KOTOR lands on Steam

By Robert Purchese Published 7 September, 2009

BioWare's seminal console RPG.

BioWare's acclaimed take on the Star Wars canon, Knights of the Old Republic, is now available to download from Steam or Direct2Drive.

Penny Arcade Expo attendees visiting The Old Republic stand were offered a copy for free, but everybody else will need to pay £6.99 for the privilege.

Released in 2003 on Xbox (and later PC), Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic combined D&D role-playing with George Lucas' iconic universe.

The result kick-started a console foray for developer BioWare (expanding again soon with Mass Effect) and rekindled interest in the Star Wars licence.

Take a trip down Eurogamer's memory lane for Kieron Gillen's original take on Knights of the Old Republic.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (19) Latest comment 2 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • khaz #1 2 years ago

    Hooray! Even though I still have my original CDs the game doesn't work for me. Stupid Vista! :<

    *purchases with the utmost of haste*

  • ZuluHero #2 2 years ago

    Ohh.. does D2D allow you to play the game standalone, offline and not through a launcher?

    eh? Neg rep for asking a question? Which STILL hasn't been answered i might add. I don't want to use Steam, because i want to use this on a PC that isn't always attached to the internet. That isn't a negative for STEAM in anyway or form, i happen to like it for its ease of use.

    So excuse my ignorance, but i hardly think that's worth such a harsh penalty and i really pity the sad person that felt the need to do it...
    Edited by 3 at 07/09/09 @ 11:58

  • Thamuhacha #3 2 years ago

    One of the few Xbox games I still own. I could easily get it out again actually. Big love.

  • khaz #4 2 years ago

    @ZuluHero: Not on Steam, they're very much the Itunes of gaming. If GoG or one of the others can get KotoR maybe but I doubt Lucasarts will allow any D2D service to sell their games if they can be played standalone.

  • hiddenranbir #5 2 years ago

    I don't think LucasArts has dealed with GoG at all.

    Shame, I could imagine all the sweet extras we'd get, plus if they did KotOR2, they could have managed to offer it with some fan fixes from the get go (Like they did with Warlords 3)

  • khaz #6 2 years ago

    I see its available here too: [link url=http://www.di rect2drive.co.uk/3/8381/product/Buy-Star-Wars:-Knights-of-th e-Old-Republic-UK-Download
    ]http://ww w.direct2drive.co.uk/3/8381/pro...[/link]

    Anyone here uses D2D? Do they have a similar policy to steam or is it standalone?

  • StooMonster #7 2 years ago

    I tracked down DVDs of KotOR and KotOR2 about 18-months ago, as games to play on my Mac Books Pro's dual-boot whilst on holiday. Worked flawlessly in Vista Enterprises for me.

    However, never finished them -- too many good 'new' titles on PC and consoles -- so considering buying on Steam where I won't have to put disc in drive to play.

    Wasn't KotOR2 from a different publisher? Wonder what that means for Steam distribution.

    BTW, here's a reason to love Steam. Rebuilt my workstation using Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit last week with my MSDN provided license. I keep my games installs on a separate hard drive to the OS, and after the OS was rebuilt simply had to reinstall the main Steam client (which took seconds) and all my games were back to life! Contrast this with an acquaintance I was talking to yesterday who hates Steam, rebuilt his PC last week (XP, his previous XP had died), and then spent the best part of two days reinstalling all his games and their associated patches.

  • systems #8 2 years ago

    @StooMonster - same here. Rebuilt my Vista Enterprise with 7 Enterprise and the games were all good once the steam client was installed. Everything else has to be reinstalled unless you happened to have the registry keys saved.

  • HenryFitz #9 2 years ago

    Direct2Drive's games are mostly playable offline following an activation procedure, but I recently purchased Mirror's Edge from there, and it was not.

    Steam allows you to play most of its games in offline mode, provided that you log back in periodically. I'm not sure how often. I read that it was every two weeks, but I don't know if that still applies. However, GTAIV, for example, does not allow you to save your game while offline, and I'm sure there are others.

    I am a mine of doubtful and incomplete information.

  • StooMonster #10 2 years ago

    People go offline?

  • davisorle #11 2 years ago

    @khaz
    Only read your post .. and since im a gamer etc... and i loved Vista cause i was so bored of XP do yourself the favor and get a copy of Win7. Just think of something more usefull and pretty that Vista yet as reliable and fast as XP and more flexible. Throw Vista away and move on :p ( also x64 version of the OS is even better implemented this time around, trust me on that one too. Hope I told you as simple and plain as possible on why youd wanna move from Vista to Win7 :) )

  • Rodriguez #12 2 years ago

    @ StooMonster
    KoTOR 2 was published by LucasArts, same as KoTOR 1. The only difference was that Obsidian developed KoTOR 2, whereas Bioware had developed the first game.

  • Seoh #13 2 years ago

    D2D does not work with a launcher or require constant internet connection (unless the game itself does eg battleforge)

    Download, install and then activate over the internet once.

  • Roamer #14 2 years ago

    Make it a 'Games on Demand'-title and you'd have my money, Bioware (and MS).

  • Scimarad #15 2 years ago

    I'm having that!

  • organica #16 2 years ago

    I foolishly loaned my copy out to someone a while back and have seen hide nor hair of it since. I suspect the Steam version will be more compatible with Vista as well, so this might have to be a purchase (and the inevitable replay will be pretty damn sweet as well).

  • loopy #17 2 years ago

    I never played this when it originally come out, but his was an offer too good to refuse....

    Bought and downloading now! :D

  • Velios #18 2 years ago

    oooh! downloading now :)

  • Rusty_M #19 2 years ago

    Gimmie the sequel. I tried that on backwards compatibility on the 360. Things got so bad that you could measure seconds per frame rather than than frames per second for a gruelling section. Even on a turn based RPG that makes things unplayable. I loved the first game and really want to experience the second property.