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[Storm Rider]

That's right!

At an analyst report earlier today, EA dropped a boatload of new announcements on their investors. Firstly, Dragon Age is due out in fiscal 2008 (meaning anywhere between now and March 2009. Dragon Age is the oft-delayed PC fantasy RPG from Bioware, for those that don't know. However, the more illuminating thing is that EA also said that Bioware has a new KOTOR game in development that is seperate from the MMO the Austin studio is working on. Nobody knows what the MMO is yet, so for all we know they could both be KOTOR-themed, but this is effectively a confirmation from EA that Bioware is making KOTOR 3. Kotaku's checking to make sure these statements were official, but publishers don't usually lie to analysts since they have a fairly big impact on their stock prices.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing to come out of this conference call was the revelation that Pandemic, the other studio that EA acquired in the deal that also netted them Bioware, is making a Lord of the Rings game. Pandemic, for the uninitiated, is the studio behind Mercenaries (and its upcoming sequel), Destroy All Humans, and the intriguing Okami-with-Nazi-killing game Saboteur. No more details on what the hell that game will be, but an interesting development nonetheless.

Also, Mass Effect is coming to the PC in May, complete with hotkey functionality for power shortcuts and a streamlined inventory system (which I wouldn't mind them patching into the 360 version, if they get the chance). No word on whether the recently announced DLC will be included, or whether it will have any additional content.

And finally, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 was announced. I don't really know anything about those games so I have no idea if anybody cares at all, but it's happening!

[KvP]

I was betting KOTOR 3 wasn't an MMO. Glad to see I called it.

[ackblom12]

As excited as I am for KOTOR3, Dragon Age is what I'm really looking forward to main lining the moment it's released.

As for Red Alert 3, I'm hoping EA does as good of a job with it as they did C&C 3.

[Storm Rider]

To be honest, I barely know anything about Dragon Age. I don't know what it looks like, how it plays, or anything. Plus, unless it comes to consoles it's highly unlikely that I'll ever play it anyway.

[Dimmukane]

I'm excited for both, really.  I haven't played a KOTOR game and after playing Mass Effect I think my opinion of it would be much lower.  Dragon Age just looks fuckin' sweet.

[Johnny C]

God I can't wait for Saboteur.

[KvP]

I'm excited for both, really.  I haven't played a KOTOR game and after playing Mass Effect I think my opinion of it would be much lower.

Actually, I'd say KOTOR is superior to Mass Effect in just about every way except combat. The narrative's much stronger, the inventory system isn't a hassle and sidequests are distinguishable from one another.

[ackblom12]

I would say the Paragon/Renegade aspect is done much much better than the Light/Dark Side for KOTOR, but otherwise yeah, KOTOR is just an overall excellent game.

[Storm Rider]

God I can't wait for Saboteur.

Pandemic's a fairly big studio, but I'd be awfully surprised if they managed to put out both Mercenaries 2 and Saboteur within a few months of each other. If I had to guess, I'd say they shift manpower over to the Mercs 2 team to get that out by Q4 and push Saboteur to '09.

[imapiratearg]

So wait, Bioware is making three games?

[KvP]

The main branch up in... Edmonton? is making ME2 and presumably KOTOR3. The MMO is being handled by the Austin branch.

[axerton]

KotOR 3
Mass Effect PC
Smash brothers brawl

....yep there goes my uni study.

[Storm Rider]

Bioware is a pretty bigass studio at this point. The Edmonton branch is working on Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age, the Sonic RPG for DS, and now apparently KOTOR 3. The Austin studio is, as far as I know, only for the MMO.

If I had to guess though, I'd presume that the ME2 and KOTOR 3 teams are in the early phases of development, when relatively few people are working on the game. Since Dragon Age is the one scheduled to come out soon, that's probably where the majority of the work is going right now. Unless KOTOR 3 is further along than I assume, in which case it might have more people on it.

[KvP]

KOTOR3 was originally "announced" several months ago. If it went into pre-production shortly thereafter, it should be pretty close to full-on production even now.

Most studios half the size of Bioware have at least 2 projects in the oven at any given time, as a general rule. Given their ambitions for the Mass Effect trilogy I'd wager ME2 went into preproduction before ME shipped and is currently in development.

And apparently DS development is easy, so they have a total of something like 12 people working on Sonic RPG.

[Spluff]

Hell yeah, Dragon Age.

Couldn't really care less about KOTOR or the MMO, as I've never played KOTOR, and MMORPGs are pretty much all terrible in my book.

[De_El]

Red Alert 2 was my favorite PC game when I was like, 11. RA3's gonna be some weird-time nostalgia.

[AngelofShadows]

Sweet