Rumor: New Star Wars MMO isn't from BioWare?

by Michael Zenke Feb 7th 2008 at 11:00AM

Filed under: Sci-fi, MMO industry, Opinion, Star Wars Galaxies, Rumors

Have you ever read the Surfer Girl Reviews Star Wars blog? Despite the name, she usually has nothing to say about the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Instead, she regularly drops deep insider tidbits about the gaming industry. Secrets Man Was Not Meant to Know type stuff. If she's a scammer, she's good enough to fool some of the best in the business. One of the men behind the curtain at the well respected site Gamasutra, Simon Carless, regularly deconstructs her posts on the GameSetWatch blog. She generally passes his sniff test.

So why do I mention her here? Because early today she dropped a possible bombshell on all of us who have been really hoping BioWare's MMO-in-development is Knights of the Old Republic Online. Says the Girl: "Next year's Star Wars MMO, not being developed by BioWare or Sony Online Entertainment, will launch simultaneously for PC and consoles alongside the debut of the first Star Wars TV series in fall 2009, of which the storylines of the game will tie into. Those Artistic Lucases already have a second online title planned that I've heard has nothing to do with Star Wars."

Jigga-wha? If this is true and the next Star Wars MMO isn't from BioWare or SOE, who is making it? Does this mean that BioWare isn't making KOTORO? I can't imagine that come 2010 or 2011 there will be three Star Wars based online games around. Anyone have a guess as to what's going on here?

Tags: breaking, knights-of-the-old-republic, rumors, sci-fi, star-wars, star-wars-galaxies, swg

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Mark said on 12:19PM 2-07-2008

If this is true, this is bad news for those of us who have been waiting for a SWGalaxy replacement from Bioware.

If an MMORPG is releasing simultaneously for PC and console next year, most likely its not going to be the deep Star Wars MMO many of us have been waiting for. Most likely it would be an MMO lite, which would be really disappointing.

Let's hope Surfer Girl is way off on this one.

Bioware + Star Wars MMORPG = Bliss

Jester said on 1:32PM 2-07-2008

I've doubted right along that Bioware was making a Star Wars MMO.. their early job hiring descriptions were for those enthuisastic for the Fantasy Genre and NOT Sci-Fi.

As far as someone else doing a Star Wars game, meh, maybe they will, maybe they won't. Is there really room for 2 Star Wars MMO's out there? Can anyone even legitimately get that license other than SOE? It would seem to me that if I held the license for the Star Wars MMO, I certainly wouldn't be letting anyone else make one to draw all my players away.

Ultima said on 1:43PM 2-07-2008

Yes theres room for 2 SW MMOs out there because SWG is possibly the worst MMO game ever made. Its planning was bad, its execution was horrid, its upkeep is nearly nonexistant, and the community is in constant struggle with SOE over the NGE after over 2 friggin years. If another SW MMO came out, and it was good SWG would last a month or two tops. Therefore there would only be one SW MMO. I really hope its KOTORO though...greatest RPG ever and it can get away from cliche star wars storyline and charachters, which while amazing dont make for a very open ended story, where as KOTOR is much more flexible.

Shinagani said on 2:42PM 2-07-2008

I'm 90% sure SOE doesn't have an exclusive license for Star Wars MMOs. But what crap is BioWare working on? Is it a Mass Effect MMO? I guess knowing them it's better to assume a new IP. They don't really milk their franchises. Crap, they didn't even make their own sequels sometimes...