Upon release, it received generally positive reviews but sold below expectations. The game's many elements such as its combat system, the world and script, the constructed language created for the game, and the musical score by Jack Wall drew influence from Chinese history, culture and folklore. Their first original role-playing intellectual property, the game reused the morality system from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but switched to a real-time combat system. With morality-based dialogue choices during conversations, the player can impact both story and gameplay progression in various ways.ĭevelopment of Jade Empire began in 2001 as a dream project for company co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, who acted as the game's executive producers. The Spirit Monk is guided through a linear narrative, completing quests and engaging in action-based combat.

Set in a world inspired by Chinese mythology, players control the last surviving Spirit Monk on a quest to save their tutor Master Li and defeat the forces of corrupt emperor Sun Hai. Later ports to macOS (2008) and mobile platforms (2016) were handled respectively by TransGaming and Aspyr.

It was later ported to Microsoft Windows personal computers (PC) and published by 2K Games in 2007. Jade Empire is an action role-playing game developed by BioWare, originally published by Microsoft Game Studios in 2005 as an Xbox exclusive.