Depending on who you ask, Disney’s decision to hand Electronic Arts exclusive rights to publishing Star Wars video games back in 2013 has been a blessing or a curse.
Since shaking hands with the House of Mickey Mouse, EA has overseen the production and release of three additions to the universe. Two of these, Star Wars Battlefront and its sequel, while certainly not objectively bad, did little to convince fans that Disney had made the right decision. The original Battlefront escaped with only light criticism concerning value for money and a general lack of content, while the latter resulted in one of the biggest PR disasters of the last decade.
EA has regained some semblance of trust though following that debacle thanks to last year’s terrific Jedi: Fallen Order, with developer Respawn Entertainment said to already be hard at work on a sequel. With the aforementioned deal between industry giants due to expire in 2023, however, just how many Star Wars titles under EA’s tenure are still to come?
We’ll just have to wait and see on that front, but according to our sources – the same ones who told us Capcom is doing a Resident Evil 4 remake, which we now know to be true – one currently unannounced project is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3.
From what we’ve been told, the much-rumored sequel is in the works at original developer BioWare with a release tentatively pencilled in for 2022. Depending on the exact date, this could make Knights of the Old Republic 3 EA’s final Star Wars release before the license expires, though we can’t say for certain. In terms of story details, players will reportedly take control of a never-before-seen female character as part of a central plot revolving around the Galactic Empire’s fall.
Similar to The Mandalorian, this would place the narrative between that of Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, perhaps setting the stage for a potential crossover. As always, plans can certainly change and there’s no telling what can happen during development, but apparently the studio’s begun work on it behind closed doors and as soon as we learn more about what to expect, we’ll be sure to let you know.
