This week Bioware announced a brand new MMORPG set in the Star Wars universe. It will be called Star Wars: The Old Republic. As the title implies, it will be set in the pre-movie time period of the Old Republic, similar to Bioware’s previous title Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This news is by no means surprising given the fact that Bioware, who was formerly very much a second-party Microsoft developer, was bought by EA in the last year and I think this game might be the reason.

Obviously MMORPG’s are cash cows, but it would seem that Microsoft is hell-bent on getting Blizzard’s next game and other MMO’s on their Xbox platform at some point in the future, so it is not in their interest to not have their own MMO competiting with Blizzard. At least, that is my best guess. It could all be a manner of coincidence. Who knows.

Anyway, Bioware makes great games and more importantly, they know RPG’s extremely well. That’s their bread and butter. Plus, with their previous brilliant work on Knights of the Old Republic, this is not a new franchise for them. It’s a world they know, understand, and helped shape with previous games. If anyone can make this game work, it’s Bioware and perhaps Star Wars: The Old Republic will erase Sony Online Entertainment’s mostly failed attempt at a Star Wars MMORPG in Star Wars Galaxies. One can only hope.