LucasArts and BioWare are crafting a new Star Wars game, an MMO, dubbed Star Wars: The Old Republic, the company revealed at a press conference early today.
The game is a "story-based MMO" according to Kotaku's liveblog of the event. "Something very different and very familiar," according to Dr. Greg Zeschuk, co-founder of BioWare.
Like BioWare's earlier roleplaying title Knights of the Old Republic, the game is still focused on the internal conflict between the Light and Dark side (read: good and evil) and how it plays out in relation to the game's world and the companion characters you choose to surround yourself with.
As for the story itself, the game is set 3,000 years prior to the events of the Star Wars films, a time that allows BioWare to create any number of new locations and events without altering the canonical Star
Wars storyline -- a move that is either a boon or a tragedy, depending on which side of the fandom you reside on.
As with KotOR, Old Republic will allow you to play on either the Jedi or Sith side, thus negating Star Wars Galaxies'' (that other Star Wars MMO) eternal issues with how to best implement the magical, light-saber-wielding warriors.
So far the game has only been confirmed as a PC release, though console releases could be a possibility based on BioWare's familiarity with development for those platforms.
No solid release window has yet been released.
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Images courtesy LucasArts
LucasArts and BioWare Reveal*Star Wars: The Old Republic [StarWars.com]
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