Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic Remake Is In Serious Trouble
Knight of the Old Republic is objectively the best Star Wars game ever, but it seems like a remake is not a slam dunk.
This article is more than 2 years old
The highly-anticipated remake of one of the most iconic Star Wars games is apparently in serious trouble following the employment termination of two key studio directors. As we previously reported, the 2003’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was finally getting a well-deserved PlayStation 5 remake, and now, nearly one year later, the game is put on hold due to Aspyr Media’s internal turmoil and uncertain future.
According to Bloomberg, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, a remake of the best Star Wars game that absolutely nailed the Jedi Knight experience, is put on hold — delayed indefinitely. The studio behind the game, Aspyr Media, is trying to figure out what to do next regarding the game following the abrupt firing of the game’s art director and design director earlier this month. Apparently, the reason behind the firing and subsequent decision to delay the project stems from exorbitant expenses associated with the project.
Knights of the Old Republic (abbreviated KotOR) is one of the largest Star Wars gaming hits and among the first games released on modern gaming consoles following Electronic Arts’ loss of its exclusive Star Wars license. The original deal between EA and Lucasfilm (and its holders and subsidiaries) was set to expire in 2023, granting other developers, such as Aspyr Media, rights to publish their own games — this also includes a game developed by Quantic Dream, which has been awfully quiet about their progress.
Aspyr announced the game in September last year, after three years of internal development. Just under a month ago, the developer had finalized the demo version of Knights of the Old Republic, which was supposed to go to the production partners, Lucasfilm and Sony. However, according to a report by Kotaku, Aspyr’s leadership had crunched the numbers and told the staff that the project just wasn’t where it needed to be at that stage of development. A week later, the two aforementioned studio heads, Brad Prince and Jason Manor were fired from the company.
The parties involved with the development of Knights of the Old Republic didn’t offer a reason for the indefinite delay, but close sources say that a disproportionate amount of time and money was invested in the demo alone, which was released less than a month ago. Considering that Aspyr had promised its partners that the game would release by the end of 2022, which seems impossible at this point. The more likely release date would be 2025, right at the sunset of PlayStation 4, and only if the project doesn’t get canned internally, placed on the shelf to collect dust for years to come.
Now that Aspyr deems the project financially unsustainable at the moment, the fate of Knights of the Old Republic remains unclear, but some of the Aspyr staff members believe that Saber Interactive might jump in on the project. Saber is Aspyr’s parent company, which had done some outsourcing work for Aspyr, but given the current turn of events, it wouldn’t be surprising if the company overtook the development of Knights of the Old Republic entirely.
