Video: Watch Star Wars The Old Republic

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Video: Watch Star Wars The Old Republic

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...wait, that's not right. It was actually only about five years ago that well-known role-playing developer BioWare and Star Wars game publisher LucasArts put out the highly acclaimed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic for the PC and the original Xbox system. The RPG told a brand-new Star Wars story, which took place in a new timeframe (thousands of years before the events in the original motion picture trilogy), and let players explore both the Light and the Dark Sides of the Force as apprentice Jedi Knights facing an impending galactic war. And now, that universe is making its way online in the newly announced Star Wars: The Old Republic, a brand-new massively multiplayer online game, revealed at today's press event by BioWare at the LucasArts campus in San Francisco, California.

According to BioWare cofounder Dr. Ray Muzyka, although the traditional massively multiplayer game focuses on such things as combat, exploration, and character progression, the new game will attempt to introduce a "fourth pillar--story." Indeed, story will play a significant role in the game and will drive the motivations of all characters, including your own. In addition to choosing a profession from what LucasArts refers to as "a variety of...classic Star Wars roles," your character will also be able to pursue an education in the mysterious ways of the Force, either as a Jedi padawan learning the Light Side, or as a Sith apprentice, learning the ways of the Dark Side. The game will also feature "companion" characters that will join you in your quest and either fight alongside you, or betray you, depending on their motives...and yours.

Because the game takes place in the universe of KOTOR, fans of that game can expect to see people, places, things, and story elements they may already be familiar with. The game takes place in the wake of what is considered in the Star Wars universe to be a controversial political decision--the Treaty of Coruscant, which called for an uneasy peace between the once-united Republic and the increasingly powerful Sith Empire, led by Emperor Naga Sadow. Unfortunately for the Republic, the treaty was more or less a surrender agreement that ceded control of many planets to the growing forces of the Dark Side, even as the many defeats that the Republic suffered at the hands of the Sith divided the hearts and minds of Republic citizens across the galaxy, even going so far as to foster mistrust of the Republic's traditional guardians, the mystical Jedi Knights. The inscrutable Jedi, themselves, have withdrawn their central council from the planet of Coruscant to the traditional Jedi homeworld of Tython, where a new council grapples with the Republic's loss of faith in the Order, as well as with the discovery of ancient ruins that may house dark secrets, and an incursion of settlers of the Twi'lek race (the race of humanoids with long tentacles extending from their heads, such as Bib Fortuna from Return of the Jedi and Mission Vao from the KOTOR game)

According to the game's fiction, the Republic had originally held sway for a long, prosperous, and peaceful reign of some 20,000 years before suddenly coming under attack by the Sith incursion from the corner of the galaxy known as the Outer Rim. KOTOR fans will recall that this Sith attack came as a surprise both to the Republic and to the Jedi, who were caught off guard and suffered heavy losses, including the ice planet of Ilum, the desert planet of Dathomir, and the water planet of Manaan, whose peaceful, aquatic population appeared in the original game as an already-besieged planet populated by mistrustful fish-folk. Apparently, the Sith Empire, which had originally been in ruins, repopulated itself by settling and conquering the planet of Korriban, on which the Sith mingled with the inhabitants and also eventually erected its training academy, which players will also remember having visited in their time with the original KOTOR. Korriban suffered a minor setback when the Sith Lords Revan and Malak attempted to seize control of the galaxy during the events of the original KOTOR, but despite this setback, the Sith have returned to power and now use the planet as a seat for their Dark Council, as well as the home of their fearsome academy, where students of the Dark Side endure rigorous tests (that include exploring the tombs of their predecessors) in their quests to become Sith Lords.

Even though the game has just been announced, it's easy to see a ton of potential in this new game. Star Wars: The Old Republic has the pedigree of the experienced role-playing developer BioWare, as well as a very fleshed-out setting, the KOTOR setting, which itself represents a fresh new avenue to explore the universe that was first made famous on the big screen. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more updates on this promising game.