We've been counting down the days until the release of the upcoming Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake, but Bloomberg (via SFFGazette.com) is reporting that the game is now in "serious trouble."
Apparently, it's been delayed indefinitely after some big changes behind the scenes at Aspyr Media. The studios recently fired the game's art director and design director, and Apsyr's heads are said to have told employees that they've paused the project while looking for new contracts and development opportunities.
This long-awaited remake of the 2003 hit was first announced last September and has been in development for nearly three years now. At the end of June, Aspyr is said to have finalised a demo of the game that impressed Lucasfilm executives, but it was the following week they dismissed those key creatives, Brad Prince and Jason Minor, out of the blue.
The site adds that staff have been told the vertical slice, a fully-playable portion of a game that shows its developer's intended player experience, isn't where they want it to be. It sounds like a lot of time and money had gone into perfecting the demo, but maintaining that level of quality for the game itself wasn't sustainable or realistic.
We now don't know what the future holds in store for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, but a game that was on track to be released in late 2022/early 2023 is now unlikely to see the light of day until 2025...if ever.
Saber Interactive is supposedly likely to take over the project from here, but nothing has been confirmed, and this is a disappointing development for a game fans have been waiting on for a long time. We find it hard to believe Lucasfilm will allow it to fall by the wayside, but as Star Wars games are no longer being developed exclusively by EA, they have a lot of irons in the fire.
Keep checking back here for the latest Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic updates as we have them!