A lead designer on Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) and former director of Star Wars The Old Republic (SWTOR) has revealed his plans and internal details on a reboot that never came to fruition.
It’s extremely rare to learn about the people at the top of Lucasfilm’s involvement with video games and this story is one of those small glimpses into the workings of the company. From Dave Filoni to Kathleen Kennedy, information revealing their thinking on a video game pitch is extremely interesting.
In a new interview with PC Gamer, James Ohlen who headed up SWTOR at BioWare for several years has provided some never before heard secrets.Ohlen worked at BioWare for over two decades and contributing to Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, KOTOR and of course leading SWTOR. During his time leading the MMO, the game developer began to plot a complete reboot.
What Could Have Been
“It was the chance to do Knights of the Old Republic online, it was a chance to [put right] everything I’d said that we’d messed up.”
According to Ohlen, he spent 6 months in 2015 coming up with a completely new vision for BioWare’s MMO. It was titled Star Wars: The New Republic. The developer created a game design document, presentations and even a mock-up trailer by the legendary Blur Studio. For those unaware, they were behind the iconic SWTOR trailers.
What follows is quite interesting. Ohlen pitched Star Wars: The New Republic to then-Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy. She greenlit the game. On top of that, he met with Dave Filoni “several times” who gave him some pointers. The new Lucasfilm president told Ohlen that “If you set it a couple hundred years before the fall of the Republic, we can have a tie in”. He will have meant The High Republic era.
Getting Lucasfilm on board was the easy part. It was now to convince EA bosses. Ex-DICE CEO Patrick Söderlund was also EA’s Chief Design Officer and he was not a fan of SWTOR at all. Despite that, Ohlen calls him great and convincing him on Star Wars: The New Republic was “one of the greatest accomplishments” of my career. Unforutenyl for James, EA’s board of directors dismissed the idea right away and that was the end of the project.
“We were going to be able to have a Star Wars: The New Republic, until the board of directors of EA, who all remembered the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic, and remembered spending $300 million,” he says, laughing again. “They’re like, ‘Why the fuck are we gonna spend a bunch more?'”
Would you have liked The New Republic reboot for SWTOR to have happened? Let us know down in the comments section below.
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