During an interview with PC Gamer, James Ohlen, who was a lead designer at BioWare, dropped quite a bomb about Star Wars: The Old Republic. The MMORPG almost ended up with a completely different fate.
Ohlen stated that he had envisioned a reboot of the massively multiplayer title. In 2015, he spent six months developing a project then dubbed Star Wars: The New Republic. His goal was to correct the mistakes made at the launch of The Old Republic and transform the game into a sort of online Knights of the Old Republic.
Thanks to a mock-up trailer, Ohlen managed to convince several key figures, including Kathleen Kennedy, who was president of Lucasfilm at the time. Dave Filoni, the current president, was also enthusiastic about the project. Better yet, Patrick Söderlund, who was president of Electronic Arts’ internal studios, had given the green light. In the past, however, he had been radically opposed to the idea of creating Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Unfortunately, James Ohlen’s dream was dashed by EA’s board of directors, which blocked the project due to the astronomical budget required to create the base game. Thus, Star Wars: The New Republic was shelved. The designer stayed on for a few more years to work on Anthem before leaving BioWare in 2018.
