BioWare’s 2003 game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is one of the most well-known video games to bear the franchise’s name, and players were delighted to hear it would be coming to the current gaming generation. But much like Star Wars Eclipse, whose existence had to be reconfirmed by developer Quantic Dream last week, the remake for KOTOR is now facing similar scrutiny.
Earlier in the week, fans online realized the initial reveal trailer for KOTOR Remake was marked as private on YouTube. What’s more, previous social media posts from Sony—console-wise, the remake is a PlayStation 5 exclusive—had been deleted, even as users were able to pull up the posts either via the Wayback Machine or their Google Caches. When contacted for comment, Sony told outlets the removals were related to music licensing, calling it “part of normal business. We delist assets with licensed music when the licenses expire.” But as many have pointed out, only the main Star Wars theme is used in the trailer, which is owned by Disney.
Part of the reason for concern on the part of players can be owed to the state of the games industry right now. Aspyr (which has recently done remasters of various old Star Wars games) was initially on deck to created KOTOR Remake for a late 2022 release, but that work was put on hold last year when its pitch didn’t fully land with Lucasfilm and Sony. Months later, it was reported that development had shifted over to Saber Interactive. But both studios are owned by Embracer Group, which has spent much of the summer closing studios and shuttering projects. Whichever studio ends up working on the game, it’s believed the game will release around 2025 at the earliest, and that’s if things go properly according to plan.
All games can take years before they actually release under the best of circumstances. But the culling over at Embracer, and Star Wars’ general history with revealing and then canceling games hangs over the KOTOR remake in a different way.
[via IGN]
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