The remake of Knights of the Old Republic is now in a strange situation, after Embracer’s sale of Saber Interactive.
As announced today, Embracer finalized the sale at $ 247 million. The sale brings some studios over to Saber, but not others. What is important in this story is that Aspyr Media was placed under Saber’s management while Saber was owned by Embracer, but they aren’t joining Saber in the buyout now. Now, Aspyr was the assigned studio for Knights of the Old Republic, and that’s where the messiness begins.
A lot of what we know about Knights of the Old Republic comes from insider rumors, but given that Sony and Embracer have continued to keep mum on the title’s status, it’s all we have to work on. And what we know from rumors is certainly messy.
At first, we heard that the project was in jeopardy after Aspyr showed a preview of their work to Sony. The remake was slated to be a PlayStation 5 exclusive, and Sony was supposed to be its financial backer. But after seeing the preview, as the rumor goes, Sony pulled their funding.
But that did not necessarily lead to the project being cancelled. A later rumor revealed that Saber had decided to take over from Aspyr in working on the title. Embracer and Saber had never confirmed this detail, but Jason Schreier recently confirmed that the remake was going with Saber.
Embracer referred to two titles that Saber was taking with them, without identifying them by name. Some fans believe that Knights of the Old Republic is the “previously announced AAA game based on a major license.”
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Embracer CEO Lars Wingefors talked about this previously announced AAA game in a conference call following the news. When asked about the status of the project, he had this to say:
“No, I think that kind of game needs some deep love and respect, so without giving full colour, I think it’s some time left until that is released.”
Lars declined to elaborate further when he was asked if this game is Knights of the Old Republic. That includes addressing any questions if Saber and Embracer will be sharing ownership of the title after the buyout.
Now, we have to set expectations on the Knights of the Old Republic remake properly. If Sony immediately lost interest, it isn’t just the quality of the demo they were shown, but Aspyr’s overall direction that gave them cold feet. Saber could have redeemed the project since, but without huge funding we don’t know what state the game is in now.
In any case, it looks like the game is at least still in development. Hopefully they will finish the game, at which point they will eventually have to tell us about what happened with the title today.
