The world is over: Knights of the Old Republic Remake has been delayed

 I'm typing up my epitaph now

That's it boys, I'm on the way out. There's no recovering from a blow this devastating and I might as well lay myself down to rest right now because I ain't making it to the new year. How could one be so cruel, so abjectly vindictive, to tease one of the single most glorious morels of meat ever cooked in the lapping flames of Hephaestus' open-flame grill, only to snatch it away and chuck it to the dogs? What gives you the right, to toss around the name of divinity like that; you think yourself some sort of god? Well even the gods suffer from shunning; and right now I can't even look as Aspyr Entertainment after they've all but effectively cancelled (Delayed indefinitely, to be precise) The Knights of the Old Republic Remake. Literally the one shining gem in the coming Star Wars Line-up; set ablaze and burnt to ash before our very eyes without so much as a public acknowledgement. (They could've told us something about the vastly shifting state of this immensely exciting game's developmental status, jeez.)

I, like many basement dwelling freaks out there, lost every last sensible neuron in my head casing when the KOTOR Remake was announced. Yes, it was a PlayStation exclusive, the single most annoying phrase that dogs me these days, but to know that someone out there realised the potential for reviving one of the most incredible Star Wars stories of all time, and the reverence of that original game did not just exist within my head like it sometimes feels, was vindicating. It was liberating. And when you looked to that shining subtitle, 'Remake', it was easy to see flashes of 'Final Fantasy VII', Resident Evil 2, or The Last of- no wait, that remake is kind of just a disguised remaster. And a bit of a cash grab. (If it wasn't true, why would the devs get so worked up about it instead of waiting for the product to speak for itself? Because they don't want to be looked on as grifting street artists!) But perhaps it was the very ambition behind the studio, and the expectation of the audience, which doomed the last thing worth enduring this twisted, hellish, thing we call 'existence' for.

Though details have been kept obscenely close to oblivion ever since announcing, Jason Schrier recently descended upon this project with his investigating talons and you know what that means. A. That the reporting is very likely to be extremely accurate and B. it's going to be sucky news. I don't think I've ever seen Jason's name in the byline of a story that made me pumped and excited for the future of gaming, he's like the cloaked Reaper of hope; not the unstoppable force of nature that causes the misfortune but the grim portent of sorrow that bears it's message. And the other day that message was of the various developmental woes, and now somewhat lack of development altogether, that has struck one of gaming's most anticipated projects. It's one of those articles that strikes at the throat, quickens the breath, turns the leg to jelly; it's the bell's first toll.

As the story goes, by the time we had the pleasure of enjoying that reveal trailer, this game hadn't just left the pitching office like is the case with a lot of these sparse fan-appeal projects nowadays. In fact it had apparently been worked on for near to three years before that point, and who knows how much of that was actual active development. (And we do have some ancillary evidence for that from at least one developer who was told his own pitch for a KOTOR project was turned down previously to that announcement because this was in development at the time.) What new sources are saying, however, is that the prospective release of this game was originally slated to be Christmas 2022; and it wasn't until an early demo built for showcase that caused Aspyr's internal teams to realise that was absolutely not going to happen and they'd bitten off far more than they can chew.

Though Lucasfilm and the other interested parties were reportedly impressed with the demo, internally there was some threating about how far along, or rather how not-so far, the demo was. There's little point speculating about the contents as with every vapourware project we merely need to wait a tenyear and the damn thing will be leaked out to the public, but personally I'm guessing it was flashy but substance light. At a guess. Either way, not long after their positive outside opinions, senior staff starting rolling down the chopping block with more than a little off the top. The art director and design director are just gone, without a second word; and Aspyr are currently eyeing up other contracts it can accept in order to keep itself busy in the meantime between now and KOTOR being anything near ready. Which sort of paints a dire picture, does it not?

Estimations, and as far as I can tell these are incidental estimations not some sort of official assessment of ability and workload, is that KOTOR is more likely to arrive come 2025. Which is... gah! What in the bloody hells are they even making over there, huh? Is this a remake or have they gone Tetsuya Nomura and decided to turn one game into a trilogy that loosely follows the cliffnotes of the original but is really veering off to tell their own story? We already know they were going 'action game' with it, but this is making me think that they haven't done the FF7R route and tried to translate the gameplay of the original into a new genre with references and move-set windows, but they've literally started from utter scratch and determined themselves to making something far beyond their studio scope. I mean, isn't this the first game they've made entirely from scratch? With everything else being ports? Maybe this whole idea was a bad one from the offshoot.

Which leaves us in a damnable stalemate. KOTOR is suffering a six year development cycle if it's lucky, which is the absolute calling card of disaster projects the world over, FF7R is a rare exception. Aspyr are struggling for other contracts to keep this main one going, which will in turn slow down the development of that remake. The triumphant return of The Old Republic to official Star Wars canon has been kicked back another few years. Everything is pretty much just completely terrible and the stars weep black gunk to wash this land in a sea of awful. I wish I could tell you that this was heartbreaking, but I honestly can't feel enough of my own emotions to be able to tell if I'm affected by this news. Almost as though I knew something was going to go wrong ages ago and subconsciously mourned for it until there was nothing left but bitter sardony. Either that or I'm having a stroke. Hopefully the latter.

So is KOTOR cancelled? No, it's not cancelled. But it is delayed indefinitely which is the signature move of the 'troubled product' uppercut. You may call me a doom and gloomer to write off the project so quickly the second we learn anything at all is not going to plan; but an 'indefinite delayal' is just some week of lost work. That's a total restructuring of an intricately designed development schedule to say "Actually, we have no idea how we're going to put this together and may be totally out of our skill range here." Why do you think dev teams stomp their feet down about even the most tiny delay? A whole working machine of moving parts requires everyone to chase to clock and hit their marks. Missing it by a little is a nuisance. Throwing in the script and saying "I give up on deadlines altogether" would be enough to shake anyone's confidence in the integrity of this project. Seems like Vampire The Masqeurade: Bloodlines 2 is going to need to shift over to make some room down in development hell.