KOTOR Remake Announced + Teaser *UPDATE* It appears canceled





@Slobodan Could you please add to the thread title 'Delayed Indefinitely?' It'd be appreciated.

"Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, a remake of a 2003 role-playing game, is delayed indefinitely as developers at Austin, Texas-based Aspyr Media try to figure out what comes next. Aspyr also abruptly fired the game’s art director and design director this month. In a series of meetings throughout July, Aspyr’s two studio heads told employees that the project is on pause and that the company will look for new contracts and development opportunities, said the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the situation.

Knights of the Old Republic was to be one of the first modern Star Wars console games released outside of Electronic Arts Inc., which had previously held the exclusive licensing rights. That deal expires in 2023, opening the door for new Star Wars games from outside companies like Aspyr, Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Quantic Dream SA.

On June 30, Aspyr finalized a demo of the game, known as a vertical slice, to show to production partners Lucasfilm Ltd. LLC and Sony Group Corp. The developers were excited about it and felt like they were on track, according to a person familiar with the project, so they were shocked by what happened next.


The following week, the company fired design director Brad Prince and art director Jason Minor. Neither responded to requests for comment, but Minor suggested on a social media page that his dismissal was unexpected.

Representatives for Aspyr and Embracer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Aspyr’s studio heads told staff that the vertical slice wasn’t where they wanted it to be and that the project would be paused, according to two people who were in the meeting. One person familiar with the discussions suggested that a disproportionate amount of time and money had gone into the demo and that the project’s current course wasn’t sustainable. Another point of contention may be the timeline. At the outset of development, Aspyr told staff and partners it would release the game by the end of 2022, according to two people familiar with production. Developers said a more realistic target now would be 2025.

The fate of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic remains unclear. In May, Embracer announced that Saber Interactive would also join the project. Some at Aspyr believe that Saber, which has mainly been doing outsourcing work for the project, may take it over completely."



Disappointing, but not unexpected. Given how completely green the development studio was with Triple-A games (Although having team members from other major developers, but this studio only doing ports of old Star Wars games to the Switch and other modern consoles).

Done, just added.
 
Amongst the details, this seems like the most interesting.

Who has ever heard of design directors & art directors being the reason development of a game being lackluster, resulting in the 'indefinite delay' (Nice way of saying cancelled until said otherwise) of the entire development?

I've heard of a game director and numerous high-importance positions being fired (usually related to programing), but never anything related to art.

Interesting.



Wow.

They royally fucked up on this one.

Its not mentioned when development began, but I got the feeling when it was announced it was still in early development due to the fact they didn't show anything at all. Just Jennifer Hale (Bastilla's voice actress) doing a voice-over and the KOTOR logo shows up at the end.

I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and estimate the development began in at the beginning of 2021, it was announced in September 2021, with an internal release goal of.... end of 2022? Are you shitting me?

Even if I'm 100% wrong and it began development a year before it was announcement it would have had a 2.5 year development cycle, with a team that's only history is making old games work on new hardware, remaking a Triple-A classic.

This was a failure before it ever began.

Bet the studioheads thought they were expert bullshit merchants, promising a late 2022 release date, but counting on impressing the executives at Sony with what they had so far they could ask for more money and time and they'd get it.

What a clusterfuck if I'm right.
And if I'm wrong its still a clusterfuck.
According to the link I posted, the project was in development for 3 years prior to announcement.
 
According to the link I posted, the project was in development for 3 years prior to announcement.
Development can mean when they started their pitch for the remake. They likely had a handful of people working in it for most of it, with more coming on in the last twoish years.
To me it sounds almost like is that the devs wanted a FFVII style remake, and management wanted a crash Bandicoot/spyro type remake.
 
Looks like Saber Interactive were supposed to be brought in to help in May
 
According to the link I posted, the project was in development for 3 years prior to announcement.

'In Develpment' could mean they had a few people of the entire studio kicking around ideas and working on multiple projects for the planning phase of development.
 
'In Develpment' could mean they had a few people of the entire studio kicking around ideas and working on multiple projects for the planning phase of development.


It could also mean they were in the development process of a video game.

We don't really know these answers and probably won't get specifics. But I don't think we should throw out the concept and planning phase out of a games development length.
 
It could also mean they were in the development process of a video game.

We don't really know these answers and probably won't get specifics. But I don't think we should throw out the concept and planning phase out of a games development length.

Yeah, and based on the announcement trailer its doesn't imply they were 3 years into development.

Kinda like how Cyberpunk had an 8 year development cycle, since its announcement trailer in 2012, which implies it had a 3 to 4 years of planning, because everyone knows development with a sizable team started after Witcher 3 was released in 2015, or after its final expansion dropped 15 months later.
 
Yeah, and based on the announcement trailer its doesn't imply they were 3 years into development.

Kinda like how Cyberpunk had an 8 year development cycle, since its announcement trailer in 2012, which implies it had a 3 to 4 years of planning, because everyone knows development with a sizable team started after Witcher 3 was released in 2015, or after its final expansion dropped 15 months later.


