Tight timeframes ended up in a rushed development cycle, in turn resulting in a game that had huge chunks missing from the final, playable product. Chunks that coders later found out were included on the disc, albeit in a rough, unfinished form.

So some modders took it upon themselves to yank out that code, polish it up, drop it into the final game and give us all the version of KOTOR 2 that developers Obsidian originally intended.

Last week, the team at Deadly Stream announced that their work was done, and that if you own a copy of KOTOR 2, you can download a playable version of the restored content.

I haven't done so myself because, well, I banished all memory of KOTOR 2 some time ago. Anyone that does have a copy lying around, grab a copy from the link below, let us know how it all goes.

TSL_Restored_Content_mod ver1.4 "READY" [Deadly Stream, via Eurogamer]

KOTOR MMO to be revealed soon [CVG]

"We've got two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry in development," said Riccitiello. The first title, based on the Warhammer property, will launch soon. "And the one that people are dying for us to talk to them about — in partnership with Lucas, coming out of BioWare, which is, I think, quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry at the point when we get closer to telling you about it."

Does Riccitiello mean the oft rumored Knights of the Old Republic Online? "Yes," he said.

Watch out World of Warcraft, you just might have some serious competition here.

EA to Play in Knights of the Old Republic [Portfolio]

The source tells us that the sackings are spread across the company, and involve (as we were told earlier) everyone from testers to head producers. They also re-iterate earlier reports that the number of staff affected is around 100, and that the cull actually began on Wednesday, and continued through into Thursday.

Most interesting, however, is the information they provide on how the layoffs leave the company severely short-staffed as they approach a packed development schedule, one which it appears may be increasingly outsourced. Some of the titles they report Lucasarts apparently have in this stacked pipeline, whether as publisher or developer, include:

- KOTOR 3 (They say it's an MMO: most likely a joint project between Lucasarts and BioWare)
- Battlefront 3 (which we've already heard about)
- "The Official Indiana Jones" game (probably this one)
- "another LEGO game based on the Indy universe"
- "a lightsaber game for the wii (sorry, no lightsaber peripherals)"

Two internally-developed games apparently far enough along to be unaffected by the sackings are The Force Unleashed (which they say has already "passed approval with SCEA and is ready to ship") and Fracture, which they say is described by team members as "an absolute piece of garbage".

As the testimony of a freshly-sacked employee, take that appraisal of Fracture with a grain of salt. And as the testimony of a freshly-sacked employee, don't expect Lucasarts or BioWare to go commenting on things like KOTOR3 or a Wii lightsaber game anytime soon. But it's certainly further food for thought.

Yesterday Luke posted about a slide from an Electronic Arts analyst presentation which seemed to indicated that BioWare was working on a new Knights of the Old Republic title. Electronic Arts contacted us today to request a correction on the rumor we posted.

The slide from the EA presentation was titled "Best Creative Talent", EA said, and it "addresses future and past titles."

KOTOR, Black, Boogie, Skate and some other titles on the slide speak to past portfolio releases and the pedigree of the studio but do not specifically address future sequels. The MMO in development at Bioware Austin is listed a "New MMO". We apologize for any confusion this may have caused.

Great so now we know that the slide may or may not mean that a new KOTOR is being developed by Bioware. The public relations folks haven't responded to our email asking specifically if Bioware is working on a new Knights of the Old Republic game.

Bioware at Work on a New KOTOR [Kotaku]

The Sith Lords Restoration Project is an attempt by mod collective Team Gizka to create KOTOR2 as it was meant to be played.

If you're here, you probably know that KOTOR2 had a lot of cut content, including some very important scenes near the end. If you didn't know: KOTOR2 had a lot of cut content, including some very important scenes near the end. You can read a lot of it and listen to some sound clips here.

We're adding back in as much of the cut content as is possible. We are dedicated to forming a coherent story out of these sound clips and occasionally-ambiguous action descriptions, so unfortunately, we cannot include every single cool thing that was cut. But, we will still have plenty of coolness, including:

* The long-lost HK Droid Factory! (not the same as the Droid Planet M4-78)
* Several ways to murder Visas!
* A whole new group of people who want to kill you!
* Multiple endings! (no, really, actual endings)
* Various ways to be responsible for the deaths of all your party members!

With good humor and high spirits, Gizka is releasing semi-regular progress updates, and claim to have all the help they need and are generally optimistic. There's no public patch quite yet, but checking in every once in a while seems like a good idea at this point. I'm sure Kotaku will hear of it when the first patches are released, so stay tuned. Eliza Gauger

The Sith Lords Restoration Project [Team Gizka, via Joystiq]