Earlier this week, the trailer for the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake has been abruptly taken down from official channels leading fans to believe that the project was canceled. However, PlayStation recently explained why the trailer was removed.
For more than a decade, fans have been asking for a remake of the critically-acclaimed Star Wars game, and their wish began to come true in 2021, when the PlayStation Showcase announced the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with a teaser trailer confirming that the game was in active development. However, it didn't include any gameplay details. They just shared a blog post teasing how the remake would be evolving to adapt to more modern audiences, but it's been total silence from everyone involved after that. Last summer, Bloomberg reported that the game was in trouble and may even move to another developer.
PlayStation has explained to Kotaku that the trailer was taken down because of issues with licensed music in the trailer. "As part of normal business, we delist assets with licensed music when the licenses expire," Sony said in an email sent to Kotaku. The only music in the teaser seems to be the main Star Wars theme which is owned by Disney.
Originally released in 2004 as an Xbox exclusive published by LucasArts and developed by BioWare, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic expanded on the Star Wars universe by featuring stories about its distant past using roleplaying game mechanics similar to the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop games. The Star Wars RPG has sold more than 3 million units, and it received "universal acclaim" according to review aggregator Metacritic.
While this sounds like a valid reason, fans are still wondering why that would result in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake remove its teaser. It's possible that Sony simply isn't allowed to use that music on their channels anymore since Star Wars is not owned by Sony, but fans still find this whole debacle strange. Since we haven't heard any updates about the game's development lately, we'd assume that the project has been put on hold, but at this point, it's still unclear what's going on behind the scenes. There's a strong demand for the remake, so hopefully the KOTOR remake will see a release in the near future.
