Ehh, let’s just say I’ve seen better. Aspyr, the developer / goalkeeper behind the recent release of Knights Of The Old Republic II on Nintendo Switch, tweeted that he is aware that the game is currently impossible to finish.
Austin-based Aspyr made its name by bringing classic games to new systems, and recently brought a lot of Star Wars titles to Switch. The latest is the so-called painful but absolutely wonderful Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic II – The Sith Lords, released a couple of weeks ago.
But after pressure from a customer, the studio acknowledged that it was aware that the game currently has bugs so it can’t be completed on Nintendo’s handheld.
Yes, we know this, and our developer team is working to deliver the patch as soon as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience in the meantime!
– Aspyr (@AspyrMedia) June 20, 2022
It was an impressive effort by Daniel Moore, who first asked if the company was “aware that there is no way to complete this game?” Aspyr responded with a rather ambiguous comment about “a known issue that will be addressed in the next patch,” then linking to its support pages. But Moore put more pressure on the study, making it clear that he was well aware of the problem, and then repeated his question. Are they aware?
Then Aspyr replied by confessing. “Yes, we are aware,” he said, before adding, “our development team is working to deliver the patch as soon as possible.”
It looks like the game is crashing after playing in the “Basilisk Crash” movie scene, which plays out when players arrive in Onderon. Which, of course, made the video an overnight sensation.
It raises some pretty significant questions about game quality control, which could be certified and released in an impossible way to finish. There is also the question of how long Aspyr has been aware that its product has a bug that breaks the game that affects all players, but has not communicated it to current and potential customers. We contacted Aspyr to ask these questions.
Nintendo can be especially difficult when it comes to launching game patches, which will increase the delay before this is fixed. But crikey, what a mistake to have made, albeit strangely appropriate given the great history of this 2004 game. It is definitely worth stopping to pick up this wonderful Obsidian role-playing game until there is better news.