Knights of the Old Republic Remake shows faint, flickering sign of life in publisher report
First reported by Insider Gaming, quiet mega-publisher the Embracer Group recently released its full year report for April 2022-March 2023, and that report lists the now legendarily fraught Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic Remake as a project under active development in the subhead “Announced PC/Console Releases as of May 24, 2023.”
The information in the report is sparse, but telling enough in its own way. The KotOR Remake is listed as coming to both PS5 and PC, hopefully meaning no console exclusivity, timed or otherwise. The game’s “external” publishing partner is almost assuredly Sony Interactive Entertainment, which has a credit in the game’s sole trailer and explains why the game is not slated for Xbox consoles.
The game’s developer remains an as-of-yet unspecified “internal” studio, meaning it could be any one of the Embracer Group’s countless subsidiaries, but prior reporting from Bloomberg suggests that development has moved to Saber Interactive, the parent company of the project’s original developer, Aspyr.
Aspyr had made a name for itself in recent years by porting various classic Star Wars games to Steam, mobile, and modern consoles. Aspyr was reportedly taken off the KotOR Remake project last summer, supposedly after an initial vertical slice demo failed to impress studio bosses. A planned 2022 release was out of the question, with 2025 looking more realistic according to Bloomberg’s sources. Development changed hands and was potentially rebooted, and the last official word on the KotOR Remake (outside Embracer earnings reports) remains its September 2021 PlayStation showcase trailer.
This mention of KotOR from the Embracer Group is, at least, a little encouraging—a small sign of life from the troubled project. Still, like with Vampire: the Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, it’s probably best to adopt a “come what may” attitude. If either game ever arrives, it’ll probably take awhile.
