On 6 December 2019, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Ars Technica has published an article about the modding community of KotOR 2. I was interviewed by the author of this article, Austin Taylor, for my same-gender romance mods for KotOR 2.
Romance? Yes, Please
#Unlike the first KOTOR, there are no same-gender romance options in Obsidian’s sequel. Leilukin, a modder on the Nexus Forums, has focused much of her modding work since 2016 on fixing that oversight.
“As much as I love KOTOR2, I have always been frustrated by the fact that the romance content with the companions and certain NPCs… are all heterosexual,” she said.
Some of these fixes are relatively simple. In vanilla KOTOR2, for instance, only male characters can recruit The Handmaiden upon leaving Telos, while female characters are the only ones who can recruit The Disciple during the main quest on Dantooine. By default, Leiluken’s mod simply flips that gender check, so only male characters can recruit the Disciple and only females can recruit The Handmaiden.
But Leiluken’s mod goes further than that. The most challenging part, she said, was finding every reference to the Exile’s gender throughout the game spoken by gender-specific party members, then “add[ing] extra dialogue that replaces the pronouns and splic[ing] voiceover files myself.”
To recruit both The Handmaiden and The Disciple at the same time, players can install the PartySwap mod by DarthTyren. That mod was initially lacking the same-gender romance dialogue from Leiluken’s mod. But Leiluken has since added a compatibility installation option, letting the two mods now work together and fully opening up the same-gender romance options of your dreams.
Read the full article on Ars Technica here: The modders who spent 15 years fixing Knights of the Old Republic 2