Update: 12 p.m. EDT
A Sony representative told Kotaku that the KOTOR remake trailer was delisted as standard practice following a dispute over licensed music playing in the trailer. While the Sony rep didn’t say what the issue was, it’s possibly a result of Disney owning the Star Wars theme.
Original Story:
The Star Wars KOTOR remake’s development may be in a bit of trouble, after PlayStation quietly removed the announcement tweet and trailer from 2021 (thanks, Kotaku). A September 2021 PlayStation Blog post highlighting the Star Wars game’s features and improvements is still live on Sony’s site with no alterations, except that the embedded trailer is marked “private.”
The news comes roughly a year after Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported that developer Aspyr had delayed the KOTOR remake to at least 2025. Studio leadership was reportedly dissatisfied with a vertical slice – a demo meant to give a broad impression of the game and its various parts – and fired the project’s art and design directors.
Those developments happened one month after Aspyr brought Saber Interactive on board, a studio known as much for its own games as for its work as a third-party support team.
What happened over the last 14 months and where development stands now is anyone’s guess.
Mass Effect maker BioWare first launched Knights of the Old Republic on the original Xbox in 2003, with a PC release shortly after. The classic RPG and its sequel reappeared on modern consoles, including the Switch in 2021, with Aspyr handling their ports and the re-release of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.
Assuming the KOTOR remake does launch at all, it’s meant to be a PS5 console exclusive, at least for a while.
Written by Josh Broadwell on behalf of GLHF