STAR WARS: FATE OF THE OLD REPUBLIC

Will it be Darth Souls or Space in Vaders?

- Ian Evenden

A spaceship, its pilot using the kind of flight stick that wouldn’t be out of place on a PC gamer’s rig, lands on a desolate planet. Along with a droid and gun-toting companion, its occupant flips their cloak and heads toward a huge crashed vessel, kangaroo-like creatures bounding out of the way.

Something lurks within, and our Rey-like protagonist faces it with a narrowing of the eyes, before a Lightsaber ignites. The trailer for Fate of the Old Republic couldn't feel more like modern Star Wars if it tried, though there's a distinct lack of adrenaline-filled dogfights.

That's because Fate of the Old Republic is an action RPG, which doesn't rule out slamming through the skies in pursuit of a fighter, but makes it more likely we're looking at The Old Mass Effect. Set as many as 25,000 years before the three Star Wars films, the Old Republic is a fertile time period for game designers, as evidenced 23 years ago by Knights of the Old Republic.

Arcanaut Studios was co-founded by Ryan Hoyle, an assistant programmer on