Overlook the ‘Knights of the Outdated Republic’ Remake, There Would possibly Be a ‘KOTOR II’ Remake Too

Star Wars is like poetry; it rhymes, to paraphrase George Lucas. Just a few years in the past, we have been all agog on the information that Knights of the Old Republic, probably the most beloved Star Wars video video games ever made, was going to be getting the lavish trendy remake therapy. Then these plans appeared to largely disintegrate, and whether or not or not the return of Revan was nonetheless on the playing cards remains nebulous. Now, there’s one other: a tiny glimmer of hope, and lots of acquainted uncertainty, that one of many different most beloved Star Wars video video games ever made, KOTOR‘s sequel The Sith Lords, could have additionally been getting the remake therapy.

The information comes out of an in depth report by Stephen Totilo’s Game File, analyzing reams of authorized paperwork protecting makes an attempt to carry an notorious fan-created PC mod for Knights of the Outdated Republic II to consoles as a part of the sport’s trendy ports by video game studio Aspyr. In response to these paperwork, Aspyr, who had beforehand additionally been engaged on the introduced, modernized model of Knights of the Outdated Republic again in 2021 alongside Saber Interactive, was additionally growing a online game codenamed “Venture Juliet,” a equally scoped trendy remake of Knights of the Outdated Republic II.

“Juliet was the code identify for a venture the place we have been going to do a full remake of KOTOR 2,” a deposition from Lucasfilm Video games vp Douglas Reilly acquired by Sport File reads partly, “with trendy artwork, trendy gameplay, you understand, preserve the story and the characters and the overall—the overall content material of KOTOR 2, however remake it for contemporary {hardware} and trendy machines with up to date graphics and all these sorts of issues. It was one thing we have been discussing with Aspyr.”

First launched simply shy of eighteen months after the unique recreation in late 2004, The Sith Lords, developed by the legendary RPG studio Obsidian, adopted one other Jedi soldier from the war against the Mandalorians, the Exile, 5 years after the occasions of the primary recreation as they reawoke to their beforehand thought severed connection to the Power and reckoned with the Sith’s seemingly near-total extermination of the Jedi.

The sequel is regarded in equal components appraisal and infamy, the previous for its darker, extra morally complicated character work and its essential positioning of each the participant’s company in an RPG and the character of the Power within the Star Wars galaxy at massive as instruments of destiny, the latter for the sport’s extraordinarily restricted growth cycle resulting in a messy closing product, suffering from intriguing compromises, rushed denouements, and maybe most infamously of all, a ream of minimize and incomplete content material hidden throughout the recreation’s recordsdata, by no means totally applied.

It’s that latter notorious status that’s the topic of Sport File’s full investigation, a deep dive into a bit of fan-made content material nearly as well-known as The Sith Lords itself: the The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification, or TSLRCM for brief. The mod made a number of intensive tweaks to the PC model of KOTOR II, reintegrating reams of dialogue and cutscene parts from the unfinished content material, together with tweaks to the sport’s endings and an entire late-game dungeon based mostly across the returning KOTOR celebration member, the nefarious murderer droid HK-47. Now thought of an nearly important accompaniment to enjoying the sport within the modern, TSLRCM has solely ever been accessible to PC gamers… and that nearly modified when Aspyr introduced KOTOR II to the Nintendo Swap in 2022.

The studio initially shockingly introduced that its remastered port of KOTOR II on Swap would come with content material restored by the TSLRCM, the primary time that content material would ever be accessible in an official capability and on console. However a month and a half after the Swap port was launched in the summertime of 2022, Aspyr introduced that plans to carry the TSLRCM to the Swap model of the sport had been scrapped.

In response to the court docket filings uncovered by Sport File as a part of a false promoting go well with introduced towards Aspyr, the deliberate deal between Aspyr and several other modders concerned within the creation of TSLRCM finally fell aside attributable to authorized considerations from Disney over correct crediting for the mod’s content material. However the depositions additionally talked about that the in-development remake of KOTOR II had additionally deliberate to remake and combine that deleted content material in some capability as properly.

The precise query that continues to be is whether or not or not the KOTOR II remake continues to be in growth, as is the perpetual case with the actually-announced KOTOR remake. In response to Sport File, “Venture Juliet” was nonetheless being labored on as of March 2025, on the time of the deposition, however there’s been no affirmation if growth is ongoing, leaving the remake in an much more nebulous state than the remake of the primary recreation, which has largely operated in radio silence since its official unveiling 4 years in the past.

Time will inform if both entry within the KOTOR duology will ever see the remade gentle of day, however some hope is best than no hope in any respect.

Need extra io9 information? Take a look at when to count on the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and the whole lot it’s good to learn about the way forward for Doctor Who.