Each week, Five of the Best gives love to the overlooked parts of games. The things you don't notice when you're playing because you're too busy doing more important things. But you remember them. They're there in your memory all the same. So much so that when someone says something like, "Which are the best caves in games?" Some immediately spring to mind.

So: which are the best caves in games? Let's give it a try, shall we?

I've been caving - spelunking - before, back when I was a teenager, and I'm not sure I could do it now. I remember having to swim in icy cold water under a stalactite and shimmy along tunnel-like passages. I don't know how I did it - it gives me the shivers just thinking about it now.

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I visited Obsidian Entertainment a couple of weeks ago for the reveal of the studio's first game for new owner Microsoft. If you remember, The Outer Worlds was published by Private Division, Take-Two's label for partnering with independent studios (Obsidian was independent when the deal was made). This was, then, a significant moment.

The game itself was a bit of an anti-climax - Grounded, a small-team survival game with a Honey I Shrunk the Kids hook - but I still got an opportunity to nose around the studio and see what changed post-acquisition and since I visited in August 2017.

The answer, in a nutshell, is "not a lot", which is encouraging. Obsidian still resides in the same office block in the eerily perfect city of Irvine, California, and still occupies the same amount of office space. It's still a bit tatty, which I like, and the only real sign there's now Microsoft money behind the studio is a pile of boxes with computers and monitors in them.

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A film based on Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is in the works, according to a new report.

Buzzfeed said the script is being written by Laeta Kalogridis, who's worked on Shutter Island, Alita: Battle Angel and Altered Carbon, among other properties. Apparently Kalogridis is close to finishing the first script of a potential KOTOR trilogy.

As Buzzfeed points out, at Star Wars Celebration in April, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy told MTV News: "Yes, we are developing something to look at," after being asked about KOTOR. "Right now, I have no idea where things might fall."

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Lucasfilm has shut down Apeiron, the ambitious Unreal Engine 4 remake of BioWare's classic role-playing game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

"It's with a great sadness that I'm posting today," project leader Taylor Trotter wrote on Twitter. "I recently received a letter from Lucasfilm instructing Poem [Studios, the team behind the remake] to end production on Apeiron. After a few days, I've exhausted my options to keep it afloat; we knew this day was a possibility. I'm sorry and may the Force be with you."

Trotter posted a picture of the Lucasfilm letter.

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Microsoft is reportedly close to finalising a deal to acquire Obsidian Entertainment, the acclaimed developer behind the likes of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity.

Word of the seemingly imminent acquisition comes via Kotaku, which cites "three people briefed on the negotiations" as sources. The deal between Microsoft and Obsidian is said to be "90%" complete, with one source stating that "It's a matter of when, not if."

Obsidian has remained independent since it was founded in 2003, so talk of an acquisition might initially seem unlikely. However, Kotaku notes that the studio has often faced "financial strain" over the years, almost completely collapsing in 2012 when Microsoft, under different leadership, cancelled an ambitious Xbox One exclusive called Stormlands that the companies had been working on together.

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Another of BioWare's old-guard has left the building. This time it's James Ohlen, lead designer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins, and director of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Ohlen leaves BioWare after a staggering 22 years.

"After 22 years I have retired from BioWare," Ohlen announced on Twitter. "I've loved my time with Anthem, Star Wars, Dragon Age and Dungeons and Dragons. But I need to take a break from the industry and work on something a little smaller and more personal.

"The most fun I've ever had at BioWare was as the lead designer on Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights. I've been a D&D fanatic since I was 10 years old and I want to be a part of it again."

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How do you follow a game like Knights of the Old Republic, the most famous original Star Wars tale a video game has ever told? Forget about Obsidian's sequel for a moment and imagine it was BioWare staring at a piece of paper wondering how to follow a twist like Revan's. Because once upon a time BioWare was - and it came up with an idea.

Yoda. Not the actual Yoda, because canonically he's untouchable, but someone a bit like him; we know so little about Yoda's almost nonexistent species even someone in his likeness would have the same effect: trust. "We felt like Yoda was the ultimate - everyone trusts Yoda," James Ohlen tells me, lead designer of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

James Ohlen was also lead designer of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins, and director of Star Wars: The Old Republic, the online game. These days he's creative director of BioWare Austin, and he's working on Anthem. He's BioWare through and through.

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