( Baldur’s Gate II routinely maintains a top five position on almost every all-time best RPGs ever made list.) On the other hand, KotOR 2 was literally the first game Obsidian Entertainment made. The fact that we had those guys to rely on and help out with cinematics was crucial.”Īs discussed in the previous article, Bioware was already an established company that made some of the greatest RPGs ever to exist by the time they got around to KotOR 1. They did so much of our cinematics work and our animators were so exhausted trying to keep up with what our stuff was during preproduction. “The contribution that LucasArts gave in terms of cinematics cannot be downplayed. And also there was one particular problem we had with the scripting that we never should have kept pursuing after a certain point.”Ĭhris also praised LucasArts for its assistance during development. That was a huge waste of time I don’t think really added to the experience people really enjoyed from the first game. “There’s a number of design decisions we could’ve made to de-scope the game. It was really hard to get additional programmers on the project… and having more programming support would’ve been good.”Ī lot of fans have judged LucasArts harshly on the rush it put on Obsidian Entertainment, but Chris doesn’t place all the blame on them. “We had all the growing pains of a new studio too. “There would’ve been substantial penalties had we not made that date,” followed up Chris. “It was like 14 months,” said Dan in response to a question about the game’s overall time table. In a 2013 interview by, lead designer Chris Avellone (pictured right), gameplay programmer Anthony Davis, senior programmer Dan Spitzley and lead concept artist Brian Menze talked about their experiences during KotOR 2’s development. The only leg up Obsidian had was the Odyssey Engine, which Bioware created for KotOR by rewriting the Aurora Engine they initially developed for Neverwinter Nights. Obsidian had half the time of Bioware to create a game comparable to the first. To put it in perspective, serious preproduction on KotOR 1 began during the early part of 2000. Even if Obsidian Entertainment, the developers of KotOR 2, started a few months before the first game was released, which they did, a year-and-a-half is arguably not enough time to complete a fully polished RPG with the same size and scope as KotOR 1 or 2. The sequel was released on December 6 th the very next year, after being developed by a completely different company. Its predecessor was first released on Xbox on July 15 th, 2003. The result was a game that was still favorably reviewed by critics but herald as not as good as the original, with many citing KotOR 2’s rushed development as the cause.Īnyone looking at release dates could tell you KotOR 2 was rushed. Like so many publishers before and after them, LucasArts wanted to get the sequel out a year after the first game’s success to capitalize on the following Christmas season. One of the common themes that kept coming up in discussions about KotOR 1 and 2 was the rushed development of the sequel.
I took each comment in stride as a viewpoint to try to understand and, after spending the 38 hours it took to beat KotOR 2, I think I understand where both sides are coming from.
After all the comments and searching a little deeper it seems like the split is more 50/50, although if you polled a group of gamers I’d still say KotOR 1 would win by a slight margin.
In the article I wrote about how I discovered the majority of fans seemed to favor KotOR 1 over the sequel. Fans of the games started suggesting how best to play the sequel, KotOR 2: The Sith Lords, and the discussion quickly shifted into polarizing views of which game was better. The response to the article was more than I could’ve hoped for. I was in a unique position to play it a decade later and discover if the game still held up or if it was fondly remembered due to the Star Wars trademark and nostalgia factor. Sure, there are games that have existed longer and are still popular to this day but it’s a game released in my lifetime, I remember the release hype surrounding it and seeing it run Day 1. I wrote the previous article, KOTOR: A Study in Gaming Longevity, because I was fascinated with how long the game had remained relevant in the gaming community. I’ve watched the movies, played a few games and even read a few Star Wars books back when I was younger, but I’m far removed from anything that resembles a Star Wars fan-boy. (Special thanks to Fh2Hi for gifting KotOR 2 and making this possible.)
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