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Lucasfilm gives Cease and Desist to stop production of fan remaster of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

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Just a daily reminder that the fan restoration/editing community is living on borrowed time.
Here’s some articles:
https://gamerant.com/star-wars-knights-old-republic-remake-apeiron-block/
https://play4.uk/star-wars-kotor-remake-project-blocked-by-lucasfilm-game-news-251

Why Disney cares about a fan remake of a 15 year old game that required a legal copy of the original game to run, for a series that’s been discontinued I have no idea. Happy 15th Anniversary to KotOR I guess. Not only can you not make your own Star Wars games (as shown by the cancellation of the Battlefront 3 fan project a few years ago), but I guess you can’t modify existing works either.

What burns me the most is EA, the company that (in)famously puts gambling mechanics in their games has exclusive rights to make Star Wars games. And all we have to show for it are two mediocre FPS games. Thanks for the insult to injury there Disney.

I’m sorry to blogpost guys, and I know I’m not the most well respected member of our community, but what are everyone’s thoughts about this? Were any of you also looking forward to this? Do you think that the fan edits/restorations on this site could be in jeopardy?

Luke astro-projects himself to Salt Lake Planet, gets shot at by gorilla walkers, has a non-lightsaber duel with Darth Millennial, then dies of a broken heart, inspiring broom boys throughout the galaxy to get creative with their sweeping. - DuracellEnergizer

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Wasn’t there a fan remake of Dark Forces some years back? Feels more like Disney is behind this than Lucasfilm.

Forum Moderator

Where were you in '77?

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It’s definitely a long shot, but perhaps this lends credence to those rumors about an official KOTOR remake that were tossed around a year or two ago.

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And why the fanmade Spyro 4 was given the axe recently, too…

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I wonder if this has anything to do with certain movie plans in the works. CBS did the same thing right before Discovery.

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SilverWook said:

Wasn’t there a fan remake of Dark Forces some years back? Feels more like Disney is behind this than Lucasfilm.

I was looking forward to a Dark Forces mod called Dark XL. In combination with the original game files you could play Dark Forces in higher resolution with better textures & lighting as well as keyboard + mouse support. Unfortunately the developer abandoned the project and left Dark XL stuck in a playable Alpha Build Version with lots of bugs though.

Rogue One is redundant. Just play the first mission of DARK FORCES.
The hallmark of a corrupt leader: Being surrounded by yes men.
‘The best visual effects in the world will not compensate for a story told badly.’ - V.E.S.
‘Star Wars is a buffet, enjoy the stuff you want, and leave the rest.’ - SilverWook

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The thing about this is that a copyright holder has to defend their copyright in most situations like this, otherwise they are setting a precedent that makes it more challenging for them to protect their IP in future cases, cases where a third party might eventually try to profit off of it. So while I’m sure people at Lucasfilm thought it was cool, they have take legal action.

I also don’t think this is a sign that there is another KOTOR game currently in the works. It just got big enough where they had to take legal action.

This isn’t a malicious move, or a “Disney hates the fans!” kind of situation that clickbaity YouTubers might try to preach. They just have to protect their IP, plain and simple. Even though it might be totally innocent, future situations might not be so and can take advantage of any leniency.

But I do agree with the frustration with EA holding the rights to Star Wars games for however many years, and after the lootbox fiasco I think that Disney (and I am pretty sure it was Disney’s decision and not Lucasfilm’s) is kicking themselves for making such a deal, but I feel they will try to get out of it as soon as they can.

In my opinion, I think situations like this, and the Battlefront 3 remake however long ago, can be prevented while still giving us more Star Wars games.
If I were wanting to make a Star Wars game, I would design and market it as an original title, while also working on a Star Wars “mod” for the game in an indirect way. Once the game is released, release the Star Wars mod sometime after. The problem is that they market these projects as unofficial Star Wars games, and doing so is what causes these Cease and Desist letters to happen, causing all of their owrk to go down the drain.

So either publicly making these projects original games and then later indirectly releasing a Star Wars overhaul mod for it, or focusing efforts to make Star Wars overhaul mods for existing games or making Remaster Mods for existing Star Wars games but not making a big deal out of it until after it is released are the best ways to avoid situations like this. I understand they had to go about it this way to achieve what they were trying to do, but marketing it so hard the way they did led to its downfall. Now the best thing they can do is just make an original game so their work/experience won’t completely go to waste.

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cease and desist on a crappy ancient game, and not the theatrical preservations going around? Go figure.

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timemeddler said:

cease and desist on a crappy ancient game, and not the theatrical preservations going around? Go figure.

Let’s not try and tempt fate shall we.

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Yeah, let’s at least wait until 4K80 is a thing before we poke the bear too hard…