STAR WARS KOTOR REMAKE BEING DESTROYED BY WRITER SAM MAGGS

STAR WARS KOTOR REMAKE BEING DESTROYED BY WRITER SAM MAGGS

There are some video games that seem to change everything. Their genre, the art form, what we think a game could be. Orion Kellogg, executive producer at Lucasfilm Games, and Ryan Treadwell, lead producer at Aspyr, consider Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (known to fans as KOTOR) among those rare works.

“I was a big RPG fan growing up. I started on the Apple IIC and played all the BioWare games. It wasn’t until I started playing KOTOR that I really understood how cinematic they could be,” Kellogg tells StarWars.com. “When I first put in KOTOR and saw that the camera was pulled down to ground level and I could look up at the skyscrapers of Taris, I really felt that I’d been put in the world in a way that I never had before. The characters were speaking to me in full VO [voiceover] and reacting to my choices, whether I was going light side or dark. It felt like it was a paradigm shift.”

“When I was 9, my parents did two things that were incredibly impactful: they bought me my first video game console — an original Gameboy — and they sat me down to watch a VHS copy of A New Hope. One set me on my career path, the other kick-started my love of storytelling,” says Treadwell. “When KOTOR was released it married those two passions brilliantly. I was so excited to finally create my hero and explore the galaxy, making the choices I wanted to. As a kid I would pretend to create my own lightsaber out of wrapping paper rolls and this game was letting me customize my own. I was enamored and an instant fan.”

That personal connection for Kellogg and Treadwell has new meaning today. Announced at PlayStation Showcase 2021, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic – Remake will see the classic RPG return as a PlayStation 5 console exclusive at launch and for PC. Aspyr — the Texas-based studio that has collaborated with Lucasfilm on various projects for over a decade, including a recent spate of well-received re-releases from the LucasArts era — is handling development, rebuilding the game from the ground-up. So to borrow a line from Darth Vader, the circle is now complete for Kellogg and Treadwell.

“I really, really think that RPGs have never been the same since,” says Kellogg. “It’s a big honor to have the opportunity to work on it.”

“Speaking for the development team, most of us are triple-A RPG developers,” says Treadwell. “This has been something that is a dream for all of us.”

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