The remake of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic announced in 2021 saw its development halted in the middle of a controversial restructuring animating its development studio, Aspyr.
[Mis à jour le 27 juillet 2022 à 11h23] The news of the arrival of a remake of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic sparked the excitement of many fans last year during Summer Game Fest. A CGI trailer, the promise of a total overhaul of the graphics and respect for the original game and the machine was launched for Aspyr. The Texas studio was therefore tackling the heavy task of completely redoing one of the greatest and most popular RPGs of all time. A task that seems a bit complex today since the studio has announced the indefinite postponement of the release of the game. A situation largely due to a muscular restructuring underway in the studios of Aspyr Media. We will explain everything to you.
It is through an article by Jason Schreier for Bloomberg that we heard the news. Star Wars KOTOR Remake saw its development completely halted just after the dismissal of its design director and art director. A complete and voluntary redesign by Aspyr who later announced that the project would remain on hiatus until further notice. This decision by the studio follows the dissatisfaction of the leaders of the Texas studio with a recent demo version of the game presented internally, according to sources close to Aspyr employees. As a reminder, Star Wars KOTOR Remake had been in development for over three years now.
According to the two main concerned, the ex-design director of the game Brad Prince and the ex-artistic director Jason Minor, this dismissal decision was quite unexpected. In addition to the dissatisfaction of the leaders of Aspyr with the demo of the game presented internally, we can also invoke various other problems within the studio, in particular financial problems. As Jason Schreier writes, this demo had been the result of a considerable investment of time and money on the part of the studio, and extending this type of development would not have been financially acceptable for the leaders of Aspyr. Schreier also insists that the remake’s release date target was originally set at 2022 and has now been pushed back to 2025, which shows that the game was experiencing slower development than the studio’s original forecasts.
A trailer of a few seconds, it did not take more for the players to understand the stakes of such a revelation. Star Wars KOTOR therefore returns in a 100% next-gen remake, which will be released exclusively on Playstation 5 and PC. This new title is developed by Aspyr, a studio used to porting games related to the Star Wars franchise. We owe them Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast in Switch and PS4 version, and Star Wars KOTOR on Android. Suffice to say that the Aspyr teams have mastered their subject.
Although the Aspyr teams remained relatively silent about this remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, we were still able to glean some information. On the PlayStation Blog in particular, it is mentioned that Aspyr has assembled a team of industry veterans but also former teams present on the original title. A team now slightly fractured by various reshuffles at Aspyr Media. But the studio’s original goal is clear: “We’re rebuilding one of the greatest RPGs of all time for a new generation, with modern technologies, features and graphics, while maintaining the integrity of the story. and characters that we could cherish.”
Make new with old. If we are to believe what the studio has announced, it will be a question of completely rebuilding the universe of KOTOR, by giving it a new face, and bringing a game as respected as it is old to Playstation 5 and PC while retaining its basic features and history. It will therefore be real-time combat, exploration and experience gain, in short, a good modern RPG in the Star Wars universe. What could be better ?
For the moment, Aspyr and Sony have not communicated any official release date for this remake of Star Wars the Old Republic. We know, however, that we absolutely must not wait for it before some time. The development of the game was indeed put on indefinite pause in July 2022, after the dismissal of two of its creative and artistic directors. Pending the resumption of the project, some sources close to the development teams of Aspyr indicate that the release window would have been pushed back to 2025. In the meantime, know that Star Wars KOTOR Remake will be a PC and PS5 exclusive at the time of its release, meaning that Xbox gamers might have to wait 6 months to a year before getting their hands on it. In any case, we are impatiently awaiting its arrival, impatient to dive back into this legendary adventure.