KOTOR 2 Update on Steam

[rhoenix]

Bioware's acclaimed Star Wars RPG series, Knights of the Old Republic, has long suffered a major pockmark in the form of the original game's sequel having a buggy, rushed launch on PC in 2005. KOTOR II was left for dead for so long, fans took it upon themselves to fix its problems, at which point they discovered whole swaths of cut content within the game—and famously modded the game to bring those cut bits back.

Even after the mod's launch and continued development, neither the game's publisher Bioware nor the game's original developer Obsidian bothered officially patching the PC version since April 2005—until Tuesday, that is. With no official Web or social media announcement, KOTOR II received its first official patch in over 10 years exclusively on Steam, and the update is crazy huge.

Most importantly, the game now includes direct Steam Workshop mod support, meaning players can download and install the Sith Lords Restored Content Mod with greater ease. Additionally, the game now runs on Linux, OS X, and SteamOS; natively supports PC gamepads; includes achievements and cloud save support; and can be viewed in both widescreen modes and resolutions up to 5K.

The Steam update notes indicated that the mod's group "teamed up" with the port's new developers at Aspyr, meaning that this is the most frank, official support we've ever seen for the game's restored content being modded back into the game. In that case, we wonder why Aspyr didn't just rope that content into the game's patch, especially since a leaked ESRB rating indicated that we should expect KOTOR II to land on mobile devices in the near future. Either way, Eurogamer's report on the patch confirmed that the mod's co-developer Zbigniew Staniewicz had offered feedback as far back as "a couple of months."

To celebrate the patch, Bioware has dropped the game's price 25 percent to $7.49 for a week.

Yes. YES. The Restored Content Mod is now available through the new KOTOR 2 workshop content on Steam. This is excellent news.