This is an IGN opinion piece from Ryan McCaffrey, who worked at Official Xbox Magazine from 2002-2012 during the original Xbox and Xbox 360 era before joining IGN, where he remains “the Xbox guy.” In the run-up to Xbox’s 25th anniversary, he’ll be sharing his memories from the platform’s first quarter-century.
Back in its day, the original Xbox was known as the “shooter box” – a reputation that wasn’t unwarranted. But if you ask me, Microsoft also deserves a ton of credit for popularizing Western RPGs on consoles. The countless incredible Japanese role-playing games on Nintendo and PlayStation platforms dominated the genre back then, but when Xbox came around, that began to change. Bethesda’s Xbox port of The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind was the first salvo in 2002, but it wasn’t until the following year when Xbox very loudly proclaimed to all RPG fans: “You need to buy an Xbox.” In July of 2003 – historically a barren desert for major game releases – Microsoft and BioWare launched Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It Force-pushed away any challengers, becoming not only my personal favorite RPG of all time, but one of the greatest games on the Xbox.
And, dare I say, it was better than any RPG on the rival PS2.
If you haven’t played KOTOR, I’m not going to spoil anything for you here. It’s a must-play that’s currently just $10 on the Xbox digital store (thanks to backwards-compatibility it’ll run on any modern Xbox) and I’d argue it’s well worth that even 20-plus years later. It’s still pretty playable despite its age, and available on a number of other non-Xbox devices, including phones and tablets. If you’re exceptionally patient, hopefully you’ll get a crack at a modern version if the remake announced back in 2021 ever ends up seeing the light of day, but that far-off possibility shouldn’t deter you from playing the original version.
Knights of the Old Republic did almost everything right. Chief among its triumphs was something we’d all loved in pen-and-paper roleplaying games but had rarely seen in a video game up to that point: it let you be angelically good or horrifyingly evil. Light and Dark Side meters in your character profile showed you which path of the Force you were walking, based on your actions and choices. This made the campaign both replayable and a box of endless possibilities for the curious player. I immediately took the plunge and embraced the Dark Side during my first playthrough, simply because I’d never played a game that had let me be this evil and actually have it matter before. Of course, this is an idea that the KOTOR team at BioWare would build upon for its next project, a little game you may have heard of called Mass Effect…
Ask anyone who played KOTOR at the time and they will almost certainly smile as memories come flooding back: there were the planets (like Kashyyyk and Tatooine), the characters (HK-47!), and one of the greatest plot twists gaming had ever seen. Those characteristics are all timeless, and ensure it remains a top-tier RPG, even if what was once a cutting-edge game, technologically speaking, now looks Roblox-like by today’s standards.
I reviewed it for Official Xbox Magazine and gave it a 9.4 out of 10, which was pretty rarified air at OXM back then; for context, Halo: Combat Evolved got a 9.6 out of 10. But what I remember most about playing it at the time is how it completely and convincingly pulled me into its story and world. I cared about my character, I cared about my party, I cared about the choices I made. Its story stuck with me for years after I finished it.
Knights of the Old Republic didn’t just blow away any other RPG on any other platform of its era, it legitimized the fledgling Xbox as a place where top-tier developers were going to make top-tier role-playing games. And to be honest? I wasn’t a huge RPG player before KOTOR. But after it, I became a far more serious fan of the genre – particularly of the Western variety. It’s not hyperbole to say that was entirely because of BioWare and what it achieved with what was, at the time, the best Star Wars video game ever made… and it wasn’t even close (cue the X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter fans coming after me in the comments).
In short, it’s hard to overstate how special KOTOR was. Because of that, I’m extremely skeptical that any remake – particularly after the development hell it’s already been through – can come anywhere close to doing BioWare’s masterpiece justice, but that’s a matter for another day. For now, though, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remains one of the very best reasons to have ever owned an Xbox, and it taught a generation of game publishers that if you trust your licensed intellectual property with the right developers, magic can happen.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
