Setting The game takes place five years after the events of
Knights of the Old Republic and 3,919 years before
Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in a time when the
Jedi have been nearly exterminated by the
Sith. The player's character, a former Jedi Knight exiled from the Jedi Order, is referred to as "The Exile" or "Jedi Exile". Throughout the game, the Exile restores their connection to the Force while, with the help of playable companions, setting out to stop the Sith. The player makes choices that turn the Exile to either the light side or the dark side of the Force, and they travel to six planets to either help or hinder the Republic's efforts to bring peace and stability to the galaxy. New playable locations in
Knights of the Old Republic II include Telos, Onderon and its moon Dxun, Malachor V, the Peragus Mining Facility, and various starships such as the hijacked Republic cruiser
Harbinger, the Sith cruiser
Ravager, and Goto's yacht orbiting Nar Shaddaa.
Characters The Exile's backstory reveals that the character served under
Revan during the Mandalorian Wars and ordered the activation of a devastating weapon in the climactic battle over Malachor V. The deaths that ensued created such a substantial "wound" in
the Force that the character was forced to sever their connection to the Force to survive, and the Jedi Council ordered the character exiled from the Jedi Order. pilot and former Sith
assassin Atton Rand; technician and Mandalorian War veteran
Bao-Dur and his droid remote; the criminal droid
G0-T0; and the Sith apprentice
Visas Marr.
T3-M4 and
Canderous Ordo (now identified as "
Mandalore"), both featured in the first game, also join the Exile's team. Other characters join the Exile's party under certain conditions.
HK-47, who appears in the first game, joins the quest if the Exile collects and uses the parts necessary to reactivate him. Depending on the player's alignment, the Exile will either be joined by the
bounty hunter Mira (light side or neutral) or by her rival, a
Wookiee bounty hunter known as
Hanharr (dark side). Depending on the player's gender, the Exile will either be joined by Mical the Disciple (female Exile) or Brianna the
Handmaiden (male Exile). The game features three main antagonists: Darth Traya, a mysterious assailant who remains in the dark through most of the game;
Darth Sion, an undead Sith Lord who once served under
Exar Kun in the Great Sith War (as seen in
Tales of the Jedi); and
Darth Nihilus, a Sith Lord whose physical being was destroyed due to his immense affinity to the Force. These three Sith Lords are leaders of a loose affiliation of warriors and assassins leftover from
Darth Malak's empire from the previous game. Between the events of that game and this one, the Sith have launched a largely successful genocide campaign against the Jedi Order. Another major antagonist is
Atris, a former member of the Jedi Council whose unethical efforts to thwart the Sith come into conflict with the Exile.
Plot While hiding on the
Harbinger, a Republic cruiser, the Exile is sedated by an HK-50 assassin droid to be delivered to a crime syndicate called the Exchange, who have put out a bounty on live Jedi. The Exile is rescued by Kreia, with whom the Exile forms a Force Bond, and the droid T3-M4 on the
Ebon Hawk, and the three flee the
Harbinger as it is hijacked by a squad of Sith assassins. However, their ship is damaged during the escape by the
Harbingers gunfire, and they eventually arrive at the Peragus Mining Facility. Teaming up with smuggler Atton Rand, the group escapes to the planet Telos IV. While hiding out on Telos, they encounter Atris, a surviving member of the Jedi Council who sentenced the protagonist to exile ten years prior and plans to rebuild the Jedi Order on her terms. After settling a dispute regarding the Exile's past sentence, Atris forms an uneasy alliance with them, instructing them to seek out other surviving Jedi in order to rally against the Sith. The Exile then travels to four worlds to find reclusive Jedi Masters and either beg for their aid or kill them in revenge for being exiled, depending on player choice. As the Exile continues their journey, they are joined by several individuals in their quest. Through the game, clues and characters imply the events of from the previous installments, where the Jedi Knight Revan turned to the dark side and waged war against the Republic, were actually part of a greater plan to unify and strengthen the Republic against a true menace. Revan would have discovered the Mandalorian Wars were staged all along by a hidden enemy, leading him to turn voluntarily to the dark side and conquer the Republic to ready it. These hidden enemies are hinted to be Sith hiding in the Unknown Regions of the galaxy. After finding all the Masters, the Exile travels back to
Dantooine and learns that the countless deaths at Malachor V resulted in the Exile unconsciously giving up their connection to the Force, which then became the teachings of the new Sith. If the player aided the Jedi Masters, they prepare to strip the Exile of their Force connection permanently, as the Masters fear that it could result in the actual death of the Force, but Kreia reveals herself to be the former leader of the Sith and murders them all in retribution. If the player killed the Jedi Masters, Kreia attacks the Exile and leaves. Tracking Kreia to Telos, the Exile fights and defeats a corrupted Atris, from whom it is learned that Kreia plans to strengthen a massive "wound" in the Force made ten years prior in Malachor V. This "wound" had been created by the Exile during the Mandalorian Wars, when they activated a gravitational superweapon, the Mass Shadow Generator, in order to end the battle on the planet Malachor V, causing mass death and destruction. Before following her to Malachor, where Kreia had since rejoined the Sith as Darth Traya, the Exile stops a Sith invasion of Telos, defeating one of Traya's former apprentices, the Sith Lord Darth Nihilus. On Malachor V, the Exile is separated from their companions and fights through hordes of monsters on the planet's surface and the inhabitants of a large Sith Academy who survived the cataclysm. On the final floor of the academy, the Exile kills the Sith Lord Darth Sion and confronts Darth Traya in the planet's core. The Exile defeats the Sith Lord, but before Traya dies, she delivers a prophetic vision of the future pertaining to the player's companions and the worlds that were visited over the course of the story. If the Exile's alignment is with the light side, they order the destruction of Malachor V, escape before it is destroyed, and travel into the Unknown Regions in search of Revan, who is implied to have left to find the true Sith. If the Exile is with the dark side, they remain on Malachor V as the new Dark Lord of the Sith. ==Development==