Former BioWare Developer Says Lucasfilm Banned Profanity in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

The copyright holder remained unfazed even though the films also featured strong language.

Creating licensed projects comes with various restrictions, and Star Wars is no exception. During the development of the iconic role-playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, developer BioWare encountered an unexpected demand from the copyright holder.

Lucasfilm imposed a ban stating that using profanity, even mild terms, was prohibited. BioWare veteran Mark Darrah shared his memories on the FRVR podcast, noting that a team member even showed Lucasfilm examples of profanity from the films, but the ban was never lifted:

[…] one of the KOTOR writers spent an entire day rewatching the films, looking for every instance where a character used the word “damn,” because Lucasfilm’s feedback to us was that “Star Wars characters do not say ‘damn’.” And then you ask yourself: “Really? What about these 19 instances where that happened in your movies?”

Mark Darrah does not know whether George Lucas himself or someone else at Lucasfilm was behind this restriction. Ultimately, BioWare had to remove the word “damn” from its game.

A remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was announced several years ago, but the project does not yet have a specific release date or release window.

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