Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is being remade for modern consoles. It will be coming to PlayStation 5 as a console exclusive at launch alongside a PC release, with other consoles possibly to be revealed at a later date.
Aspyr will once again be handling development of the new remaster, rebuilding the game "from the ground up," following on from their previous efforts with Republic Commando and Jedi Outcast. The trailer shown during today's PlayStation Showcase showed Darth Revan igniting his lightsaber with an ominous voiceover.Knights of the Old Republic is consistently ranked as one of the best RPGs ever made, and it sits atop our list of the ten best Star Wars games. Originally developed by BioWare, KOTOR helped inaugurate a new era of PC RPGs on console. Its announcement during Sony's PlayStation Showcase is somewhat ironic given that it was a top Xbox exclusive back in the day.
Knights of the Old Republic was first reported to be in development back in April by multiple outlets. Its announcement comes as part of Sony's PlayStation showcase, and is confirmed to be early in development, though an official blog post indicates also that work has been happening on the title "for a little while" in close collaboration with Lucasfilm Games. Orion Kellogg, executive producer at Lucasfilm Games, and Ryan Treadwell, lead producer at Aspyr, say that the team is taking its time to balance the weight of fan expectation, authenticity to the original, as well as any necessary changes or updates.
“This is something that is important and impactful,” said Treadwell. “Our big goals on this are to bring the story to a modern audience and have it be just as impactful today as it was for players when it originally launched.”
He added the project includes some powerhouses, such as Jennifer Hale returning to voice Bastila, and developers with experience on the remake of Demon's Souls and Ghost of Tsushima, and lead gameplay designer Matt Berner, who worked on Dragon Age: Inquisition. And, of course, many developers from the original KOTOR team.
"We can say, ‘What were you trying to do and why did you do it this way? Let’s make sure that we have the same goals in mind as we re-approach it this time," said Kellogg. "We’re just going to be able to do more things with asset variety and fidelity and storytelling that just weren’t possible then, but are still going to meet the same goals."
KOTOR does not yet have a release date.
Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN
