Star Wars fans were quick to latch onto any scrap of news about the Fate of the Old Republic release following its surprise The Game Awards 2025 reveal. However, reality checks from a particular industry watcher quickly cast doubt on how soon the RPG could realistically launch. Casey Hudson, former director of Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect — now Arcanaut Studios’ lead — stepped in to calm the speculation.
Hudson responded to the growing discussion online. “Don’t worry about the ‘not till 2030’ rumors. Game will be out before then,” he wrote on X. “I’m not getting any younger!”
The comment came shortly after Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier and StarWars.com pointed out that Arcanaut Studios was only founded this year, in 2025. This, in turn, makes a 2030 release feel less like doomposting and more like basic math, judging from other RPGs’ development timeline.
On X, replies on the Fate of the Old Republic lead’s post quickly turned into jokes.
“Watch it release on December 31st 2029,” wrote @SynthPotato. Then @rivaLxfactor followed up with, “Got you down for November 15th of 2029.” Others pushed for something more concrete, with @Trikslyr asking, “Can we get a more accurate estimation? 2029 doesn’t get me that hype either 🤣”
The same skepticism spilled over onto Reddit. Mickeyjj27’s comment on r/gaming simply read, “December 1, 2029.” RapidEngineering342 added, “Can’t wait to see this on aged like milk January 1st 2030.”
“The studio was created this year meaning they just started development. There is no way he can reasonably promise this, a million things can go wrong in the coming years,” Iggy_Slayer’s longer response summed up the broader skepticism. “We waited 5 years to get a hades sequel and [8] years for a hollow knight sequel despite both being pretty similar to their previous games.”
That caution is quite warranted. After all, Star Wars fans are still waiting on updates for the KOTOR remake from Aspyr and Eclipse from Quantic Dreams. Both of which were announced years ago with bombastic teaser trailers and then largely disappeared. The original KOTOR and Mass Effect also took BioWare roughly three to four years of development — and that’s already with a full, experienced team behind them.
So while Hudson’s confidence is encouraging, fans seem content to keep their expectations in check. Until Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic actually shows real gameplay, the promise of ‘before 2030’ release window might not mean as much as it sounds.
