Who's Back of the Week: Knights of the Old Republic

The legendary Star Wars roleplaying game Knights of the Old Republic is getting a PS5 remake, Sony announced today at its 2021 fall showcase.

The remake is being developed by Aspyr, which had previously worked on the Mac, Android, and iOS ports of both the original Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. Sony Interactive Entertainment and Lucasfilm Games will also be working on the remake.

KOTOR was an awesome game that deserves every bit as much love as Battlefront I & II(the originals, not the remakes). A RPG that both incorporated and expanded the HUGE world of Star Wars while giving us really gameplay and storytelling. Among those characters, Revan will always stand out as being the coolest to me. A 3D protagonist that was a sith turned jedi. You just don't get flips going that way in star wars! With the exception of Darth Vader's momentary change to the good guys, that is. Remember when he genocided all those people but was immediately forgiven in exchange for murdering his boss?

It also gave us a story in the Star Wars universe that took place waaaaaay before what we were familiar with. For those of us that never read the books, that was an awesome setting. Anyway, I was under the impression that this game was getting rebooting a while back which was a huge prospect. However, this is the same story with updated graphics. Some might see that as a cash grab, but I'll choose to see it as a service for fans of the original game. As long as this doesn't take the same path as the original Battlefront remake, I see this selling quite well. 

Like the article says, this is being developed by Aspyr who was part of both KOTORs. BioWare, which developed the first game, is noticeably absent. I don't think that is the end of the world, because apparently Aspyr recruited people from the original BioWare development team for the job. Also, I think I've liked maybe 1 BioWare project over the last decade, so I'm cool with that. 

I will always be hesitant with anything Star Wars because their hit rate across all media is pretty inconsistent. Video games are also prone to talking the talk without walking the walk. So I'll be approaching this with a cautious optimism.