Fans Call for Aspyr Boycott due to KOTOR II DLC

Aspyr has been continuously under attack by fans on Twitter for the last few months due to the failure to address the mystery surrounding the yet-to-appear KOTOR II Restored Content DLC. While the online outrage towards the company has been growing for a while, it has grown now to the point where fans are calling for a boycott of the company. I have been following this story for a long time.

I have been a fan of the Knights of the Old Republic series since I was a young boy and it has been interesting to see how the outcry has changed from mere confusion to outright rage. A turning point for all of this appears to have come when Aspyr posted a delay message for Sid Meier’s Civilization VI Leader Pass port to Mac and iOS on January 19th, 2023. For those who haven’t been following this story, you might be wondering how this all began.

On May 27th, 2022, it was announced to the world that Aspyr would be bringing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords to the Nintendo Switch in a way that no console had ever had before. They were planning to release a Restored Content DLC in Q3 of 2022 that would mirror the Restored Content Mod that exists for the PC version of the game.

This Restored Content DLC would be made with the assistance of those who had created the PC version. The community loved this and waited with patience to see Aspyr deliver another amazing product. When Q3 2022 ended on September 30th, there was nothing. No announcement of the delay, no indication of problems, and no communication with fans. So what happened?

According to a report by Bounding Into Comics, the studio ended up laying off a bunch of people suddenly after showing off the Knights of the Old Republic Remake to Lucasfilm and Sony. While not all of the layoffs have been known, it has been suspected that some of the employees who ran the social media accounts for Aspyr were also fired. This was a significant blow to the company as they were once touted as having one of the best relationships with their fans through social media. The company’s current Twitter and Discord pages look like a ghost town with the occasional ad here and there, but no communication with the community.

Digging into the various videos and a few articles that exist on this problem, there is a rumor that has come to the surface that might give some players a bit of hope. According to the YouTube channel 100% Star Wars, someone reached out to the Limited Run company and was told that the DLC for KOTOR II was slated to release in Q2 of 2023 (April to June 2023). This rumor does make some sense considering that Q2 of 2023 is when Limited Run’s standard physical edition of KOTOR II is planned to be shipped.

It is also plausible due to the fact that Aspyr and Limited Run are both owned by Embracer Group. Over the last few months, I have reached out twice to Aspyr to get a comment, but they have yet to respond. If there is ever a response, I will make sure to put up a follow-up article about it.