In what seemed to be an inevitability, Electronic Arts announced the closure of BioWare this week, including the cancellation of its current project, a future iteration in the Mass Effect series. The writing has been on the wall for some time, and EA's recent sale to Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) sealed its fate.
Much can (and should) be said about BioWare's ability to create fully realized, original worlds like those of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. But to write the developer's epitaph, we also have to recognize the incredible job it did as the steward of one of the most popular franchises in the world. BioWare truly understood Star Wars, down to its very bones, and that knowledge resulted in one of the best Star Wars games of all time.
I barely even need to mention that I'm referring to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. The hit from BioWare was its breakout success, remembered for its rich RPG mechanics and a twist that felt mind-blowing at the time. Without it, we may not have ever gotten modern classics like The Witcher 3, to say nothing of BioWare's own Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles.
The creators of Knights of the Old Republic had the vision to set it in a new era of Star Wars, thousands of years before the events of the original movie, separating its story from the main continuity of films that has become a crutch for lots of modern Star Wars stories both in and outside of games. The Old Republic setting was a bold new direction, allowing fans to see the height of the Jedi Order decades before Disney introduced the High Republic era. The worldbuilding was so rich and seamless, in fact, that even though KOTOR itself has fallen out of official Star Wars canon, many parts have been borrowed and adapted into modern Star Wars lore. Memorable additions like deadly HK droids, the barren planet Malachor, the broad outlines of the Mandalorian War, and even the existence of Darth Revan have become canonized into modern Star Wars in recent years.
KOTOR understood, better than any other game of the time and many since, the fantasy of being a hero in the Star Wars universe. Adapting pieces from the world of pen-and-paper RPGs meant you could specialize as a lucky scoundrel or a clever slicer (aka hacker) wielding a blaster just as easily as a lightsaber. And once you did start down the Jedi path, the game provided a wide array of powers to experiment with, which were in part determined by your affinity to the Light Side or Dark Side of the Force. That itself was influenced by the choices you made. And your companion characters fit into the world, complementing and clashing with each other as they brought different ideologies and priorities to your mission. All of these disparate systems went hand-in-hand to make a game that truly felt like you were living within the world of Star Wars.
Perhaps most impressive of all, Knights of the Old Republic took one of the elements Star Wars is most remembered for--the twist at the end of The Empire Strikes Back--and found a new angle on the concept. The question of identity and how it interconnects with fate is core to the Star Wars mythos. Luke Skywalker's struggle to accept Darth Vader as his father, and confronting his own darkness, is a key element that makes the original trilogy so meaningful. BioWare found a way to address similar questions with a reveal that packed extra punch because it was a video game. It tailored the moment to the medium.
Since then, many other RPG developers have iterated on KOTOR. Most directly, Obsidian made a direct sequel that was hampered by a rushed production schedule, but has since been modded and patched by fans to restore it to something close to its intended glory. It now stands as a well-regarded story set in the Star Wars universe that poses some unique takes on the nature of the Force and its relationship to its wielders. Other developers have surely been similarly inspired by KOTOR's blend of TTRPG and old-school CRPG mechanics. That's all thanks to the strong foundation built by BioWare. When The Fate of the Old Republic releases, it will inevitably be compared to KOTOR.
Studios are made of people, not branding. The talented developers who gave us Knights of the Old Republic have moved on, some of them years before BioWare was closed. But the name still has meaning regardless, and for those of us who fondly remember living out our dreams of heroic quests in a galaxy far far away, BioWare will always be synonymous with Star Wars.