Will We Ever Get the Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2’s DLC

A recent update on the Switch announcement of Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic on YouTube has led fans to believe the DLC is cancelled.

What is the KOTOR 2’s DLC?

Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2 was released in 2004. Developed by Obsidian Entertainment and Aspyr, the game was a sequel to the massively successful Knights of the Old Republic. While well-loved among fans and generally a commercial success, KOTOR 2 faced many glitches, bugs, and vast amounts of cut content.

In an interview in 2013, Chris Avellone, the lead designer, said that due to the unfairly short window the team had been given, much of the content had to be cut from the base game. It ended up in an “unfinished state”. The game was supposed to be released in 2005, which was later moved to December 2004. According to Feargus Urquhart, Obsidian’s co-founder, they had to choose between “get[ting] in trouble or get[ting] it done”, and they decided to get it done.
Around a year ago, Aspyr announced that there would be a DLC for the game featuring almost all of the cut content from the base game. This announcement came alongside the news of KOTOR 2 coming to Nintendo Switch. The DLC was part of the trailer and noted in the caption on Aspyr’s official YouTube channel.

Also read: The Best Story-Driven Games for Teens Who Love to Immerse Themselves in a World

What did the DLC Include?

According to Aspyr’s FAQ, in addition to cut content, there were supposed to be new “missions, dialogue options, encounters, and more!” specifically:

New HK Manufacturing Plant Mission – Play as your droid companion HK-47 and explore a mysterious HK Manufacturing Plant beneath the Telos military base.
New Revamped Ending: Experience the final level in a new way, with greater interactions from your party members and added focus on your past choices.
Livelier Crew Conversations: Get to know your crew on board the Ebon Hawk even better with additional lines of dialogue and interactions.
Bonus Quests & Challenges: Discover even more quests and combat encounters scattered on various planets around the galaxy for an extra challenge.

When was the Original Release Date?

On the FAQ page on Aspyr’s official website, the release date is Q3 2022. Long since passed, fans are desperately hoping for a new update or really any mention of the DLC. The page’s last update is on the release day 8th of June, 2022.

According to Aspyr, the DLC would have been free and only available on Nintendo Switch. It was also incompatible with the player’s saved files, but you could have kept and accessed your old files by disabling the DLC in the menu.

Why Do We Think It Has Been Cancelled?

There is no sign of the DLC despite passing the release date, and they have been no updates on it either. Fans have noticed that the trailer for KOTOR 2’s Nintendo Switch release has been edited to exclude the part about the promised DLC.
Additionally, the only section that mentioned the DLC in the description, “The Sith Lords Restored Content DLC will be available post-launch as free DLC in the Nintendo eShop.”, has also been removed.
Worth mentioning that Nintendo’s and IGN’s announcement still lists the DLC as coming soon.
All that aside, the development of KOTOR II for Switch has been a mess for quite a while now. After the original announcement, the developers went radio silent for a while, and the following news was two leads being let go and the release being hit with an indefinite delay. Later it was announced that Aspyr was no longer the game developer. Saber Interactive have replaced them.

What does this mean for the Players?

Many argue that the game has been kept alive by its modding community. Specifically, a mod named The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification has been an essential part of playing the game for years.

Team Gizka

In 2005, a group of players gathered to restore the game’s cut content and fix its glitches and bugs. The group referred to themselves as “Team Gizka”. Eventually, they called it quits, with the mod being playable but unfinished. Their website is no longer accessible.

TSLRCM

After the semi-failure of Team Gizka, two players were inspired to do what Team Gizka failed to do and restore the cut content. They were significantly more successful. They named their mod The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification (TSLRCM) for short. The mod is supported and even endorsed by Aspyr. The company went so far as, upon their Steam update in 2015, they gave permission to TSLRCM developers to be involved as well.
They extracted the fragmented codes from the base game and managed to add more dialogue, combat encounters, fully playable levels with integrated audio and dialogue trees and much more. The mod adds companions and different plotline outcomes and even alters the final sequence of the game. It also fixes more than 500 bugs and glitches, including dialogue tree errors and combat or item glitches. Some found content was deliberately not restored as they were cut due to plot changes rather than short development time.

So the fans are not completely lost. It is speculated that most of what could have been included in the DLC is already found in TSLRCM. It seems that even Aspyr themselves would recommend playing the game with the mod rather than without it.

What is the KOTOR 2’s DLC?

The KOTOR 2’s DLC is a downloadable content pack for Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic 2, which was supposed to feature almost all of the cut content from the base game, as well as new missions, dialogue options, encounters, and more.

What did the DLC include?

According to Aspyr’s FAQ, the DLC was supposed to include a new HK Manufacturing Plant Mission, a new revamped ending, livelier crew conversations, and bonus quests and challenges.

Why do we think the KOTOR 2’s DLC has been cancelled?

There is no sign of the DLC despite passing the release date, and there have been no updates on it either. The trailer made for KOTOR 2’s Nintendo Switch release has been edited to exclude the part about the promised DLC, and the section that mentioned the DLC in the description has also been removed. These factors have led fans to believe that the DLC may have been cancelled.