This... This is where the fun begins. A surprise to be sure, but a welcome one...?
So... This little surprise greeted us unexpectedly at the Sony showcase, and as the resident Star Wars nerd, regularly waving around my "THE EXPANDED UNIVERSE IS TRUE CANON" picket sign into every SW discussion on my Discord servers, naturally I have some things to say about this. I feel almost obligated to share my thoughts on it, whether others are willing to hear it or not.
With that out of the way, let's DO IT.
A Remake should be just that... but also more
I basically want what FF7 Remake was for its fans, minus the plot ghost time travel shenanigans.
This seems to be what their going for anyway, give the whole "A Legend Reborn" tagline.
Let's not mince words here: Knights of the Old Republic may be a timeless classic, but it has many flaws due to the time it came out and the hardware limitations. A lot of it hasn't aged well. It shouldn't just be a carbon copy of the original script with shinier, next gen visuals. It should capitalize on what couldn't be explored before.
For example, to bring it back to FF7, when the reactor explodes, in the original you get some brief dialogue and a short cutscene showing what happens to the townspeople, but in the remake, you witness the aftermath yourself. The streets are on fire, you hear people coughing on the fumes, you hear people crying and lamenting about what they're going to do now, people who just moved in and suddenly lost their homes and jobs, and calling out for family members they still haven't found. You are thrust into the world, and you get to soak it all in. I want THAT for KotoR. More in-depth context to the events that happened in the original, with more emphasis on how those events and your actions impact the world around you.
I also want NO mention of future events. I doubt Disney wouln't be eager to dribble in their Baby Yodas or Reys, but I wouldn't be too nervous. Jedi Fallen Order had little, if any, involvement from Disney aside from a brief easter egg to Starkiller Base that didn't effect the central plot of the game. LucasArts is a separate company, and although Disney does umbrella over them it's like the difference between the MCU and the 616 universe comics. I think we're fine.
And outside of just Disney, please no Vitiate or any of the MMO stuff.
Mandalorian Wars Prelude
About 50% of what makes KotoR's lore so cool is everything that happens off-screen.
The Mandalorian Wars in a nutshell:
Throughout the duration of the two games, you are told through dialogue how the Mandalorian Wars were the RADDEST SHIT EVER, but your character, and by extension you, never get to see it. The game starts up pretty soon after it ends. The Mandalorian Wars is the most important plot point in the entirety of the Old Republic era (perhaps the entirety of Star Wars aside from the Battle of Yavin) and single most interesting historic event regarding both the Mandalorians and the Jedi, and you're only told about it second-hand or though hearsay. You completely miss out on it.
Now, I am usually vehemently against DLC or paywalls of any kind, it is inherently a greedy malicious tactic that hasn't gotten any less scummy over the years, we've just been conditioned to let it normalize. That being said, this is a situation where I would tolerate, even encourage it, because it's extra content that was not present in the original game. I essentially want big action set-pieces on the same grandiose and scale of the intro sequence to God of War 3. I want Revan rallying his/her troops as Basalisk War Droids drop out of the sky like flaming meteors while Mandos Halo-jump at re-entry velocity setting off explosive impacts as they land, then march menacingly towards the Jedi as the Mandalorian battle anthem Vode An plays in the background. I want to see Revan and Mandalore the Ultimate portayed as two tactical masterminds in opposition to each other. A want to see the slow burn approach of Revan's gradual turn to the dark side akin tho Anakin in the Clone Wars, at first a noble figure who confronts the Jedi on their inaction as sovereign planets burn, confronting Cassus Fett as he boils his own troops alive, and eventually to the cold and ruthless ruler who cuts off Malek's jaw for disobeying him. All this leads to the final confrontation at Malachor V, where Revan challenges Mandalore the Ultimate to single combat and wins then declares the war over before shattering the planet with the Mass Shadow Generator and turning the ships around back towards Republic-Controlled planets, now in oppostion to them.
Given large-scale battles on the level of GOW3 was two console generations ago, I really don't think this is too much to ask. It wouldn't have to be that long, maybe about 6-8 hours max, about the length of The Force Unleashed 2, a little appetizer compared to the 60+ hour full course meal of the full game. If they don't want to do this (they won't, this is probably just a pipe dream) it's fine, it'll just be a missed opportunity to explore this never-before seen (outside a few flashbacks in the comics) era in the Star Wars mythos, and to further flesh out the characters and provide additional context to the story. Heck, I'd settle for just an animated featurette or a comic that comes with the Collector's Edition or something, though I'd really prefer it to be playable.
More robust character creation
This one goes without saying. The original KotoR games only gave you about five male or female character models to choose from that were more detailed than the NPCs. If you choose a face that is used by another character, that character's face gets swapped out for a similar one to accommodate. Being able to fully and manually customize your character's features should be an obligation at this point. It's coming out on PS5, there's no excuse.
I also would like being able to choose from races other than human, such as Twi'leks, Duros, Zabrak etc, humanoid characters that can still fit into the clothing and armors while being different and diverse enough to immerse you into the Star Wars universe.
Fix the character interactions
That's right, it's time to address the Carth in the room.
