3. Hostile Environments
No doubt many players will have found themselves bewildered at the selection of Peragus for the beginning of the game, it was not exactly a setting that allowed the player to settle in comfortably. I will confess that at first I shared this feeling, asking why Obsidian could not have the player on a planet like Taris to begin with? The hard truth is that I was, as I am sure many other players were, really quite scared. Peragus was anything but welcoming and I could not wait to get out. Some time later I realised that the game had to adopt a hostile environment in Peragus because that was the feeling it was attempting to evoke for the game. Fear and Mystery. Usually things to do with Star Wars are not that frightening (the Manaan underwater station from the original game did however) but 'KOTOR II' managed to on Peragus, that music certainly did not help either. How many of us kept pausing the game to look behind us for stealth shielded assassins on the Harbinger? Say what you will but the game succeeded in giving me the creeps at times, perhaps that is why some people rejected it so quickly. By no means did this make the game more difficult, in fact the game is much easier than its predecessor (anyone remember the waves of Dark Jedi on the Star Forge?); but in 'KOTOR II' the player feels more threatened and on edge due to the hostile environment the game creates. In the game's story both the Exchange and the Sith are out to kill you, the purpose of Peragus was to set the tone of uneasiness for the rest of the game. The environments of the game are styled so that the player knows that the galaxy is against them, though Star Wars is generally not set in a friendly galaxy 'KOTOR II' took this to new levels. The two planets that feature from 'KOTOR' are altered purposely, Dantooine has lost all its beauty as it resembles a shattered nation still recovering from war and Korriban has become a planet of ghosts. Whilst I think more could have been done with these two planets in terms of map size the changes made had to be made to fit the game's story, that the galaxy is crippled on its knees. Malachor V (above) is in many ways symbolic of the Exile's own state, a planet and person both broken and dead to life, drawing beings in and then consuming them. The environments may not seem it but they are a significant reflection of the game's story.