A new Knights of the Old Republic is reportedly in development ‘outside of EA’

A new Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game is reportedly in development outside of Electronic Arts.

That’s according to multiple sources including credited Star Wars insider Bespin Bulletin, which states in a recent podcast that a new instalment in the fan-favourite RPG series is indeed in development at an unnamed game developer.

It’s been reported before that a new KOTOR game is in the works, but this is the first suggestion that it might be in development outside of its original creator BioWare and EA, which until recently was the only major company making Star Wars games.

Lucasfilm announced this month that it would be licensing Star Wars games to other companies – including Ubisoft – as part of its new games label. According to Bespin Bulletin and others, KoTOR is seemingly one of the titles that has been handed to a developer outside of EA.

As well as citing its own sources, the insider also references recent comments by Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier suggesting that a project related to KoTOR was in development somewhere unexpected.

“Amongst my digging, I heard there is a Knights of the Old Republic project in development somewhere,” Bespin Bulletin said. “I talked to a couple of people, and I also found out that Jason Schreier said that it’s not with EA, and we’ll ‘never guess’ who the studio is that’s making this game.”

On broader plans for Star Wars game, the insider said he’d heard that “a bounty hunter game” was being developed somewhere and that EA was working on a “smaller” Star Wars game.

“I don’t know if the bounty hunter game is with them or if it’s with Ubisoft. But yeah, EA is working on stuff and there’s another unannounced [Star Wars] game at EA, which I have no idea what it is. I don’t think it’s Battlefront 3.”

Another person who occasionally shares information on unannounced games, Nate Najda of Wushu Studios, corroborated the claims that a new KoTOR is in development.

On KoTOR’s new developer, Najda wrote: “It’s not as mysterious as you think. It’s just not a household name most people are aware of.”

Released in 2003, the fan-favourite RPG from BioWare tells a Jedi versus Sith story set some 4,000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire featured in 1977’s Star Wars film.

Obsidian created a sequel, The Sith Lords, in 2004 and there hasn’t been a mainline Knights of the Old Republic game in the near-17-years since (unless you count EA’s 2011 MMO The Old Republic).

Last year entertainment publication Cinelinx cited two sources as having claimed that a KoTOR “remake” or “sequel of sorts” had been greenlit – presumed to be at Electronic Arts – after an earlier attempt at reviving the series had been shelved by EA.

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Although the original Knights of the Old Republic games have been officially wiped from Star Wars canon following Disney’s acquisition of the franchise, there have been signs it’s looking to reintroduce story elements from the games.

In 2017, some KoTOR plot elements were referenced in the Star Wars Rebels animated series, such as the Mandalorian Wars and the ancient Sith planet Malachor. A deleted scene from The Clone Wars was also reportedly set to include Darth Revan from KoTOR.

Later, an art book for movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker contained reference to a Sith Legion named after Revan.

In 2019, Lucasfilm also announced it would launch a range of media exploring the “High Republic Era”, which officially takes place several hundred years before the Star Wars movies.