The troubled PS5 remake of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic has been handed to a different developer, according to reliable Bloomberg journalist Jason Schreier. The project – which had been in production at Aspyr Media – will now be led by one of Saber Interactive’s Eastern European teams. Maybe they should rename the studio Light Saber Interactive, eh?
Earlier this month, Schreier reported that the project was in trouble, after a couple of leads were fired following a presentation to Sony and Lucasfilm representatives. Last week, the Swedish juggernaut Embracer Group – which owns both Aspyr Media and Saber Interactive – reported during its earnings call that a “AAA project” had “transitioned to another studio”. Interestingly, it added that it wasn’t expecting any “material delays for the title based on this transition”.
Schreier – who’s citing “a person familiar with the change” – claims that “some close to the project said they are optimistic [the transition] will lead to a better product”. Obviously, we all want the KOTOR remake to be as good as it possibly can be – it’s a legendary game, after all – so hopefully all this behind-the-scenes drama leads to a better product in the end.
[source bloomberg.com]
Comments 31
Man I don't know who this embracer group is but they seem to have jumped out of the shadows and are making huge moves in the industry.
Time for them to EMBRACE a new developer
It's too bad Bluepoint is busy with a major project otherwise they would have been perfect for this.
@Dudeman1 That's true, but I guess it's true of basically any remake.
Wow, that was a vote of no confidence
in Chancellor Veloram's leadership! Lol
Honestly a Playstation Studios dev should have been given this from the start. Alot of teams have tried to "level up" with bigger projects (Crystal Dynamics and the Avengers game come to mind) but couldnt quite live up to expectations. A seasoned, proven dev is needed.
@ATaco They was Nordic Games Licensing AB and THQ Nordic AB before, but had to restructuring to a holding company due the how many publishers they was buying up... Basically the same way Google became Alphabet Inc
@3Above Yeah i dont know if its their choice to make its not their IP.
I'm optimisticly hopefull that this game can be saved. I really hope it doesn't release as a dumpster fire being a huge fan of the original 2 games.
@get2sammyb @Dudeman1 Not necessarily. Bluepoint are very good at recreating what was already there but this remake is being touted as something completely new. I’d be very surprised if it had anything close to resembling the original battle system.
@Dudeman1 I was thinking the same thing
@nessisonett that was the best part of the game! I loved that rpg element of the game I hope they just update that to make it more modern.
@EdmereDethallow Hah, I really dislike the combat actually! I go back on forth on the actual D&D combat in all of those games, probably why Planescape Torment is my favourite one. I just can’t really get to grips with 3e in KOTOR so I’d be happy if it moved to a more active system. I love the world building and writing though, it’s top notch.
How bad does a presentation have to be to get you fired in the gaming industry? Genuinely kind of intrigued. Did they turn up with literally nothing to show?
@Flaming_Kaiser neither is Wolverine but Insomniac is making it. They could Liscense it out.
@nessisonett Exactly this. When you look at Shadow of the Colossus and Demons Souls, it's pretty much the exact same gameplay in a very pretty dress. Which is cool for the most part, but I personally would've preferred a less clunky Demons Souls.
@nessisonett I think that's the part that's so hard for them to nail down. I don't think the clunky turn based combat of the original game would be received well by today's crowd so I bet they're trying to make it active combat. I could see something similar to FF7 Remake's battle system working.
Think i'm just going to keep my hopes real low for this until something concrete is shown.
Hmm so in other words I should forget about this game, and be surprised when it finally releases in 2025-2026?
Presumably it's going to Saber Russia, who recently had Witcher 3 PS5 taken away from them. I think the official reason was because of the quality, and not the war/sanctions. So I wonder how KOTOR fans will feel with the game in the hands of a dev that can't even meet CDPR's "standards".
Well, considering recent news about it, getting Metroid Prime 4'd was probably the best case scenario at this point.
@Milktastrophe Let's hope not Saber from Russia. I don't even know why they don't divest or shut that branch down, with the parent company being Swedish anyway. I will definitely not buy or play it if it's made in Russia.
Never a good thing when a project transitions like this as on one hand things clearly weren't up to scratch enough,& yet potentially they're still using that work to carry on & get it to a finished/better state or have to start all over again?🤔
That said,one look at Aspyr's twitter & it sounds like their Switch port of KOTOR has had a fair few bugs to be addressed,so makes you wonder how the PS version was fairing?
I thought the point was Aspyr was close to Bioware. Sending it to an European developer sounds questionable, but they will likely have handed it to one of their major devs.
Still... i wonder if this was a case of misplaced expectations. Sounds like Sony wanted FF7R and got a remaster instead.
Well... i just want them to release the kotor 2 dlc.
This is one of those games that's too classic to die, and doesn't look and play that well today, and yet a remake just seems like a disaster. I'm just hoping they have a new writer with this change than the one that supposedly hated the original. I can't imagine how bad a story rewrite can get when the meatbag writing it hates the original story. Apparently....bad....
@ATaco They're basically THQ
Dont think its Saber Bellarussia Studio, they would put such a huge AAA game at risk.I would buy it anyway even if North Korea was making it,
I hope the dev/pub didn't mess with the story, or "make it modern" like the usuall stuff when remaking old games/movie. I just need the updated graphics and maybe updated gameplay, they can just copy ff7 remake battle system, it's pretty good.
@3Above given the game is also launching on PC and later coming to Xbox I don't see it being something Sony would want to allocate a team too. Also Crystal Dynamics delivered multiple triple A games of quality before the Avengers. They just weren't suited for live service.
@jmoss I agree it's not something Sony would want to do. But it might be better than paying for a timed exclusive remake that turns out to be a disaster. And Since yhey already have to be porting MLB the Show to Xbox it wouldnt be completely out of the question. It's not ideal at all for Sony but niether is KOTOR remake bombing 🤷🏾♂️
@3Above yeah I think Embracer saw the value in the property and stepped in to do the right thing. The Show is interesting as it's out of their hands. If they wanted to keep making the game it was going multiplatform per MLB. Though they should've counter punched once MLB signed the game pass deal with PS plus offering.
@jmoss yeah, I just wonder why these companies are so cavalier with their Remakes. Square Enix had similar troubles with FF7 Remake at 1st before they brought it in-house. Similar situation with the Last of us Remake, they eventually gave it to ND. Not sure why they dont give these things to more trusted teams from the get go.
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