The Sith Lords Restoration Project

TSLRP logo.

"Knights of the Old Republic 2, we feel, is a fantastic game. It's also undoubtedly a wounded game: a lonely game that knows it's incomplete as it is but just can't bear to admit it to itself. It's okay, KOTOR2. We're here for you. Shhhh. We're here."

―The Sith Lords Restoration Project main web page

The Sith Lords Restoration Project, commonly abbreviated as TSLRP, is a modding project for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords in development by a group called Team Gizka. It was named after the in-universe Telosian Restoration Project. The project was designed to restore some of the content that was cut from the game during the completion process. While the droid planet M4-78 is not being restored, content such as extended conversations, alternate endings, deeper subplots and the HK Manufacturing Plant are being restored. Additionally, the mission of the mod is to fix bugs that remain in the game even after release. There is no timeline for release of the finished mod, but the team currently estimates that either build 1.0b11 or 1.0b12 will be the final release.Sadly

Organization

Team Gizka logo.

Team Gizka is a group of individuals dedicated to creating a mod for the game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The team officially consists of eight members, who serve different roles in the team from development to animation. Accompanying these eight members is a team of nine beta testers. The beta testers are working with Team Gizka to find any bugs or problems with the new mod before it is released to the general public for download.

Goals

The modmakers aim to make the game closer to Obsidian Entertainment's original vision, which they were forced to deviate from due to time constraints. This includes restoring missing content, such as the cut endings, the HK Manufacturing Plant, and other removed subplots, as well as fixing bugs (including broken quests) present in the retail version.

Cut content that will not be restored includes the droid planet M4-78 and a cutscene involving confrontation between Darth Nihilus and Darth Sion—the latter believing he killed the Jedi Exile. However, the Team Gizka forums spawned a separate modding effort, the M4-78 Restoration Project, focused on bringing the droid planet—along with the original subplot for Jedi Master Lonna Vash—back into the game.

Despite being given no recognition by LucasArts or Obsidian, the Restoration Project sparked a lot of interest in the KotOR community. The thread dedicated to the project was made sticky on the official Obsidian forum, and a number of Obsidian and Holowan Labs visitors have said they are looking forward to playing KotOR II the way it was meant to be played.

Progress

Preview screenshot: HK-47 on the HK Manufacturing Plant.

"Coming when its done."

―TSLRP trailer releases.

On July 12, 2006, Owen "Dashus" Christensen, one of the team leaders, gave an interview, in which he said that the project was about 80% complete.

As of early September 2009, the current closed beta build was 1.0b11. The developers refuse to reveal any projected release date to prevent any fallout should it not be met. Version 0.7b1, when created, included all the content which they were certain of and deemed necessary to restore. Therefore, subsequent builds added only cut content that was later deemed necessary to restore during the course of the project and bugs that needed to be fixed. According to the statistics page, Team Gizka says that the final release will be called 1.0c1, and that build 1.0b11 or 1.0b12 will be the final build. There is no timeline to the resolution of the build bugs, however, and the list of bugs being and to be resolved should not be viewed as a countdown to release.

As of 2010, the project site, forums, and bug list are gone. "The Sith Lords Restoration Project" is no more.

Trailers

Five trailers have been released, previewing the upcoming mod. The first trailer was released on December 26, 2006 and showcased a variety of restored content. It was then confirmed on the Team Gizka website that the trailer was indeed their production. The trailer, posted on Youtube, included the HK Manufacturing Plant; the prison in the Trayus Academy; Darth Traya after defeating the Exile's companions, who came to challenge her on Malachor V; HK-47 and HK-51s stopping G0-T0's plot on Malachor; Brianna engaging her sisters in gameplay in her return to the Telos Academy, along with other items.

A second trailer was released on Youtube on February 14th, 2007. It depicted the Jedi Exile's party members discussing and conspiring how to take down Kreia. Less than two months later, on April 3rd, a third trailer was released. The third trailer showed HK-47 watching the HK-51 schematics in holographic form.

Two other trailers were then released by the project in July and October 2007. The fourth trailer was released on July 2nd, showing Kreia instructing the Exile in lightsaber combat. The final trailer was released on October 22nd. This last trailer, shows a conversation between Atris and Brianna, in which Atris asks the "Last of the Handmaidens" to essentially spy on the Exile.

A new "final trailer", as it is dubbed, was uploaded to YouTube on July 16th, 2008, but wasn't mentioned on the project's official website until April 4th, 2009. It is a collage of various new scenes from the modification with a monologue spoken by Kreia played over them. At its end, Kreia mentions cryptically that "At last it is done", and the date Summer 2008 is shown at the same time. It is suspected this video was made sometime before summer of 2008 when the developers were considering finally releasing the mod at that point, however 2008 came and went with no release.

See also

• The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod
• Cut content from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
• Dessicus
• HK-51
• HK Manufacturing Plant
• Kaevee
• Game mods to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

External links

• Team Gizka site
• Team Gizka forums
• TSLRP bug tracker (Warning: possible spoilers)
• M4-78 Restoration Project - Information can be found here and here.
• Trailer on YouTube