A newly surfaced industry rumor suggests that Sony dealt a major blow to the possibility that Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 ever sees the light of day, even though the game was allegedly planned to get made following its original cancelation circa 2005. This claim arrived as part of a wider report on the current state of the troubled Star Wars: KOTOR remake.

First announced in September 2021, the KOTOR remake was indefinitely delayed last summer. The game was originally in the works at Embracer Group-owned Aspyr Media, with Aspyr's sister company Saber Interactive joining the development in May 2022. Three months later, Saber completely took over the project. Following reports of a troubled development cycle, some industry insiders are nowadays doubting that the KOTOR remake is ever coming out.

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YouTuber 100% Star Wars has now suggested that the work on the game prior to its sudden developer switch was actually progressing much better than previously thought, citing sources from Aspyr. His latest video published on May 23 also presents a claim that KOTOR 3 was not only a possibility but definitely part of Aspyr's long-term plans for the series, with the developer allegedly intending to start working on it after remaking the first two installments in the franchise. This all supposedly fell apart by mid-2022, when Aspyr is said to have presented its vertical slice of the game to Lucasfilm and Sony, with whom Embracer was negotiating a console exclusivity deal at the time.

Lucasfilm "loved" the demo, but Sony said it wasn't "cinematic enough," as per the same source, who also mentions several lead developers were fired in response to that feedback. The latter claim was already made in a July 2022 story from Bloomberg which broke the news that the KOTOR remake had been indefinitely delayed. This turn of events supposedly prompted a mass exodus at Aspyr, with 100% Star Wars reporting around 70 developers from the project's 200-strong team left the company in the aftermath of the studio switch.

The video also mentions some previously unknown details about Aspyr's original plans for the game, including a claim that the KOTOR remake was aiming to deliver combat mechanics in the style of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. The developers were also reportedly planning gender swaps for some minor characters and wanted to greatly expand on the game's quests.

That notwithstanding, Aspyr was still aiming to remain faithful to the original game, to the point that it wasn't looking to introduce any new gameplay mechanics, according to the same report. With this state of flux now raising questions about whether the KOTOR remake will ever see the light of day, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 3 presently seems like just a pipe dream.

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