Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II — The Sith Lords debuts on mobile on December 18, according to developer and publisher Aspyr.
The timing is good for anyone who has an itch to play a Star Wars game in the wake of the popularity of Season Two of The Mandalorian on Disney+. Disney’s Lucasfilm has licensed Aspyr to build numerous Star Wars ports during the past year. Retro games are a big market these days, and Aspyr has specialized in finding new markets and platforms for those games based on familiar brands and licenses.
The game will debut as a $15 game on iOS and Android. It’s a single-player role-playing game that developer BioWare originally created for the PC and Xbox in 2004. It says a lot that mobile devices are now capable of running games that once debuted on the PC, said Aspyr’s Elizabeth Howard in an interview with GamesBeat.
“Fans have long demanded and asked for this, so we’re pretty pumped to get it to them,” Howard said. “Taking a PC game and making it into a mobile game is one of the things that Aspyr is uniquely positioned to do. We have a ton of experience with that and we have proprietary libraries to do that. This fits really well into our wheelhouse.”
The game is set five years after the events from Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (which came out in 2003). Sith Lords have hunted the Jedi to the edge of extinction and are on the verge of crushing the Old Republic. With the Jedi Order in ruin, the Republic’s only hope is a lone Jedi struggling to reconnect with the Force. As this Jedi, players will be faced with the galaxy’s most dire decision – follow the light side or succumb to the dark.
You can choose to play on the light or dark side of the Force in the game. The choices made will affect the player’s character, their party, and those who may join the quest. You can add characters to your party including favorites like HK-47, Canderous Ordo, and Kreia. The game is optimized for mobile play with touchscreen controls. Howard said she was pleased with the timing of the launch, thanks to the popularity of Star Wars this season.
“Every time something happens in the world around Star Wars, we in the game space also benefit,” Howard said. “We love all the attention that Star Wars has gotten both with the Mandalorian and other things. We were just really motivated to try to get it out in time for the holidays.”
Aspyr also recently ported Star Wars Episode I: Racer on the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. Howard said those latter two versions will run on an Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5, thanks to the backward compatibility. She said the backward compatibility makes it easier for the company to execute its strategy of publishing retro games on older platforms, as they won’t see any financial penalty for not doing a PS5 or Xbox Series X/S version. To date, Aspyr has done four Star Wars remakes in the past year, and many others over the years.
Aspyr has 150 employees, not counting external developers.