Star Wars fans are concerned about a few recent developments regarding the planned Knights of the Old Republic remake, and many are worried that the game is being scrapped.
Originally released in 2003, the RPG is one of the most highly-regarded games to have spun out of the Star Wars franchise and, to this day, still enjoys a dedicated community—with the latest expansion to the Old Republic story released for SWTOR in Feb. 2022.
In Sept. 2021, Sony announced that a remake of the beloved 2003 RPG was in the works, in partnership with developer Aspyr, but the remake endured a tumultuous development cycle in the years since. Saber Interactive was said to have taken over development, but following wholesale changes to the Embracer Group, the situation is uncertain.
A thread on Reddit asking if the remake was canceled after the announcement trailer, published in Sept. 2021, had mysteriously been changed to a private video, leaving fans unable to watch it—and it wasn’t the only thing that was removed.
Tweets from the original announcement of the game were abruptly deleted and, while a Sony blog post on the remake remains live at the time of writing, it doesn’t paint a pretty picture of the state of the game.
While it remains to be seen whether the fiercely-anticipated KOTOR remake has indeed been scrapped, fans are not optimistic, with comments declaring “it’s never coming out” and they “never believed it was going to happen.”
Since the news broke, a Sony representative contacted Kotaku concerning the trailer. They cited music licenses as the reason behind this sudden wave of takedowns, but fans aren’t convinced their response paints the full picture.
Firstly, the only music in the reveal trailer is the Star Wars theme, which Sony shouldn’t have any licensing issues with. On top of this, Sony hasn’t addressed the social media side of the story. The company’s wording and lack of public channels could also be a deliberate attempt to sideline the game’s development status while trying to convince convince diehard fans that the project is continuing at a smooth rate.
Sony’s inconsistent response has only made fans more skeptical about KOTOR’s remake as anticipation for the release is at an all-time low. It doesn’t help that the story broke during a period where mass-layoffs and discontinued projects are dominating the gaming news cycle.
Thankfully, Star Wars fans won’t be lost for games to play in the years ahead as there are several high-profile releases in development, including Ubisoft’s Star Wars Outlaws, Respawn’s unnamed Star Wars FPS, and Star Wars: Eclipse, which will be set in the High Republic era.
