Unreal 5’s cinematography by Knights of the Old Republic will make you long for the good times of Star Wars

Youtuber Unreal Cinema has a dream, and that dream is simple: to remake Knights of the Old Republic’s cinematics in Unreal Engine 5, and make them look amazing. Even Lucasfilm Games has given him the green light to remake Knights of the Old Republic’s cinematics in Unreal Engine 5, and they have promised that they will not sic the lawyers. Relax, take a deep breath, and visualize yourself as twenty years younger than you are now.

Unreal Cinema is all cinematics. This project is purely about creating a KOTOR mini-series from the cutscenes of the game. It’s not a video game and will never be. The chances of ever seeing a proper KOTOR remaster is slim because it’s part ‘old Star Wars lore’ and Disney doesn’t like it. This is still a problem for me. Imagine tossing those great Timothy Zahn novels in favor of the garbage that was the sequels trilogy. Ah.

Unreal Cinema also has videos that show the process of building scenes from the game. Below you can see how the Ancient Ruins look (spoiler alert: shiny).

The mini-series will consist of 10 episodes with different running times. Also, the creator has a video explaining what happened to him when he reached Lucasfilm Games. He was basically told to proceed, with certain conditions. No footage from the movies, no crowdfunding, it being a fan project and all that jazz.

One of those games where you can only imagine what could have been. KOTOR has a shout as the best Star Wars game ever made, not necessarily in terms of the moment-to-moment action but in how it made that universe feel exciting and fresh again: it’s something Star Wars arguably needs more than ever. While Lucasfilm Games continues to produce digitally aged Lukes and palimpsests from past glory, we’ll have to just watch and dream.