Knights of the Republic: Remake still alive – new developer
by Matthias Brückle – The legendary Star Wars role-playing game Knights of the Old Republic was only supposed to get a remake, then the project was postponed indefinitely because the studio was having problems. But now the whole thing is going to a new developer – who should pull the cart out of the mud?
A financial report from Embracer Group, which includes Aspyr and Saber Interactive, revealed: “One of the group’s AAA projects has moved to another studio within the group”. The rationale is that “this was done to ensure the quality bar for the title is where we need it to be.” Bloomberg sources have confirmed that this unnamed project is the KotOR remake.
Original dated 27. July 2023: If a game or studio theme of a Bloomberg article, then you know by now: Ouch, what’s going on now? Because gaming journalist Jason Schreier, thanks to good connections to the games industry, repeatedly reveals what would otherwise remain hidden from the public. For example, he reported on the bumpy developments of Cyberpunk 2025, chaos surrounding Dragon Age 4 and the torpedoing of Warcraft 3: Reforged . His latest article is – unfortunately – about the announced remake of Knights of the Old Republic. Here, too, things are going badly behind the scenes.
KotOR -Remake “postponed indefinitely”
According to Schreier’s sources, the Aspyr team is currently in crisis. Within a month, the art director and design director were fired. The whole project has been postponed indefinitely. In two internal meetings, it was made clear that Aspyr was looking for “new orders and development opportunities” since the KotOR remake was put on hold. 
There hasn’t been more than a teaser with the notorious Darth Revan for the remake of Knights of the Old Republic. Source: Lucasfilm Games
Development was much too slow
An internal demo of the game was shown to representatives at Lucasfilm and Sony, Aspyr’s partners in developing the KotOR remake. The developers were actually very impressed by this demo – the dismissal of the two directors (only a week later!) came as a shock. However, sources from Schreier emphasize that the development had progressed much too slowly. Aspyr has been working on the remake for three years – while there was talk of a release end 27, it was been a realistic goal rather 2025. The Studio Aspyr brought the two parts of KotOR (part 2 in the picture) to mobile devices – some had accordingly Fans doubt whether the developers would be the right choice for a full-fledged remake. Source: Aspyr
Game not pulped yet, might end up at Saber Interactive
Actually, the new version of KotOR was supposed to herald a new era of Star Wars games: For years, the license rights for Jedi, Sith, Republic, Empire & Co. games were held by Electronic Arts (Battlefront, Rogue Squadron, Fallen Order). This deal ends in 2023. Accordingly, Ubisoft, Quantic Dream and, up to now, Aspyr have already been working on Star Wars projects for Sony. What exactly will become of the remake plans for the old republic is currently unclear. According to some Aspyr employees, it’s possible that the project could be fully handed over to Saber Interactive (World War Z, Evil Dead: The Game). This studio had previously done mostly outsourcing work for the remake.
2023
