The anticipated remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has apparently come to a screeching halt. The game, which was announced back in September 2021, was to be a full remake of the popular 2003 RPG. Now, two development leads have been fired and the team is left wondering what will happen next.
A new report by Bloomberg says that the Knights of the Old Republic remake "is in serious trouble." Developers working on the game as Aspyr Media's Austin, Texas studio are apparently left trying to "figure out what comes next." Aspyr just recently fired the game's art director and design director this month.
Aspyr's two main studio heads held a series of meetings throughout July where they told employees that development on the Knights of the Old Republic remake is on pause. The company is looking for "new contracts and development opportunities," according to people familiar with the studio.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has reportedly been in development for about three years at Aspyr. On June 30, 2022, the team at Aspyr created a vertical slice demo of the remake to show to partners at Lucasfilm and Sony. Bloomberg's sources say, "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 after the demo was shown off, Aspyr fired design director Brad Prince and art director Jason Minor.
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.
