After being delayed indefinitely, the remake for the RPG classic Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic now has a new developer, though a release date is still unknown.
Initially being developed by Aspyr Media, an anonymous informer has revealed to Bloomberg that Saber Interactive is now in charge of the project. Both Aspyr and Saber are owned by Embracer Group AB.
Nearly a month ago, reports stated that the game had been delayed “indefinitely” after Aspyr had spent around 3 years working on the title. Last week, Embracer Group published an interim financial report stating that one of their AAA games had “transitioned to another studio within the Group,” and was done so “to ensure the quality bar” is reached. Although not specifically named, Knights of the Old Republic is strongly considered to be the game in question.
Bloomberg reported that, according to industry insiders, the project was scrapped due to a lackluster demo of the game provided to top executives at Embracer Group. Shortly thereafter, design director Brad Prince and art director Jason Minor were both fired from the game, much to the surprise of the rest of the game’s development staff.
Recently, Aspyr Media has released ports of other popular Star Wars video games, including Episode I – Racer, Jedi Knight – Jedi Academy, The Force Unleashed, as well as Knights of the Old Republic and it’s sequel, The Sith Lords; The Force Unleashed and The Sith Lords both in particular have been received poorly, with the former being a port of the inferior Wii version of the game, while the latter released with numerous game breaking bugs, rendering it nearly unplayable until patches were applied.
The Knights of the Old Republic remake was first revealed during a PlayStation showcase in September, 2021, along with a short teaser trailer and the news that it would be a timed PlayStation 5 exclusive. The original game, developed by BioWare, released on the Microsoft Xbox in 2003, as well as Windows PC later in the year.
The game’s new developed, Saber Interactive, made their mark with the 2007 FPS TimeShift before later being approached to work on various games in the Halo franchise, starting with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary in 2011. Saber has also partnered with CDProjekt RED on the Switch port of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. More recently, they have released Evil Dead: The Game and World War Z.
Do you believe the shift to a new developer is the right call? Do you have faith that Saber Interactive will prove to be a better fit for the KotOR remake in the long run, or that Aspyr would still have done a great job? What are some of your favorite memories of the original Knights of the Old Republic, and while we’re at it, what do you think is the best Star Wars video game? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below, as well as on our Facebook page and our official Discord server!
Source: Bloomberg, Wallpaper Safari
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