Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is being built by the original KOTOR team
If you ever wanted a modern RPG that recaptures what made Knights of the Old Republic great in 2003, the people making Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic are exactly who you'd want on the job. Casey Hudson — who directed the original KOTOR and the Mass Effect trilogy at BioWare — founded Arcanaut Studios in July 2025 and has quietly assembled a core team of senior developers who built those same classics. The studio is small and the game is early, but the credentials are hard to argue with.
The team
Arcanaut's studio page lists five leads beyond Hudson himself. Dan Fessenden, senior technical designer, was a programmer and designer on the original KOTOR, all three Mass Effect games, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Anthem. Ryan Hoyle, technical director, spent over twenty years at BioWare and contributed to KOTOR and the Mass Effect trilogy. Caroline Livingstone, director of production and performance, was a voice director and producer across all four Mass Effect games, three Dragon Age titles, and Anthem — as well as Neverwinter Nights. Melanie Faulknor, director of external development, handled localization production on Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age II, and Inquisition. The only non-BioWare hire is art director Pascal Blanché, whose credits include the original Assassin's Creed, Far Cry: New Dawn, and Splinter Cell: Conviction, per PC Gamer.
What the game actually is
Fate of the Old Republic is a spiritual successor to KOTOR, set in the same Old Republic era that Hudson's original team invented in the early 2000s. Hudson has said the setting was always something he wanted to return to — BioWare simply had other priorities for years. The game is built on Unreal Engine 5 and will focus on cinematic storytelling and a light/dark moral choice system, though no gameplay footage has been shown yet. Platforms are confirmed only as "PC and consoles," with no specifics on which ones.
As for timing: some reports suggested the game wouldn't arrive until 2030 or later. Hudson pushed back directly, telling GameSpot the game will be out before then — adding, "I'm not getting any younger." No firm release date has been set.
The shadow hanging over all of this is Anthem. Hudson was at BioWare when that game shipped in a troubled state in 2019, and his subsequent studio Humanoid Origin closed in December 2024 before releasing anything. Arcanaut is his third attempt at building something outside EA's structure. The talent is there; the question is execution.
