Master Vandar Confirmed for The Old Republic

Master Vandar, the Yoda-like Jedi Master from Knights of the Old Republic, has been said to return in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Here is the news as Gamervision reports it:

You might not know the name Tom Kane, but you've certainly heard his voice before. His work has was in the Up trailer, he was the announcer for the Academy Awards, and even fills in as a Morgan Freeman impersonator for "Robot Chicken" from time to time. Gamers more likely know him for his work as Master Vandar Tokare from Knights of the Old Republic. Vandar, for those who don't know, is the only other creature (worth mentioning) in Yoda's species ever in Star Wars cannon. At a panel at Wizard World Philly, Tom confirmed that he would be doing a number of voices for BioWare and Lucasarts' upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic.

"We actually couldn't remember how Vandar sounded," he said during the Star Wars panel. "No one in the room had any clips and we didn't have a copy of the game. I still don't know if we got it right." Kane has been voicing several characters in the Star Wars Clone Wars cartoons including Yoda, and has been tapped to bring over his talents to BioWare's fully voice-acted game. Besides Vandar, he will be voicing other characters as well, but didn't reveal any of them. It was already known that BioWare would be using a full cast of voices, but it's good to see that they aren't trying to do it on the cheap, and are reusuing some fan favorites from over the years. I wonder if any other Star Wars actors will reprise their roles in the game, or if Tom Kane's talented larynx will simply replace them all.

There has been some speculation on how this works with the continuity of the KotOR games. After all, for darkside players Vandar was killed at the end of KotOR 1 and even if he survived he was reported killed (along with a lot of other Jedi) in KotOR 2 due to Darth Nihilus.

Personally I fear that BioWare might be going with the canon lightside ending of KotOR (which would also mean Revan is male, which is something I would absolutely detest), but perhaps they'll write it such that no matter what supposed death you got he somehow survived it all. Or perhaps it's just a holo recording that we'll hear and not the actual presence of the character itself.

Either way though, it's nice to know that Master Vandar will be back. I quite liked the character.