Of all the Star Wars video games created, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords has the most storied reputation - praised for having a complex, layered story and mourned for having an incomplete ending with many plot threads cut short. This premier title of Obsidian Entertainment, the sequel to BioWare’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, deconstructed and examined Star Wars conventions such as the Force, the Jedi and Sith, and the battle between good and evil. Sadly, the development of KOTOR 2 was rushed to an unhealthy degree, leading to an incomplete release with gaps that would later be filled in by ionate groups of game modders.
[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Star Wars: KOTOR 2.]As a sequel to BioWare's Star Wars: KOTOR (and prequel to the Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO) Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords is set in a galaxy wrecked and wounded by the scourge of two wars - the war against the Mandalorians and the war against Darth Revan’s Sith Empire. The player character is an ex-Jedi exiled by their masters in the Jedi Temple after committing an act of awful destruction. Through both chance and the schemes of shadowy conspirators, the Exile and their companions become the galaxy’s unlikely saviors, facing off against a trio of Sith Lords who’ve gained Force powers of a truly monstrous nature.
How The Restored Content Mod Brought Cut Content In Star Wars KOTOR 2 Back
In order to release Star Wars KOTOR 2 on time, developers at Obsidian Entertainment had to cut a bunch of content out: a droid factory level with a story related to the assassin droid HK-47, training sequences where the mysterious mentor Kreia instructed party in the ways of the Force, and large chunks of the story’s climax. Most of this cut content is actually still present in the source code of KOTOR 2, nearly complete but too unpolished for players to interact with. This gave computer-savvy fans of Obsidian Entertainment a chance to restore the flawed masterpiece they liked through a single, specific mod.
The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification, which addressed the tragedy-level flaws of KOTOR 2, was first publicly released in 2009 and formally ed by the Aspyr Media publishing group in 2015. Iterations of this Mod have been released for KOTOR 2 ports on the iOS and Android platforms, while a new version of the mod has been teased for the Nintendo Switch port of the game. In the eyes of gamers, game critics, and quite a few alumni of Obsidian Entertainment, The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod is a necessary ingredient for enjoying Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, particularly when it comes to understanding the final fates of the game’s protagonists.
How The Original Star Wars KOTOR 2 Ending Was Rough And Unfinished
The journey of KOTOR 2's protagonist (and KOTOR 2's Force-hating Big Bad) ends where it began. Before the start of the game, at the climax of the Mandalorian Wars, the Exile player character ordered the activation of a weapon of mass destruction called the Mass Shadow Generator. This WMD shattered the surface of the planet Malachor V, annihilated armies on both sides of the conflict, traumatized the Force-Sensitive player character into rejecting their powers, and even created a wound in the mystical energy field known as the Force. If this wound was exacerbated or made to grow, it could destroy the Force and potentially even the life it connects.
Theoretically, the end-game sequence of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords should be an epic final battle of classic Star Wars epic lightsaber duels, gambits, and last stands where the Exile and the other crew-mates of the Ebon Hawk spaceship travel across Malachor V and defeat the Sith elder known as Darth Traya before she can complete her self-declared plan to destroy the Force and liberate the galaxy from its conflict-stoking tyranny. In the original KOTOR 2, however, the other party abruptly vanish from the plot, and the player faces the final gauntlet and final boss alone - making for an ending that is arguably smaller than it should have been.
Bao Dur, the engineer who built the Mass Shadow Generator (analogous to the Death Star location in Star Wars games like Star Wars: The Force Unleashed), from getting a chance to redeem himself. Atton Rand, a scoundrel fleeing from his past as a Jedi Hunter employed by the Sith, doesn't get to hold the line against Darth Sion. Hanharr, a psychotic serial-killing Wookie, and the bounty hunter Mira don't get a satisfying conclusion to their rivalry. In short, the disrupted ending of KOTOR 2's storyline, a consequence of Obsidian Entertainment's short development schedule, keeps key NPCs from having satisfactory conclusions to their personal stories.
What The KOTOR 2 Restored Content Mod Added To The Ending
The Sith Lords Restored Content Modification couldn't restore all the missing parts of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords, but did do a lot to make its ending sequence a lot more coherent by implementing these and other bits of cut content:
- A scene where the assassin droid HK-47, the agriculture droid turned crime lord G0-T0, and other surviving Star Wars battle droids confront each other.
- A cutscene where the NPC party confront and are overpowered by Darth Traya.
- A climactic duel between Atton Rand and Darth Sion
- A scene where a holographic recording of Bao Dur tells a remote droid how to reverse the effects of the Mass Shadow Generator.
The truly absent chunk of KOTOR 2's ending - the parts Obsidian Entertainment never had the time to design - are small yet important plot points, the connective tissue that linked all the big events. For instance, does the Exile heed Kreiya's words and venture beyond the Outer Rim to find Revan, protagonist of Star Wars: KOTOR and major character in BioWare's other Star Wars RPGs? Furthermore, why does Bao Dur suddenly vanish from the plot (he was apparently supposed to sacrifice himself to shut down an assassin droid manufacturing factory)? Additionally, how did the Exile and her allies recover the Ebon Hawk spaceship after it fell into the depths of Malachor V and use it to escape the crumbling world?
Source: Nintendo/YouTube
