Knights of the Old Republic, the seminal 2003 BioWare RPG, nearly featured a curse word that was ultimately deemed too strong for the Star Wars universe by Lucasfilm. According to Mark Darrah, a producer who worked on many of BioWare's projects, the development team intended for a character to utter the word "damn."
Lucasfilm, however, sent a note to the developers stating that "characters in Star Wars don't say 'damn.'" In response to this directive, one of the game's writers reportedly spent a full day meticulously documenting every instance of the word appearing in the Star Wars films. Darrah recounted that this research presented "19 times it happens in your movies," an effort that seemingly aimed to prove the word's existing presence within the franchise.
Despite this evidence, Lucasfilm's stance prevailed. Darrah, who was not directly involved in the original Knights of the Old Republic's development but was aware of the team's challenges, noted that such situations were not uncommon when working on licensed properties. He suggested that this occurred due to a newer ethos at Lucasfilm, which had already begun to phase out similar language in the prequel trilogy and continued to avoid even mild profanities thereafter.
This censorship stands in notable contrast to some of the narrative choices within Knights of the Old Republic itself, which allowed players to engage in actions that led to suffering, familial strife, and even the forced murder of a beloved Wookiee character. The irony of restricting the word "damn" while allowing such morally complex player agency was not lost on Darrah.
Darrah, whose extensive career at BioWare spans from Baldur's Gate to the upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard, characterized his experiences with license holders as consistently similar. He described a typical dynamic where a single representative from the IP holder holds significant authority, often making final decisions. While disputes could arise and appeals to higher authorities were sometimes possible, the fundamental relationship with the license holder remained a central element of development, regardless of the intellectual property's scale. He also recalled a less smooth experience working with Sega on the Nintendo DS RPG Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, where the absence of a single point of contact exacerbated difficulties.