Classic role-playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic will rise once again on Apple’s tablet platform.
The 2003 RPG is heading to iPad, according to an exclusive review from IGN. Developer Aspyr (which has ported PC games to Mac for years) handled porting duties and optimized Knights of the Old Republic, which debuted on Xbox, for touchscreen controls. The IGN review says everything works well except for the movement, which feels a bit clunky. BioWare released the game on the tablet today for $10 on the App Store, which you can get here.
Many Star Wars fans still consider KOTOR (that’s what the fans call it) as one of the better expansions of the sci-fi universe. It has a well-written story, many excellent characters, and solid gameplay. Developer Obsidian released a sequel, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II — The Sith Lords in 2004. The sequel has its fans, but it’s rushed development showed in the final product, which was buggy and incomplete (though a fan project restored the cut content).
In 2011, Electronic Arts and BioWare released massively multiplayer online game Star Wars: The Old Republic for PC. This entry applied the World of Warcraft treatment to the KOTOR series with a subscription-based model. The MMO failed to maintain an audience willing to pay a monthly fee, so it turned to the popular free-to-play model.
On May 6, Electronic Arts announced that it nabbed the exclusive rights to make triple-A Star Wars games for consoles and PC from The Walt Disney Company. In addition to BioWare, Electronic Arts immediately put its Battlefield and Dead Space teams on making new Star Wars titles.