The Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake was one of the big announcements at Sony’s last PlayStation Showcase in September 2021. However, a new report is claiming that the game has been indefinitely delayed following some strife at developer Aspyr Media.
A new Bloomberg report detailed the alleged problems occurring at the studio. According to the article, Aspyr abruptly fired Art Director Jason Minor and Design Director Brad Prince earlier this month. The reason these two were booted still remains a mystery. Minor recently posted on his LinkedIn account about looking for work in a way that implied it was a quick dismissal. Minor and Prince, who both worked on Star Wars games at BioWare, have listed July as their last month at the studio on their LinkedIn profiles. Two of the studio heads then told employees that the project is “on pause” and the company will start looking for other “contracts and development opportunities.”
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The report also stated that the game had been in development for three years and recently finalized a vertical slice on June 30 to show Lucasfilm and Sony (the game was set to be a PlayStation 5 console exclusive at launch). One source stated that they were excited about the game and felt that it was “on track,” which made the indefinite delay quite shocking.
However, it seemed as though Aspyr’s studio heads weren’t pleased with the vertical slice, according to two of Bloomberg’s sources. One of them suggested that too much money was dumped into the demo and that sort of burn rate was not sustainable. Aspyr was also apparently telling its partners and employees that it wanted to release the game by the end of 2022, but given its size and scope, a 2025 date would have been more realistic according to developers on the team. That schism was also listed as a possible issue with the game.
Not all hope is lost, as there’s a chance Saber Interactive could take over. The studio came on in May to help with the project, but a few people at Aspyr told Bloomberg that they think Saber might just take the game under its wings. Saber Interactive most recently released Evil Dead: The Game and is known for other titles like World War Z.
Aspyr has not publicly commented on the matter. In addition to generally having accurate reporting, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier also first confirmed the game’s existence in April 2021 in an interview with MinnMax a few months before the reveal.
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Mass Effect developer BioWare originally created Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic to almost universal acclaim in 2003. Obsidian Entertainment developed the sequel, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, a controversial game that was notoriously rushed. Aspyr has been porting many old Star Wars games to modern platforms, including The Sith Lords which also even had content that was cut from the original. All of these Star Wars ports made Aspyr a prime candidate to remake one of the most beloved games in the franchise. But it seems as though it wasn’t meant to be.