The KOTOR Remake Is Still "In Development" — So I Built Its Best Ideas Into SWURPG

I replayed both KOTORs, and they're still untouchable

I just went back through Knights of the Old Republic and KOTOR II: The Sith Lords end to end, and I'll say it plainly: these are still in my top five Star Wars video games ever made. Two decades on. The writing, the party banter, HK-47, the Ebon Hawk, the twist in the first one, the bleak philosophy of the second — nothing in the Star Wars game catalog has really topped them. I finished both and immediately wanted more Old Republic.

The good news is there's more coming. Eventually. Maybe. Let's talk about where things actually stand.

The remake: still alive, still a mystery

The KOTOR Remake was revealed back in September 2021 with a slick little teaser, and then… it got complicated. Development moved from Aspyr to Saber Interactive, a vertical slice reportedly didn't land with Lucasfilm Games and Sony, and the project quietly went dark for years. Every so often an "is it cancelled?" rumor flares up.

The latest word is encouraging, if thin. In March 2026, Saber's Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits told IGN: "Yes, it is still in development. That's all I can say." That's it. No gameplay, no screenshots, no release window — but it's alive, and insiders have hinted a real reveal might not be far off if things keep moving. Five years in, I'll take "still in development" over the alternative.

The plot twist: Fate of the Old Republic

Then, at The Game Awards 2025, came the announcement nobody saw coming: Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic — a brand-new RPG from a new studio, Arcanaut Studios, with Lucasfilm Games. And here's the part that made me sit up: it's directed by Casey Hudson — the man who directed the original KOTOR and the entire Mass Effect trilogy.

It's not a remake or a direct sequel. It's billed as a spiritual successor — new characters, a new story, set at the end of the Old Republic with the galaxy "on the edge of rebirth." There's no release date (Hudson's targeting sometime before 2030), and notably he's said no generative AI will be used to build it. The original KOTOR's director getting the band of Mass Effect veterans back together for a new Old Republic RPG? That's the most excited I've been about a Star Wars game in years.

So… I didn't wait

I love these games enough that I didn't want to just sit around refreshing news pages. So a lot of what makes KOTOR's systems great went straight into SWURPG. If you've played KOTOR, the upgrade screens in the Character Builder are going to feel like coming home.

Lightsaber upgrades. This is the big one. KOTOR's lightsaber tinkering — slotting a color crystal, an emitter, a lens, a power cell — is one of the most satisfying loops in any Star Wars game, and SWURPG rebuilds it almost beat for beat. The slots are the same: Crystal, Emitter, Lens, Power Cell, Grip. And the crystals are pulled straight from the source — Adegan, Bondar, Firkrann, Opila, Rubat, the legendary Kaiburr and Qixoni, and yes, the light-side-only Solari Crystal that KOTOR fans will remember instantly. Build your blade in the weapon & lightsaber upgrades catalog and install it in the Character Builder.

Weapon upgrades. Same philosophy for blasters and melee. KOTOR's energy cells, edges, scopes, and targeting systems all have SWURPG equivalents — drop an Ion Cell to shred droids, a Beam Splitter Chamber for piercing rounds, a Crippling Scope to lock an enemy down. It's the same "make your gun yours" itch, scratched on the tabletop. Browse them all in the upgrades hub.

Implants and droid mods. KOTOR's implants and the upgrade slots on HK-47 and T3-M4 live on too — SWURPG has bio-implants for organics and a full droid upgrade line for chassis-based characters.

There's a real lineage here, not just vibes. KOTOR was built on the d20 Star Wars Roleplaying Game — the same rules line that later evolved into Saga Edition. And Saga Edition is half of SWURPG's DNA (we blend its depth with D&D 5e's friendlier action economy). So when you play SWURPG, you're not just playing something KOTOR-flavored — you're playing the closest living tabletop cousin to the rules that powered the game in the first place.

While we wait

The remake will land when it lands. Fate of the Old Republic is years out. But the Old Republic itself — the lightsaber you tune crystal by crystal, the blaster you kit out for one specific job, the party of misfits on a beat-up freighter — you can build all of that today. Start a character in the Character Builder, forge a blade in the upgrades catalog, and go make your own Old Republic story while the galaxy waits on the next big release.

May the Force serve you well.