Like the girl that got away, then came back, and then got away again, Obsidian still thinks about Knights of the Old Republic, according to IGN, and they want her back, and this time for good. This has come to light despite Bioware’s cruel insistence that Star Wars: The Old Republic is KOTOR 3, 4, 5 and 6.

“It’s something that comes up every three to six months,” Adler added. “We bring it up and talk about it. Not anything terribly serious, but we just say ‘wouldn’t it be cool if?’ and just develop some ideas for what we’d do with that stuff.”

You see? They bring it up and they talk about it which means it’s basically set in stone that there’s going to be a KOTOR 3 in development soon.

Since Obsidian has been mulling their own ‘wouldn’t it be cool if’s’ I decided to come up with my own list of suggestions for the next KOTOR sequel.

More Character Diversity (Because what’s more boring than being human?)

One thing both the KOTORs had in common (they actually had a lot in common) was you could only play as a human. This is criminal considering the plethora of alien races at the disposal of Star Wars developers. This is something SWOTOR has already done, as long as you aren’t free-to-play. The alien races of the Star Wars universe are integral to what makes Star Wars Star Wars. What would the original trilogy or the prequels be without Yoda, Chewy, Darth Maul, Greedo, Jar-J… I’ll stop right there.

Interestingly enough, no Rodians, Wookies or Twileks come to mind as the main playable character in any Star Wars game, which is a shame really. KOTOR 3 could be the first game to make that a reality.

Give Us a Proper Ending, Damn it!

This is a bit of an obvious one, but definitely worth mentioning. I think just about anyone who played KOTOR 2 felt it lacked a fulfilling ending to a game with a lot of moving parts. This one was Mass Effect 3 bad.

Luckily, if you have the desire to (and plenty do), you don’t have to live with the imperfect ending, or many of the other bugs and glitches players dealt with. Several dedicated modders have improved upon the original to include what they believe Obsidian had intended when they started on The Sith Lords. That alone is enough evidence that there are plenty of players willing to go out and buy a KOTOR 3 despite the existence of SWTOR.

Trim the Loading Sequences

You can complain about glitches, bugs, omitted content, and an ending from hell, but there’s almost nothing more annoying to me than excessive loading sequences. While I have sympathy for the original developers working with limited technology, modern studios have no excuse for not providing us with fully-fleshed out environments with little to no loading sequences. I don’t expect this to be a sandbox, but the higher the frequency of loading the less the player feels immersed, which is a neat buzzword studios have been using lately, but is honestly an important aspect when you consider how seamless open-world games like No Man’s Sky and Star Citizen will likely be.

Borderlands-like Co-Op

Though not an MMO fan, I had to give SWTOR a shot solely for my fandom of KOTOR. It wowed me in a lot ways with the sheer amount of content and stunning visuals, but I got quickly annoyed by the typical MMO formula and the limitations it set on free-to-play players (I was just out of college and very poor when I started playing) and didn’t feel like upgrading. I never really cared that I wasn’t able to join with other players with the first two games, but I did sometimes wonder how my character would fair against my brother’s Jedi (who was always hogging the Xbox when I wanted to play!).

That what-if could easily be reality in the third installment of the series. Obsidian should enable Co-Op just like 2K Games did with the Borderlands franchise where you can play locally with a friend or online on their campaign. Co-Op should work well given you are nearly always playing with friendly NPCs in your party anyway.

Let Me Kill Carth

You KNOW you were thinking it.

Decide the Fate of a Planet

“Resume the bombardment, Commander. Wipe this pathetic planet from the face of the galaxy”,still plays in my head when I think of the coolest Star Wars quotes ever, movie or video game, alongside this one. Grand Moff Tarken did it, Malak did it, Nihilus basically did it, but what about me? Look, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not some power-hungry and sadistic individual who wants to see countless lives in the balance and I’m DEFINITELY not saying if I had the choice that I would see them perish, but I’m just saying it would be so cool if I finally got to do one of the most Star Warsy things ever and kill a planet… I mean save one!

Give Us a Real End-Game

You just dealt the Republic a crippling blow and have all but assured your reign as Lord of the Sith for decades to come. So now what? The game is over? What?

With all the work you put into shaping the fate of the galaxy it sure would be nice to experience the aftermath of your decisions in the way that Fable III and Skyrim did. In all honesty though I’d be happy enough just flying around in the Ebon Hawk talking to HK-47 about meat bags or hanging out in Kashyyyk with Wookies.

However, since DLC has become such an important part of many of today’s games (think Borderlands 2, Skyrim, Mass Effect 3, Bioshock Infinite), KOTOR 3 could easily bring us a wealth of new experiences after the main game concludes.

You Do You, Obsidian

Obsidian gave us an excellent second installment to the KOTOR series in spite of its problems, and had they been given more time to polish it, The Sith Lords could have perhaps been the better game of the two. With that in mind, I have a lot confidence in the direction Obsidian would go with a KOTOR 3 if given another chance.