The Best “Star Wars” Game Ever Is Coming To Mobile Phones
We remember the days when games were played on consoles rather than phones, but we’re showing our age by telling you that. Mobile gaming is the trend of today, and because of that, some of the greatest classic video games ever made are being pulled out of storage by the people who made them, reformatted, and relaunched as mobile games. We’ve seen some of the finest creations in video gaming history find new life in the mobile medium in recent years, and now there’s another old game coming – one that science-fiction fans should get very excited about. It’s “Knights of the Old Republic 2,” which is generally considered to be the best “Star Wars” game ever made.
The history of “Star Wars” games has been a mixed bag, to put it mildly, and the history of “Star Wars” games on mobile phones is even less auspicious. Unlike “Star Trek,” which seems to put out a new mobile game almost every month, almost nothing worth playing from the “Star Wars” universe has ever reached mobiles. In fact, the most-played “Star Wars” games on mobile devices are those you’ll find at online slots websites like UKSlotGames, and they’re not even licensed products. Disney has taken a dim view of online slots and casino games in recent years and has pulled several formerly-successful slots based on intellectual properties it now owns. If playing those online slots is the most “Star Wars” satisfaction you ever get from mobile gaming, that’s about to change.
The really good news here is that it won’t matter whether you’re on Team Apple or Team Android when it comes to this revived 2004 game; it’s been remastered for both formats, and both versions come out at the same time. “Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords” will appear in the relevant app or play stores for devices of all kinds on December 18th across the world, with an expected price of fifteen dollars. Whether by coincidence or design, this is the same day that the last episode of “The Mandalorian” becomes available for streaming on Disney Plus, so it will give fans looking for their next “Star Wars” hit something to do during the long wait between seasons.
At the time of writing, we expect the version of the game that becomes available for mobiles to be ‘vanilla.’ By that, we mean that it won’t contain any of the extensive content that’s been added to the original game by a dedicated community of modders and hackers over the past sixteen years. That’s a shame for anyone who’s used to playing with those mods, but they’ll still be available on the PC version of the game for anyone who wants to use them. We suspect that the target audience will be people who’ve never played the game before, in which case they won’t even be aware that they’re missing anything.
If you’re one of the people who’ve never played (or perhaps even heard of) this fantastic game before, here’s the information you need to know. “Knights of the Old Republic 2” is set a whole four thousand years before the events depicted in “The Phantom Menace,” allowing the game’s creators to do almost anything they like without having to worry about the notoriously flimsy canon of the official “Star Wars” movies. Players take control of a former Jedi Knight living in exile after the near-total collapse of the Jedi Order. Just because you start as a Jedi, though, doesn’t mean you have to continue as one. At some point, you’ll be offered the chance to turn heel and join the Dark Side, opening up new storylines and making your character look much cooler in the process. We’re not saying that you should definitely go down that route, but it’s probably worth noting that “bad guys” tend to have a lot more fun and get much cooler powers.
The mobile version of the game has been handled by a company called Aspyr, who have hinted that they might be prepared to make more old “Star Wars” titles into mobile games if this one proves to be popular. “Knights of the Old Republic 2” is a prequel-of-sorts to “The Old Republic,” and it’s not unthinkable that “The Old Republic” could also become a mobile game in the future. It would undoubtedly provide the aging title with a much-needed influx of new players if that were to happen, and if this game sells well, it should be taken as a sign that there’s a market out there for it.
If all goes well, this might not be the only news you hear about “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic” in the near future. The original version of the game has been rumored for a remake for several years, and those rumors surfaced once more at the beginning of 2024. That game was released in 2003, and fans have been pushing BioWare to come up with a revised version suitable for the modern age in time for its 20th anniversary in a little over two years’ time. If the reports are accurate, they might not even be waiting that long. There was a passing reference to the events of the game in a recent episode of “The Mandalorian,” and eager fans are keen to believe that the reference wasn’t an accident. That’s resulted in a new surge of interest in the game, and so if BioWare really is considering it, now would be the right time to strike while the iron is still hot. Almost every great 1990s and early 00s game is getting remade at the moment, so we don’t see why this one shouldn’t join the fray.
Whether we get a full-scale console reboot of the original game or not, the headline news here is that the sequel is definitely coming to mobile phones, and it will land in a few days’ time. If you’re dreading spending the holiday season trapped in a house with relatives or people you struggle to hold a conversation with, this might be the distraction you need to get you through the holiday season. Even if it isn’t, it’s still a brilliant game that you ought to own in one format or another!
