Recent interview sheds new light on Apeiron, a KOTOR “total conversion mod”
Apeiron, a fan-rebuild of the classic Star Wars game, Knights of the Old Republic, is currently well into development by studio Poem Games.
Recently, the project’s lead developer Taylor Trotter discussed Apeiron with the entertainment website Inverse.
“Meshes, lighting, animations, and all of those organic assets will be replaced,” Trotter told the publication. “All of those have to be made from scratch.”
Original story structure and audio components will remain with Apeiron. However, some cut content will make its way back into KOTOR thanks to this project.
“Sleheyron was kind of this lava planet that was cut from the original,” Trotter said. “There’s also Deadeye. In the original game, he was the first opponent you fight in the Taris arena. You actually meet him again on Manaan, and you have this interaction with him that was also cut.”
KOTOR’s Tatooine as rebuilt in Apeiron (via Twitter).
Beyond that, Apeiron will expand existing worlds and environments. Trotter mentioned Dantooine and its Jedi Academy specifically as a location that’s been expanded on by removing loading screens and “invisible walls”.
Trotter also explained that the project has been tweaked since early images and demos were released, especially so in the last six months.
“We’ve changed a lot of aesthetics of the design,” he said. “During the mesh phase we originally had, we took into account the public’s reaction. We weren’t getting the feedback we wanted. People said it was cool, but we don’t want to make just a ‘cool game.’ We want to make the perfect Star Wars game.”
Promo image of the original KOTOR game (via Steam).
As with many of these type of projects, there is always worry of a cease-and-desist letter from Disney or Lucasfilm. However, unlike the Battlefront III remake Galaxy in Turmoil, Apeiron will require users to own the full version of KOTOR, which dubs it a “total conversion mod”. The original BioWare-made KOTOR currently retails for US$9.99 on Steam.
Note that there is no public release date for Apeiron just yet. If you want to follow the development of Apeiron, check out their Twitter or the official website. Trotter also holds live dev sessions on his Twitch channel.
Head on over to Inverse to read Trotter’s full interview. Besides what I shared above, Trotter also delves into the inspiration for Apeiron, as well as some challenges facing the seven-man dev team.
I’ll certainly be keen to see where Apeiron goes. I haven’t really covered it in the past because there haven’t been too many major announcements since I started SWGO last August. However, I’ll be keeping an eye out for anything that pops up in the future!
