KOTOR 2 Restoration Project

Feature

When gamers set out to complete what a developer started you know you're in for a treat. Lord of Hunger sits down with us to talk about the recently completed Knights of the Old Republic 2 Restored Content Mod.

October 20th, 2009 by Chris Davis

If there is a singular section of the gaming community that doesn�t get near the amount of attention it should then it is definitely the modding community. User created content is a heavily undervalued part of gaming and is something that, in recent years, has started to rise to the forefront thanks to games like Unreal Tournament and Valve�s ubiquitous Source engine. Obsidian, developers of the very enjoyable Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, did an admirable job of picking up where Bioware left off with the first game. The problem though, as many came to expect, was the game had been tailored to fit a release timeframe and as such tons of content was cut from the final release.

The amount of content cut was staggering. Tons of dialogue prerecorded for the game, quests, and even entire worlds disappeared into broken, unfinished code. Endings were removed from the final product, quests present in the game�s release were hampered and disconnected, and what could have ultimately made for an even deeper story than that of the original KOTOR game was lost. The game, for all intents and purposes, was broken with almost no hope for a return to form.

Well, the modding community didn�t stand for that. Shortly after the game�s release several teams of modders set out to restore the fragmented code still present on the disc. While almost all of them have either left to whither and never finish (a common fate in the modding community) or simply dissolved altogether thanks to creative differences, one team has finally succeeded. The Sith Lords Restoration Project recently went into open beta. TSLRCM team member Lord of Hunger took the time to sit down with me recently.

Hooked Gamers: Thanks for taking the time to talk to us. Could you introduce yourself and your fellow modders to our readers?

Lord of Hunger: Hi, I am known on the various forums as Lord of Hunger. I am a storyline consultant and beta tester for a variety of people and groups such as the TSLRCM development team, the M4-78EP development team, and Team Hssiss. While I do not mod, I help provide ideas for those who do and attempt to help organize groups to accomplish projects. I also test mods, which is one of the things I did for Stoney and Zbyl. Finally, I've also produced "advertising" for TSLRCM, such as my trailer on YouTube.

Hooked Gamers: Obsidian released Knights of the Old Republic 2 in 2005 to critical acclaim and is generally regarded as a worthy sequel to the original game Bioware developed. However, it�s clear that you and others like you were disappointed by the amount of content cut. About how much would you estimate was cut from the game?

Lord of Hunger: I'd say a bit of the beginning, plenty of the middle, and almost the entire end. While we all worked to restore as much content as possible, the main goal was to give the game a real ending, or rather real endings. The Sith Lords was a brilliant game whose story lost its ability to be resolved. As a friend of mine told me, people remember the ending more than the beginning and middle so the massive cuts to the Malachor V level hurt the game more than anything else. Of course there are very minor cuts throughout the game we�ve attempted to restore.