A great deal of what people hate about Carth doesn't even have to do with his character, it's how it awkwardly clashes with the gameplay. There are moments where you are running towards the next quest and the game abrubtly stops and tells you to talk to Carth because "something seems to be bothering him". If you do this, Carth gets defensive and says he doesn't want to talk. This is a problem.
This is how I propose how to fix it: Don't change Carth's backstory at all. A grizzled war veteran who has trust issues is a believable character trait that can be interesting, but don't force the player to talk to him at scripted triggers. Instead, go with how Atton was handled in KotoR 2. Have him do or say things in the story that are a little strange or questionable, then have a new dialogue option pop up when you talk to him later and ask "Hey, what was that about?". Let the player learn the character's story at their own pace. Let the player do this for the rest of the cast as well. The only exceptions should be Bastila and HK-47, because Bastila's relationship with you is heavily story driven, and HK's story is based on your ability to fix his memory and the final unlock happens at a story-specific moment. The thing is that Carth's story actually leads to important character development for Revan by proxy, so it does lead to cool stuff, but it should never be forced, especially not in this way.
Carth has his own TV Tropes page and a chart showing who the Carth is in BioWare properties like Mass Effect for a reason, and this NEEDS to be addressed.
KotoR 2 Style Alignment System
KotoR 1 has a lot of binary black-and-white Light Side or Dark Side options that railroad you a bit in the story. KotoR 2 instead introduces a lot of gray areas for your character to choose, such as justifying killing a mob boss slaver versus just killing him for fun. This makes the story more immersive and fleshes out your character while improving the mechanics as it takes into account the intent and reasoning behind the actions, allowing for Chaotic, Lawful, and Neutral Good and Evil options rather than just binary good and evil. The result of your choice would then result in a "Net Force Shift", for example threatening someone with violence to protect a party member would give you some Light Side, but is still a Dark Side action, resulting in a Net Dark Side Shift.
The ending segment at Rikata Prime in KotoR 1 also railroads you pretty hard. Without spoiling you too much, there's a party member that leaves and joins the Dark Side, and you beat them and have to make a Light Side or Dark Side option. The Dark Side option locks you into having to kill off the good members of the party. This eliminates other options such as playing the Sith Code on the character and say "No, I'm calling the shots here" or sparing them because they can be useful later, or playing the long con only to backstab this character for the greater good. Alternatively, a completely neutral option where you just refuse to fight anyone and walk away. There was clear showings of time constraints that would benefit from an overhaul in this segment allowing more "grey area" options leading up to the ending.
There was also an "Influence" system in KotoR 2 that would allow you to affect the alignment of other characters. Seeing more Light Side or Dark Side variations of the characters based on your actions and inspiring and influencing them allows a lot of interesting alternatives in the story.
HK-47 Assassination Missions
In the original game, HK-47 was an assassination droid who's full capabilities could only be restored upon reaching a certain point in the story. He would promise that once his full assassination protocols were fully restored, he would independently carry out assassinations of targets of your choosing. This unfortunately never happens in the original game due to time and hardware constrains, and you can only take him for combat. What I would really like is for a full realization of that, similar to the bounty hunter missions in Lego Star Wars.
You can outfit HK with weapons and components before sending him off on his mission, which, ideally, would be similar to setting up your loadout before setting off on missions in MGS5. You can then either choose for him to automatically carry out his assassination or take control of him, disguising yourself as a protocol droid and carefully eliminating targets with stealth and precision...or just running in guns blazing. I don't expect them to do something like this, but again, they have no excuse.
Revan should stay mysterious
The Old Republic MMO made the egregious mistake of unmasking Revan and revealing what he looks and sounds like. This is a grievous misunderstanding of who the character is and what he/she represents. The whole idea behind Revan is that his/her story is a cautionary tale that your character is dangerously close to repeating, that's the primary conflict of the game. Giving Revan a face was the worst thing you could do for the character (Vitiate flipping the Crusty Doll Evil switch on them notwithstanding), as the idea behind him/her is that Revan can be anyone, hence why I keep using the pronouns interchangeably. That's right, Revan was always gender fluid. You Anti-LGBT trolls can stop screaming now.
Keep the d20 style turned-based combat
Going back to KotoR 1 is always refreshing because modern RPGs mostly seem to go the FF14 route in terms of combat, and while funnily enough modern RPGs tend to try to make everything different by being real-time and modernized, it sort of makes everything watered down and takes away a bit of the charm of what made the original games so memorable. It's a video game, there's no need to adhere to realism because you shouldn't be ashamed of it being a video game.
What made KotoR unique was that it's a Western RPG, many modern games of the genre are dominated by Japanese RPGs. KotoR's Western influence (aside from Star Wars being a Western franchise, obviously) is what set it apart, mainly with it's gameplay being based on Dungeons and Dragons, down to the attacks being damage rolls and using feats and character sheets. Going for a more modernized approach, I feel, would take away a part of its identity.
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And that's mainly it. I admit I'm probably reaching for some of these, but I don't feel like I'm expecting too much for hoping at least three of these to come to fruition. I'll probably still enjoy it nonetheless. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to make a trip to the bank because this game is making me buy a PS5. You may have won this time, Sony...
I am Hero's Shade, and I'll see you all next time.
