"During EA's analyst report earlier today, it was seemingly revealed that in addition to working on more Mass Effect, Dragon Age and a "New MMO", BioWare are also handling a new Knights of the Old Republic title. Which means that, if accurate, it's not their upcoming MMO."
EA is Electronic Arts who recently purchased BioWare and Pandemic. Nothing has been officially announced yet but we now have a few sources all pointing in the same direction. Star Wars video games could be heading into a golden age with The Force Unleashed, a next-gen and hopefully PC version of KOTOR and then a new MMO towards 2009. (Again per Surfer Girl's post) Well keep you posted as we hear more.
Thanks to our friends Guillaume and "Master Devwi" for the heads up.
UPDATE:EA has responed to the recent KOTOR RPG among other rumors with this response:
"The slide in John's presentation is titled 'Best Creative Talent'--it addresses future and past titles. KOTOR, Black, Boogie, Skate and some other titles on the slide speak to past portfolio releases and the pedigree of the studio but do not specifically address future sequels."
Essentially, they're saying that the slide that sparked the rumors did not specifically mention a sequel. Well, take it however you like. Bare in mind we have yet to hear of a flat out denial from EA. LucasArts has not been able to comment on the rumors which, again, is not a denial. Time will tell...and hopefully so will LucasArts and EA...when the time is right.
UPDATE #2: Another wrinkle in the now seemingly endless rumors and speculation regarding a new KOTOR video game. We had previously reported rumors above about the next KOTOR with things pointing to it being an RPG and not an MMO as had previously been believed. 1Up.com is now reporting the opposite. See below for an excerpt:
"Today, a tipster contacted 1UP with portions of a script for what was said to be a "Star Wars online" game. The script's description of the game reads:
"This is a role-playing game set in the historical past of the Star Wars universe. Jedi and Sith battle across the galaxy with the power of the Force and are joined by soldiers, politicians and nobles. Players must choose the destinies of heroes and villains in a thrilling and dangerous universe."
Historical past? Jedi and Sith battling across the galaxy? To we Star Wars nerds, that sounds quite a bit like the "Old Republic" timeline, which BioWare Senior Writer Drew Karpyshyn helped flesh out with the KOTOR series and by penning the Darth Bane novels.
The script goes on to show an exchange between the player and a character named Fuse, a naive bomb designer. The portions of the script that we received are fairly heavy with dialog, which isn't typical for an MMORPG, but it does read very much like a script to a KOTOR game. This could mean that the two projects are still separate. On the other hand, the game was described to the tipster as an MMO, and "heavy dialog" is practically BioWare's calling card."
Really the only thing, I can tell that may lead us to the MMO conclusion is the mention of it being an online game. Otherwise, the description falls in line with the RPG rumors. Anyone else have a headache? More as we hear it...