Ok, but I'm not sure what the point is. What does it matter what the size of the team developing it was? Team sizes and phases are part of the process. If the bulk of a studio is working on a main project and a minority are working on a future project that doesn't mean the game isn't being developed yet.

I don't know what the announcement trailer said that would tell you how long they were making it?
 
I don't know what the announcement trailer said that would tell you how long they were making it

Watch the trailer again. Its in the OP.

Its basically a voiceover by the Bastilla actress and it shows the KOTOR logo. It was an announcement/teaser trailer without any release date window, highly implying the project was in early development.

Not 3 years into development.
 
I don't know what the announcement trailer said that would tell you how long they were making it?

unfortunately a lot of the time with some of these announcement trailers now it's more for job recruitment. As soon as the trailers are live, job adverts for the studios pop up straight away. The crysis 4 trailer is a classic recent example of it, same with the Quantic Dream Star Wars game
 
It was a giant mistake for Sony & LucasArts to go with a very inexperienced management in a new development studio.

They could have gone with this (new) studio filled with industry veterans from Bioware and other RPG-centered studios.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype_Entertainment

"Archetype Entertainment is an American video game development studio established as a division of game developer and publisher Wizards of the Coast, itself a subsidiary of Hasbro. The Austin, Texas-based studio was created by Wizards in April 2019 to develop new intellectual property outside of Wizards' existing Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering franchises. Archetype is notable for having drawn talent from former BioWare staff that had previously worked on Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games such as the Baldur's Gate series among other titles, but had since left the studio after its acquisition by Electronic Arts. These include James Ohlen, Chad Robertson, and Drew Karpyshyn."

James Ohlen and Drew Karpyshyn were two of the writers for the original KOTOR game.
 
It was a giant mistake for Sony & LucasArts to go with a very inexperienced management in a new development studio.

They could have gone with this (new) studio filled with industry veterans from Bioware and other RPG-centered studios.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype_Entertainment

"Archetype Entertainment is an American video game development studio established as a division of game developer and publisher Wizards of the Coast, itself a subsidiary of Hasbro. The Austin, Texas-based studio was created by Wizards in April 2019 to develop new intellectual property outside of Wizards' existing Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering franchises. Archetype is notable for having drawn talent from former BioWare staff that had previously worked on Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games such as the Baldur's Gate series among other titles, but had since left the studio after its acquisition by Electronic Arts. These include James Ohlen, Chad Robertson, and Drew Karpyshyn."

James Ohlen and Drew Karpyshyn were two of the writers for the original KOTOR game.

I very much doubt they’d be interested in doing a remake of a game they already did, especially since their focus appears to be making future D&D games for Wizards of the Coast which as it points out in that statement is how Bioware really got on the map in the first place with Baldur’s Gate back in the day.

Rather Sony should have considered using a studio with expertise in remakes, like Bluepoint or at a minimum expertise in remasters like Night Dive Studios or Sabre Interactive.
 
I very much doubt they’d be interested in doing a remake of a game they already did, especially since their focus appears to be making future D&D games for Wizards of the Coast which as it points out in that statement is how Bioware really got on the map in the first place with Baldur’s Gate back in the day.

Rather Sony should have considered using a studio with expertise in remakes, like Bluepoint or at a minimum expertise in remasters like Night Dive Studios or Sabre Interactive.

Aspyr was placed within Saber funnily enough when Aspyr was bought by Sabers owners in 2001 (Embracer Group)
 
I very much doubt they’d be interested in doing a remake of a game they already did, especially since their focus appears to be making future D&D games for Wizards of the Coast which as it points out in that statement is how Bioware really got on the map in the first place with Baldur’s Gate back in the day.

Rather Sony should have considered using a studio with expertise in remakes, like Bluepoint or at a minimum expertise in remasters like Night Dive Studios or Sabre Interactive.

They certainly would be interested if the money was there to do a Triple-A title. The vast majority of the gaming community hasn't even heard of Archetype Entertainment so it would be a golden opportunity to put their name on the map, remaking a game that a few of their more seasoned team members already had involvement in? But better? To the standards of today's RPGs?

How the hell could they say NO to that?
 
They certainly would be interested if the money was there to do a Triple-A title. The vast majority of the gaming community hasn't even heard of Archetype Entertainment so it would be a golden opportunity to put their name on the map, remaking a game that a few of their more seasoned team members already had involvement in? But better? To the standards of today's RPGs?

How the hell could they say NO to that?

Well for one guys like James Ohlen and Drew Karpyshyn are writers. What good, creative work is there for them to do in any remake, let alone one they already wrote?
 
Bluepoint would have done something awesome with it. I wonder what they are up to since Demon's Souls, Sony has been quiet with a lot of its first party devs lately.
 
Bluepoint would have done something awesome with it. I wonder what they are up to since Demon's Souls, Sony has been quiet with a lot of its first party devs lately.

Working on an original IP, much like other Sony studios lately they've expanded a bit lately also
 
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