Many Star Wars fans have been wondering about a possible KOTOR Remake delay, and now Bloomberg journalist Jason Scheier has affirmedly stated that the game will not be releasing this year. As to why he can be believed, Scheier has solid connections with various employees at Aspyr, after reporting on July 26 about the turmoil going on behind the scenes with two of the game’s directors being fired. So then what might be the remake’s release date now?
Star Wars KOTOR Remake delayed, possibly to 2025
The Knights of the Old Republic remake is absolutely not coming this year. https://t.co/cg8o1MyitP
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) August 19, 2022
In response to other outlets saying the KOTOR remake might be arriving soon, Scheier replied in the tweet posted above that it is “absolutely not coming this year.” On top of that, in another tweet he said: “Even 2024 is wishful thinking unless they pare down the scope of the project.” The assertiveness of these statements can be partly attributed to some journalists using Scheier’s prior report on the remake as the basis for believing that the project had been moved from Asypr to Saber Interactive.
As a refresher for those who haven’t been following the saga that the KOTOR remake has gone through in the last few weeks, Scheier’s article explains that Aspyr abruptly let go of the game’s art director and design director. This apparently confused Sony and Lucasfilm, who were impressed by a vertical slice demo of the game shown a week prior and who believed it was right on track. Aspyr’s studio heads weren’t pleased with its progress, though, with developers now saying that “a more realistic target” for the remake’s release would be 2025, not the overly optimistic date of 2022 that Aspyr had told staff and its partners initially.
Then Embracer Group released a financial report on Thursday revealing that it had moved an unnamed AAA game over to another developer within the company and that this move would not impact its release date. Scheier stated near the end of his article that some Aspyr employees believed that Saber Interactive, who had been “doing outsourcing work for the project,” would take over production of the remake. Partially due to wishful thinking, some believed that Embracer was referencing the KOTOR remake here. But Scheier doubted that this was the case, remarking in a tweet: “If you believe that an entire-ass video game can just seamlessly switch developers without any delays, I’ve got a Wookiee to sell you.”
In other news, Diablo 4 will be a live-service game with a season pass and microtransactions, and Devolver Digital has denied the allegation that Sony paid to keep Cult of the Lamb off Xbox Game Pass.
