hunting Lodge, Tatooine

Players also visit other locations:

Along the way the player also meets a great number of other characters, some of which can be directly controllable:

Other characters met along the way include:

Voice actors

The following voice actors were used in the game:

Trivia

  • When the player tries to enter a new area with party members, and they are not near the player character, a line appears reading "You must gather your party before venturing forth". This line appeared in the other games that used Bioware's Infinity Engine, such as Baldur's Gate (Planescape: Torment being the only exception), whenever the player tried to leave an area without the rest of the party . In the Baldur's Gate series of games this line was spoken by voice actor Kevin Michael Richardson, who also plays Jedi Jolee Bindo in Knights of the Old Republic.
  • When sleeping at the Hidden Beks hideout before the swoop race, a line appears reading "you spent a restless night at the..." which is a line that would appear in Baldur's Gate when spending a night without comfort.
  • The name Bendak Starkiller is a homage to the name originally chosen for Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. It is also a reference to the first ace in Wing Commander, named Bhurak Starkiller. Also, the name Bendak may be an homage to the Baldur's Gate series character in the Copper Coronet named Hendak.
  • Certain lines and events through out the game also pay homage to the original films:
    • The Starlight dancer interviewer will say, "Good, good. Feel the music. Let it flow through you", a tribute to a famous Star Wars line.
    • Mission Vao says, "I have a bad feeling about this" several times, referring to a line spoken repeatedly in the films.
    • "My name's , I'm here to rescue you", is a homage to the line Luke Skywalker delivers when rescuing Princess Leia.
    • Carth Onasi shouts "NOOOOOO!!!", a line that has been used in all six Star Wars films.
    • When the player is being tortured on the Leviathan and pressed to reveal the location of the Jedi base on Dantooine, a possible response is "Alderaan, they're on Alderaan", the opposite of when, in Episode IV: A New Hope, Princess Leia lies that the Rebel Alliance base is on Dantooine to avoid Alderaan's destruction, saying, "Dantooine, they're on Dantooine".
    • Carth Onasi echoes Han Solo's line in Episode IV: A New Hope: "We're caught in their tractor beam".
    • The lightside end-game cinematic, when the entire crew of the Ebon Hawk is rewarded the Cross of Glory, references the award ceremony at the end of Episode IV, complete with an astromech droid is scene shaking and beeping happily, (T3-M4 and R2-D2, respectively) and a wookie's growl as the last line in the scene. (Zaalbar and Chewbacca.)
  • At one point in the game, Canderous Ordo tells of a ship he once chased until it crossed the boundaries of the galaxy; he says that the ship looked like an asteroid and spat fireballs. This sounds very much like a Yuuzhan Vong vessel from The New Jedi Order.
  • The HK-47 assault droid is a direct reference to Bioware's first game, Shattered Steel, where the player's transport ship is named HK-47.
  • The name HK-47 could also be a refrence to another game series, Hitman, which stars an assassin named Agent 47.
  • HK-47's references to organic characters as "Meatbags" is rumored to be an homage to the character Bender from Futurama.
  • The LucasArts game that eventually became Star Wars: Obi-Wan was initially going to be called "Knights of the Republic". The title was rejected as too generic.
  • If the Player Character decides to follow the path to the Dark Side, their face and skin will gradually become deformed as they progress. Eventually their eyes will turn a pale yellow as well. This predates the release of Revenge of the Sith, and was in reference to a theory, first expounded in Dark Empire that Palpatine's decrepit appearance was not entirely natural, but was due to his body being worn out by the Dark Side of the Force.

Critical acclaim

File:Kotrbattle.png
Final Battle as a female Light Side Character

The general critical response was enthusiastic. KotOR has won numerous awards, including Game Developers Choice Awards' best game of the year, BAFTA Games Awards' best Xbox game, Interactive Achievement Awards for best console RPG and best computer RPG, and has been named an Xbox Platinum Hit.

  • GameSpy
    • Xbox Game of the Year 2003
    • Overall Game of the Year 2003, across all platforms
  • IGN
    • Best Sound (Xbox category)
    • Best Story (PC category)
    • Xbox RPG Game of the Year 2003
    • PC RPG Game of the Year 2003
    • Xbox Game of the Year 2003
    • PC Game of the Year 2003
    • Overall Game of the Year 2003, across all platforms
  • Gamespot
    • Best Game Based on a TV or Film Property
    • Xbox Game of the Year 2003
    • RPG Game of the Year 2003, across all platforms

G4's show X-Play named the original KOTOR their Game of the Year in 2003.

The game is part of The Xbox Platinum Series, for sales in excess of 1 million units.

Sequels

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords was developed by a different studio, Obsidian Entertainment, using an "improved" version of the engine from the first game. Bioware was occupied with producing Jade Empire and wanted to focus more on their original productions than licensed games, but they recommended Obsidian for KotOR's sequel. It was released for Xbox in December 2004 and PC in February 2005 to critical acclaim, though the views on the game are mixed.

Gaming websites such as IGN believe that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic III is currently in development with an estimated release of 2007 or late 2006 . However, LucasArts and Obsidian have not announced anything regarding the possibility of KotOR III's development.

Cut content

The following content was removed from the final game due to time constraints:

  • The planet Sleheyron along with its corresponding Star Map, mentioned as the volcanic planet in the Dantooine computer.
  • An extension of the Taris Swoop Bike quest, in which a second level exists in the Vulkar base, and the player has to disguise himself as a Vulkar to infiltrate the level.
  • The Taris arena fighter Deadeye Duncan, who survived the events of the planet, would show up in Manaan and ask for rights to use the name "Mysterious Stranger". (This is available as a 3rd-party mod for the PC version)
  • An alternate ending for darkside females, in which the player can choose to kill Bastila Shan and die on the Star Forge along with Carth Onasi.
  • A possibility to buy parts for the Swoop Bike

Some of this cut content is still in the games files. This enabled some modders to restore this cut content, including the alternate ending, and the appearance of Duncan on Manaan.

Possible live-action television series

At Celebration III, Lucas explained that if the Live-Action TV Series (scheduled for 2008), along with the planned 3-D Clone Wars Series (2007) is successful, more television series may follow. He explained that he has considered setting the time frames of these possible shows during time periods far away from his films. When asked by a fan at his AFI lifetime achievement ceremony if this may include the Knights of the Old Republic/Sith wars era, Lucas explained that that is always a possibility, and that he may be interested in taking the franchise to those story areas one day.

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