Disney’s lawyers blocked Star Wars KOTOR 2’s ‘Restored Content DLC’ from appearing on Switch

The promised ‘Restored Content DLC’ for the Switch version of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 (KOTOR 2) was scrapped because Disney’s legal team didn’t approve it, court documents have revealed.

The Restored Content mod – which was released by a group of modders for the PC version of KOTOR 2 – added much of the unfinished content that wasn’t included in the game (due to a need to release the game in time), including an alternate ending.

When it was announced in 2022 that the game would be coming to Switch, its trailer stated that it would also include Restored Content DLC, and that it was “coming soon”.

However, in June 2023, Aspyr announced that plans to release the DLC had been cancelled, with Aspyr co-CEO Ted Saloch later saying: “Aspyr believed it would be able to release the content, but a third party objected and Aspyr was unable to do so.”

The resulting backlash from players included the filing of a lawsuit in which Aspyr was sued for false advertising. Now, as reported by Stephen Totilo on Game File, the court filings for this lawsuit reveal what happened.

In a lengthy timeline, Game File explains in detail what happened via numerous emails and Slack and Jira discussions between Aspyr, Disney and the modders who worked on the original PC mod.

The filings show that after failing to get Disney to approve the addition of the Restored Content to the 2020 mobile version of KOTOR 2, the issue was raised again in March 2022 as Aspyr was working on the Switch port.

A Disney official told Aspyr over email that it was “comfortable with [it] hiring / working with folks in the modding community to add the restored content to the Switch build”, as long as Aspyr could “rep and warrant that it has all the necessary rights” to use the Restored Content mod, including the extra content added by the modders to fill in gaps and fix bugs.

After communicating with some of the modders involved, one modder called Zbyl agreed to sign paperwork on behalf of the whole team, giving Aspyr the all-clear to add the Restored Content mod to the game. The paperwork stated that neither side of the agreement could ever sue each other, and in return the modders would be listed in a Special Thanks part of the credits.

Aspyr had told players that the Restored Content DLC would release some time after the main game, but 20 days after the game was released the studio was contacted by Disney saying its legal team wanted the mod’s credits “to be changed to reflect only real names, not gamer aliases”, and that other issues such as voice acting being provided by non-union actors were also problematic.

Because the modder team consisted not only of a main four-person team but also two voice actors, more than a dozen translators and other people who worked on specific bug fixes – a total of 22 people – Zybl was unable to contact everyone.

This led to Lucasfilm emailing Aspyr a month later and saying it couldn’t approve the DLC for release until everyone involved was either credited or had their work replaced.

Aspyr emailed Zbyl with an update, saying: “In our efforts to credit everyone who contributed to the mod, we have spooked Disney legal and now they have put a new blocker in place.” Zbyl attempted to get every modder to sign an agreement, but wasn’t able to do so, and the plan to provide the Restored Content DLC essentially died.

According to Game File, the lawsuit was settled last month, just two weeks before a jury trial was set to start.