Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is getting an unofficial remake in the form of an animated series, powered by Unreal Engine 5. This fan project has just received a new teaser called The Spire, showing off some impressive visuals and facial animations for Trask Ulgo, Carth Onasi, and Darth Bandon.
Amid the recent report that Aspyr's KOTOR remake has faced troubled development and therefore is delayed indefinitely, the team of enthusiasts and 3D artists at Unreal Cinema revealed another slice of their ambitious goal to revive BioWare's epic. The KOTOR animated series will be divided into three seasons, each one including ten episodes releasing every few months.
Episode One - The Spire will introduce some of the game's main cast, including the male protagonist named Avren. Back in 2003, players were able to choose whether KOTOR's protagonist was male or female, which naturally cannot be done in an animated series. That's why the creators decided to stick with this version, fully voiced by Levi Johnson.
In the teaser above, we got a look at the Sith's large-scale assault on the Endar Spire cruiser over planet Taris, with the goal of capturing the young Jedi, Bastila Shan. While the beloved character herself didn't appear in the footage, there are still enough of familiar faces alongside thoroughly recreated scenes and locations from the original game.
The Unreal Cinema team achieved this impressive level of execution by utilizing AI Motion Capture, Unreal Engine 5's Virtual Production Capabilities, and Reallusion animation software. Down in the comment section, Knights of the Old Republic fans praised what they just saw, calling team's efforts "straight professional," and it's really hard to argue.
As it turns out, this fan remake also got stuck in the production for much longer than originally intended. A year ago, the team planned to drop the first episode in October 2021, which was probably way too optimistic. As of now, there is no fixed date for when The Spire should be expected, but we hope the series will finally premiere on YouTube later this year.