Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic devs were so committed to the …

One Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic dev spent an entire day scrubbing through the films in search of a specific word that Lucasfilm said the RPG team wasn't allowed to use. saltysenoritaaz.com

In an interview with FRVR, BioWare's Mark Darrah - who didn't work on KOTOR but was active at the studio and eventually helped make MMO The Old Republic - said that Lucasfilm had a specific problem with the RPG's language. Specifically, they didn't like the use of the word 'damn', which they claimed wasn't something that a Star Wars character would say.

To prove Lucasfilm wrong, Darrah says that "one of the writers on KOTOR spent an entire day scrubbing through the moves, pulling out every instance of a character saying 'damn'." While Darrah's suggestion - that there were nearly 20 uses - is inaccurate, avid fans have determined that by the time KOTOR was released in 2003, the word 'damn' had appeared thrice - once in A New Hope, once in The Empire Strikes Back, and once in 2002's Attack of the Clones.

Unfortunately, even with that proof, BioWare's victory was only partial. Darrah says that most of the 'damns' were removed from the script because "the rights holder always wins." He suggests that KOTOR was an early casualty of Lucasfilm's attempts to cleanse real-world bad language from the Star Wars universe - something that we've seen over the years since then with the arrival of fake swear words like 'kriff' and 'poodoo'.

It wasn't a total defeat, however - KOTOR's ESRB rating is T(een), with much of that given over to its depictions of violence rather than its very mild bad language. A few real-world cusses made their way into the final script, even if Lucasfilm was able to remove the majority of them from BioWare's work.

5 years after it was revealed, KOTOR remake is "still in development," Saber boss confirms, as we await any morsel of info on the reimagined BioWare Star Wars RPG.

We're up to our necks in Persona. Whichever entry you're keen on, there's something for you. Persona 3? Enjoy the port of Persona 3 Portable, or the Persona 3 remake, or its Episode Aigis DLC. Enjoy Persona 4? Why, that's getting a flashy remake of its own. Or maybe you're a Persona 5 fan? Revel in the veritable mountain of P5-themed stuff that is sprinkled all across videogames like the fallout of a meteor strike.

Oh, unless you like Persona 1 and/or 2, of course, in which case please return to your hole and cease speaking.

So it goes. Despite being the games most obviously in need of a gloss-up, Persona's PS1-era games have never gotten much love from Atlus and Sega. But maybe that could change? In a recent chat with GamerBraves, Persona series producer Kazuhisa Wada said that—so far as he's concerned—Persona 1 and 2 remakes are damn-near a necessity.

"At this point, I can’t say for sure [if Persona 1 and 2 remakes will happen]," said Wada, but added that "personally, I think it’s something we should definitely do. I think we have to do it."

Of course, right now, Wada and Atlus are preoccupied with Persona 4 Revival, which comes out in February next year. “Persona 4 is, personally, a very important work for me, a very important title, and I think it’s a title that speaks to a lot of people within the series as well."

It's not shocking that the Persona team's focus has been fixated on 3, 4, and 5. P3 was the game that knocked the series into the social sim high school drama we all associate it with. P1 and P2, meanwhile, were different beasts, more in line with the Shin Megami Tensei games the Persona series originally sprang from than later entries. I'd be very keen to get a chance to play them on modern systems.

Persona 4 Revival producer and Persona series veteran Kazuhisa Wada says "we have to do" Persona 1 and 2 remakes at some point.

Speaking with GamerBraves, Wada maintains his position as the patron saint of the very few people who still remember that Atlus' most popular JRPG series did not begin with Persona 3, but rather with Revelations: Persona, Persona 2: Innocent Sin, and Persona 2: Eternal Punishment.

Asked about remakes of the original Persona games, Wada responds, "At this point, I can't say for sure, but personally, I think it's something we should definitely do. I think we have to do it."

Wada has worked with the Persona series and its origin, the Shin Megami Tensei series, for decades. Persona 4 Revival is his latest project, though after his lead role in both Persona 3 Reload and Persona 5 Royal, he's also expected to be part of Persona 6. Here in the post-Persona 5 Royal era of Atlus, which has seen Persona grow into a global hit, Wada has helped lead the charge on modernizing Atlus' classic JRPGs.

