A brand new remake of the classic RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has finally been announced, but very little has been revealed about the remake beyond its existence. The lack of information about the remake of Knights of the Old Republic has led to many questions and theories from fans about what will all be changed or added to the game by the new studio.
Aspyr will presumably aim to keep the same tone and mechanics that made fans fall in love with the game so many years ago, but other remakes like Resident Evil 2 Remake and Dead Space Remake have illustrated an emerging pattern of building old titles from the ground up with some welcome modernization and new approaches. This allows the remakes to deliver an experience that fans of the old titles can appreciate for the tone and story, while still making it feel like a modern experience that can attract new players as well. Knights of the Old Republic Remake could be following this approach as well, and one big change the remake could make is giving the player character more of a voice.
Player Dialogue in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Like most BioWare RPGs, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic allows players to play with a fully customized character. At the start of the game, players are able to set the gender, appearance, and class of their characters while their alignment to the force throughout the game subtly changes over time. This helps players get more invested in their character, but can make giving the character a voice more difficult for the developers. For this reason, the player character in Knights of the Old Republic only talks in short blurbs when the player switches to them or has them complete a number of tasks like lockpicking a door. However, the dialogue that players choose when interacting with NPCs and Knights of the Old Republic's companions was not voiced at all.
The few voice lines for the player character also each had two versions that were either male or female depending on the gender selected at the start of the game. While this system did not give players any real choice in how their character sounded, the player character having voice lines at all was a pretty big time at the game's original release, as it was rare for RPGs at the time to have voice lines at all for player characters and many still didn't even have voices for NPCs. However, by modern standards, a voiced player character is not nearly as rare, and it is one of the biggest aspects that Knights of the Old Republic Remake may want to change from the original.
The Benefits of Giving Player Characters More to Say
Voicing all of the lines in Knights of the Republic Remake would undoubtedly take a lot of resources and time, but it could add a lot to the new title and help it feel like a true modern revival of the title. One large benefit is how it could help expand on the relationships that players build with their companions and characters throughout the game. Character romances are iconic in BioWare RPGs, and while the remake isn't being developed by BioWare, adding fully voiced dialogue could help its romances stand out amongst the very best in its genre.
Giving the player character a full voice would also help players customize and feel more attached and represented by their characters. If the remake does make the change it should offer players a few different male and female voices so that players can pick which one they feel best represents their character, and all of the voices should be available to the player regardless of their character's gender. This would go a long way in helping players make their character feel more their own and get more immersed in Knights of the Old Republic Remake.
The Downsides of Giving Player Characters More to Say
However, there are some potential downsides to the introduction of a fully voiced protagonist as well. A major concern would be the cost of doing so, especially if the studio offers players multiple voices, which would take a lot of money and time. This could detract from other ideas or possible improvements that the developers hope to make, and could ultimately end up damaging the remake more than it improves it. Fans are extremely excited about Knights of the Old Republic Remake, and Aspyr may want to focus its budget on delivering as polished and faithful of a remake as possible to satisfy fans first and foremost.
Another possible negative impact the change could have is the opposite of what the change would likely hope to achieve. It could be that the protagonist having a voice would end up detracting from how players are able to roleplay their characters, and could even lead to players being less immersed in the game than they would be if their character was silent. This could happen because having a player character not speak dialogue lines allows players to fill in the gaps mentally and just imagine what their character sounds and talks like. There is no way that the developers would be able to include a voice line that would satisfy every player's ideals, so doing so may end up doing more harm than good. Of course, this problem could be avoided thanks to the recent developments in using AI for adding more variation to voice acting.
There are many different avenues that the studio could take to help modernize the game, while hopefully not alienating the fans that the original already has. It would also be great to see the remake lead to some of the other Star Wars titles that deserve remakes receiving them, but only time will tell.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Remake is in development for PC and PlayStation 5.
