Is Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic canon?

After months of rumor and speculation, Lucasfilm Games have finally confirmed that the acclaimed Knights of the Old Republic will be receiving a remake. Aspyr Media, who have handled ports of several classic Star Wars titles to modern consoles, will develop a ground-up remake of the 2003 title.

While we don’t know when the title will be released, or any details really other than “it’s happening,” we do know that’ll be faithful to the original. But with Star Wars stories split between canon and Legends, which of these umbrellas will the new title fall under?

The Star Wars timeline

As is well documented, part of the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney resulted in large sections of the larger Star Wars universe being removed from the wider canon. The Knights of the Old Republic video game titles, and the associated published novels, were part of that group. The means, despite BioWare’s The Old Republic MMO receiving fairly regular content updates in that time, those stories weren’t considered part of the actual Star Wars timeline.

As of right now, it would appear the upcoming remake will also be considered a Legends tale. The sentence following sentence can be found in an interview following the announcement on StarWars.com:

"KOTOR, which is part of Legends storytelling, dials the Star Wars clock back to over 4,000 years before the Skywalker saga."

That wording feels very deliberate in differentiating this title from upcoming canon projects. And the writer of the StarWars.com article clarified on Twitter that the statement referred specifically to the original work (not necessarily the remake).

So, that isn’t to say it’s all definitive, however. With a release date yet to be announced, it could yet be years before we see how this adventure feels on a modern console. There’s every chance that it will kick off a new era of Old Republic content that will be considered canon. At this moment, however, it’s best to operate on the assumption that it’s still being considered Legends content.

Keep up with the Star Wars video games category on Dork Side of the Force for further news on the KOTOR remake as it’s released!