Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic looks like the KOTOR 3 I've waited 20 years for, and the original RPG's director is returning to lead it

Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic was the first major announcement for The Game Awards 2025, and it's a doozy. A brand-new single-player action-RPG led by Casey Hudson, director of the original Knights of the Old Republic and the Mass Effect trilogy, this looks to be a proper follow-up to the game that introduced a generation of Star Wars fans to the joys of RPGs – myself included.

The brief teaser trailer shows a group of characters landing on a planet, led by what's eventually revealed to be a Jedi, igniting a blue lightsaber to confront an unseen threat. The encounter happens aboard an Interdictor-class cruiser, a ship design that first appeared in KOTOR and has not been seen in modern canon.

The trailer also directly calls back to the original KOTOR with a three-character party, including a combat-ready droid that I sure hope is an HK unit.

Development on Fate of the Old Republic is being led by Hudson at Arcanaut Studios, which was founded earlier this year. The game is in "early development for PC and consoles," according to a press release.

According to an article on StarWars.com, Fate of the Old Republic is "not a direct sequel or continuation" of KOTOR, though it's taking some very obvious aesthetic inspirations from those earlier titles. Particularly curious is the "Old Republic" moniker, denoting an era of the Star Wars timeline which has not been thoroughly explored since the post-Disney canon was introduced.

"The Old Republic era is a rich and beloved part of the Star Wars galaxy," Lucasfilm games VP and GM Douglas Reilly says in a statement, "and we are thrilled to be exploring a fresh story that we’ve never seen before in Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic."

"Working on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was one of the defining experiences of my career,” Hudson says in a statement of his own. “With Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, we’re telling a completely new and different story with everything we’ve learned since - crafting an adventure about choice, destiny, and the timeless struggle between light and dark. It’s a dream come true to once again collaborate with Lucasfilm Games."

Fate of the Old Republic is filling some big shoes following up on some of the best Star Wars games ever made.