Aspyr Finds Workaround For Major ‘Knights Of The Old Republic II’ Bug For Nintendo Switch
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) and its sequel, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, are among the tentpole games of the Star Wars universe. Released in 2003, respectively in 2004, first for Xbox and later for Windows, macOS, and even Linux, the game’s graphics may be dated by today’s standard, but the gameplay is still immersive. Both games were later ported to mobile devices running iOS and Android, and the most recent platform added was the Nintendo Switch, where KOTOR 2 finally premiered on June 8.
Which would be great news if there wasn’t, to freely quote Han Solo, a “slight malfunction” or, more precisely, a “reactor leak.”
In the current iteration, which is still on sale, it is impossible to complete the game. Due to a bug, the game crashes after the Basilisk Crash cutscene when landing on Onderon, and the players cannot proceed any further.
After an independent developer complained about the bug, Aspyr Media, the company responsible for the port to the Switch, admitted on Twitter that this is a known issue that would be addressed in a future patch but was unable to provide a timeframe when the fix will be available.
Needless to say, the gamers’ reactions to this admission were not really positive, ranging from the resigned statement that releasing unfinished software and then pushing out patch after patch to fix errors in the way game development works these days to a more or less empty threat to sue the company.
Meanwhile, Aspyr has released the following recommendation on their support page:
For now, our suggested workaround is to warp past the point where the game crashes using the cheats menu. To do so, triple-click the left thumbstick, open the cheats menu, select warp, and warp to OND504. Make sure not to head to the merchant quarter, as your game will crash.
Whenever a permanent fix will be made available, a glitch like this, where the developer seemingly didn’t even test if the game runs through entirely, has surely cost Aspyr a lot of reputation and doesn’t necessarily bode well for the remake of the first KOTOR, which is currently in development by the same company.
Source: Polygon, Aspyr Media