It’s hard to know what happens from here, perhaps Saber picks it up and knocks it out of the park, but the internal delay, the changing of hands, and everything else involved spells development hell for the KOTOR Remake. It’s perhaps too early to say that definitively, but there is seemingly a best-case scenario and a worst-case scenario here. The best case scenario is that KOTOR technically falls into the same trap as The Elder Scrolls 6.

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The Elder Scrolls 6 is Years Away

The Elder Scrolls 6 was announced at E3 2018, which was four years ago. Many of the latest indications suggest that it is still in pre-production, as Bethesda works on releasing its first new IP in decades, Starfield. The announcement did not have to and probably should not have happened, given that it was over 1500 days ago and the public movement on it has been minimum. The Elder Scrolls 6 will launch day one on Xbox Game Pass for Xbox Series X/S, but what’s noteworthy about this is that it was announced a full year before the Xbox Series X/S was. It was announced well before Microsoft ever acquired Bethesda.

A lot of reports and speculation point to 2025 as the earliest The Elder Scrolls 6 could release, and 2026-2027 sounds even more likely. One way of looking at this title is that it was announced during the PS4 and Xbox One generation and could release at the end of the PS5/Xbox Series X generation. In fact, it’s even possible it skips this generation entirely, as console gens typically last around 7 years, and so the next iteration of Xbox consoles (or iteration on this “series” of consoles) could very well happen the same year The Elder Scrolls 6 releases. That is clearly a problem, but it does have a benefit.

The Elder Scrolls 6 is not in development hell; there are no major reported problems with its development (at least as of now). It has just become the go-to example of a game being announced far too early, much earlier than many other games. That, in and of itself, is essentially the best-case scenario for the KOTOR Remake, even if it’s not ideal.

KOTOR Remake Jumped the Gun

KOTOR Remake’s development has already proven more dramatic than The Elder Scrolls 6’s; however, it is early enough that it can be turned around. With the KOTOR Remake allegedly now in Saber’s hands, it would perhaps be best to think of this as a game announced by Saber in 2022. That’s obviously not great for Aspyr, but if one sees this as a game that was simply announced too early, which it clearly was anyway, then that’s the best-case scenario. It could very well be that Saber releases the KOTOR Remake in 2025 or beyond, making it a late but defining entry in the PS5 generation. After all, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier said 2024 was wishful thinking for the KOTOR Remake, unless Saber pared down the scope of the project. Perhaps that would be the middle ground here, but truth be told, it would be better to wait for a properly remade KOTOR than accepted a watered-down version of it.

Of course, the worst-case scenario here is that this is just the beginning. If this isn’t just a restart but something that is instead repeated in a year or two, that’s textbook development hell. And sure, some games have emerged out the other side of this process relatively unscathed, but there’s always the question of if it will see the light of day or if the game’s quality has been compromised with so much shuffling. The KOTOR Remake is not a game that fans should be questioning like this; it deserves much more than that.

To this day, KOTOR and Revan are as iconic to Star Wars as the Skywalker Saga. For many fans, it’s the holy grail of game development right now–alongside many other beloved titles, of course. But it needs to be the holy grail of Arthurian legend, not of Monty Python’s comedy.

Knights of the Old Republic Remake is in development.

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