Giving the original Persona and the Persona 2 duology the Royal, Remake, or Reload treatment raises a few unique challenges. Firstly, we've got to come up with some more words that start with R for the titles. I hear Revelation and Resonant are in fashion this year.

Secondly, there's a reason most people only know this series from Persona 3 onward, and it's not just because it can be hard to even find a way to play the original games today. Persona 3 and its follow-ups introduced pretty major changes both mechanically and thematically, framing the loop that's become the bedrock for modern installments. The original games feel quite different, in some ways closer to early Shin Megami Tensei entries, which could make them difficult to update.

So far, Atlus' remake strategy has basically boiled down to making games more like Persona 5 Royal, from presentation to quality-of-life features. Persona 5 was basically the evolved form of Persona 3 and 4, so that approach worked for those games.

But trying to do that with Persona 2, for example, feels like telling someone to wear shoes as gloves. If Atlus did take on this challenge, I'd love to see how it balances the old with the new. Do you stay faithful to the oddness of early Persona and trust modern fans to adapt, or do you just keep the setting, cast, and story and view them through the lens of today's mechanics?

And for that matter, do you combine Innocent Sin and Eternal Punishment into one big Persona 2 Revisited? There you go, Atlus; you can have that one for free.

As Persona 6 drives hype, Atlus' JRPG series sold another 1 million copies over Sega's last quarter.

It's officially the end of an era, folks – beloved Terraria mod Calamity is officially coming to a close, with developers confirming they'll no longer be continuing development on the fan project from here on out.

Terraria first launched on PC in 2011, with Calamity following in 2016. It quickly grew to become the survival-sandbox game's most iconic mod, with millions of downloads worldwide.

Heck, it's even spurred spin-off mods (don't ask me how many I've browsed myself) and a downright massive fan community. It's caught the attention of Terraria developer Re-Logic itself, too.

So much so, in fact, that the studio previously invited the mod's team to work for it, asking, "Which of you wants to work for Re-Logic and get paid for your work?" It comes as quite a blow then, to learn that Calamity is coming to an end.

The news comes after the modders behind the years-old project's announcement on Discord that "we've come to announce a very difficult decision: we will unfortunately be ceasing all development of Calamity."

They elaborate, citing "the troubled past of Calamity's development" as one reason. "At this point, many of us have felt personally betrayed time and time again after being promised something better that never ended up coming. We're just tired at this point, and almost all passion we had for the mod has been soured, with many of us having chosen to leave as a consequence."

They don't delve further into the details here, but the post goes on.

"Most of us want to simply move on and would be far happier working on our own projects that aren't and won't be tied to something with what we feel is an irrecoverably tainted reputation," it reads, likely referencing accusations that have been making rounds online about some of the mod's leads and whatnot – a situation I'd argue is worth a quick Google as it gets quite dark and might be a tad too heavy here.

There's also the topic of asset removals, which said accusations have spurred. Put simply, a plethora of folks associated with Calamity have pulled out or rebranded, leaving the team looking for… well, a lot more than just new leads.

"Ceasing development is frankly the closest thing we can do to fulfilling everybody's requests" when it comes to the asset debacle, as the devs state – which is obviously not an easy decision to make.

As for the future… it's uncertain. "In terms of where things will go past this, due to legal concerns, no reuploads or forks of Calamity can be made and uploaded (for the sake of clarity, this means that things such as Fables, addons, and such are fine)," writes the team. "Past that, though, we don't really know."

Right now, it's impossible to tell as Ozzatron – the most recent mod lead – would need to work with the devs.

Apparently, however, "he's not responded to anything in the development server recently, and we're hoping to get back in contact soon to resolve all of this." Things aren't looking great, though.

The devs do end on a bittersweet note, thanking fans for their support: "This journey has been long, bumpy, rough and chaotic, yet it's still been wonderful despite that." It's tough to read, even as a casual Calamity enjoyer myself.

This certainly isn't the end that any of us expected, but considering how heavy the allegations seem – and, again, I would advise caution if digging into the situation further – the devs don't have much else that they can do here, likely.

Need something to look forward? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond for fresh titles to wishlist.