Bringing Back The Sith

The reason why people continue to come to the Team Gizka discussion forums and why the Sith Lords restoration effort continues to grow is simple: it's the desire to make KOTOR II something more than it is now, and to deliver the full version of the game as it was originally intended. "I don't think we'd be doing this if we didn't feel it would make the game a bit better," JDnoa said.

KOTOR 2 and Sith Lords Restoration Project Slide Show (18 images)

How did Team Gizka obtain the deleted content and missing levels? "Uncovering the unknown was done by the modding community fairly early on," JDnoa said. "There are several lists out there that people have compiled of the extra content in the game files." Team Gizka leader Dashus is the project head for HK Factory side quest, and is also working on Jedi training scenes and developing build scripts, tools and the installer. For Dashus, the TSLRP takes advantage of what he does in real life. "I love programming," Dashus told TwitchGuru. "It's what I do in real life, and this is just another extension of that."

The most surprising part of the restoration effort, in Dashus' view, is that the effort is still alive. "That may sound rather negative, but the reality is that most free time modding projects don't last as long as this," Dashus said. It's a sad reality that many mods, including fan-driven efforts to restore cancelled and unfinished games, never come to fruition. But the desire and hunger for more KOTOR - whether it's the Sith Lords restoration or the next official installment of the series - is very strong. Fans just can't get enough of the series, and have flocked by the thousands to discussion forums on the Obsidian and Bioware websites, as well as numerous other fan venues.

A screenshot of the Sith Lords Restoration Project, which shows an HK-47 unit at the HK manufacturing plant.

Adding more fuel to the fire of KOTOR III demand is an active online petition with over 6,500 signatures. "If LucasArts does not publish the third installment, then many Star Wars fans will see this as a gaping hole in the overall saga," the online petition states. "It will also be a huge disappointment to players of KOTOR 1 & 2, who would like nothing more than to discover the fates of Revan and the Exile."

LucasArts did not respond to requests for comment for this article. However, several recent reports indicate that LucasArts intends to continue the KOTOR series, though no official announcement or timeline has been released. In the absence of KOTOR III actually being available, one might argue that TSLRP is the next best thing for KOTOR fans. TSLRP beta tester Wildstorm added this view: "In reality, I have a feeling that if it does for whatever reason fill the absence of KOTOR III, it won't fill it nearly as long as a new game would. Play through it a couple of times with different choices and you get bored, and then will come back to it once or twice in the few months afterwards."

Team Gizka member JDnoa is still optimistic that that we'll see KOTOR III sometime soon. That said, TSLRP does fill a certain need for fans of the Star Wars games, especially since this year is the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. "Maybe we should just say that we hope TSLRP will add an extra level of interest to the game, and that anyone that installs it will be as excited as we were to see all the neat stuff that got cut," JDnoa said.

Wildstorm told TwitchGuru that there is an important thing to remember about TSLRP: it's not going to make KOTOR II a brand new game, obviously, but rather will add to the original content. "It's just going to fill in the potholes," Wildstorm said. "There are a lot of things in the game that are exactly the same as they were, and the plot and plot advances are all the same." For example, on Telos, you still have to side with Jana Lorso, or the Ithorians fulfill the same quests.

However, quite a bit of content was left out of KOTOR II, especially at the end, and Team Gizka is focusing on filling in as many blanks as possible. These include specific cut scenes for character development, as well as playable content. An exact list of what material will be featured in the new Sith Lords mod has not been released, though Team Gizka has stated that it won't be able to restore all of the deleted content.

According to the Team Gizka site, there is no timeline for the release of the completed mod, but the site does provide regular updates on the progress of the project. The TSLRP is currently in version 0.7b28, which means that all "essential content" has been implemented and all block, crash and major issues have been fixed. Stay tuned for more updates on The Sith Lords Restoration Project.

Editor's Note: Stay tuned for more Star Wars features as Tom's Hardware Guide and TwitchGuru celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the release of "Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope," which is May 25th. In the mean time, check out the TwitchGuru story on the Knights of the Old Republic comic book series from Dark Horse Comics.

Join our discussion on this topic