September 2021 was a very exciting time for Star Wars fans. Almost two decades after the original game’s release, it was officially announced that the beloved RPG, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, would be getting remade on the PS5.
It was originally stated that developers Aspyr would be bringing the remake to life, but last year, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier alleged that Saber Interactive would instead be leading development. This matched up with news from The Embracer Group (which owns both Aspyr and Saber Interactive) that “one of the Group's AAA projects has transitioned to another studio within the Group”, in order to “ensure the quality bar is where we need it to be”.
Take a look at the trailer for the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake below.
Around the same time, Schreier reported that the remake had been indefinitely delayed, and more recently, Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb claimed that he doesn’t think that the game will “ever come out”. If true, that’s seriously disappointing, but to make matters worse, as Game Rant reports, it might not just be the remake that’s been shelved.
According to content creator 100% Star Wars on YouTube, back before the KOTOR remake entered production, there were “high hopes” at Aspyr for the Knights of the Old Republic franchise as a whole, and apparently, KOTOR 3 was planned to happen after the devs had remade the first two games.
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“In 2021, the company was now in a very stable position, and as they were on the precipice of moving the KOTOR remake into full production, they already had a small team that started the planning phase for the pre-production of a Knights of the Old Republic 2 remake,” the YouTuber said. “As I mentioned, Aspyr as a studio had high hopes for the Knights of the Old Republic franchise, and they basically wanted to be the new BioWare. And so with the KOTOR remake in production and the potential plans for a KOTOR 2 remake going into pre-production, you can only guess where this led to for Aspyr - a KOTOR 3.”
However, all this apparently fell apart when Aspyr presented a “vertical slice” of the KOTOR remake to Lucasfilm and Sony in 2022. At this point, it was alleged that Sony thought that the game wasn’t cinematic enough, despite the fact that Lucasfilm “absolutely loved” it. It’s claimed that this made the leaders of Aspyr “panic”, and fire both the design director and the art director of the game. This panic, combined with rumours of the game’s indefinite delay, reportedly resulted in loads of developers leaving the team altogether.
Even so, 100% Star Wars is convinced that the remake of KOTOR 1 will release eventually. Hopefully if so, Saber Interactive could end up fulfilling Aspyr’s apparent goal of developing KOTOR 3, but that remains to be seen.
Topics: Star Wars, Knights Of The Old Republic, PlayStation 5