If you’ve been worried that Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic is going to demand 300 hours of your life before you see a single credit roll, Casey Hudson just put that fear to rest — and honestly, the way he said it is going to resonate with a lot of people.
In a Bloomberg interview tied to a broader report about GreaterThan Group — the company funding the project — Hudson shared his personal philosophy on game length. He didn’t give a specific hour count for Fate of the Old Republic, but he made his position on bloated RPGs crystal clear. “Bigger isn’t necessarily better,” Hudson said. “If I’m excited about a game and then I find out that it’s 200 hours long — even if I have no ambition to actually finish it — I wonder, if I put 20 hours in, will I even be out of act one? A lot of players just want to play something and finish it.”
That’s a pretty direct shot at a pretty common modern problem. And coming from the guy who directed the original Knights of the Old Republic, it carries weight.
What Hudson Is Actually Building at Arcanaut Studios
Hudson now leads Arcanaut Studios, which is the developer behind Fate of the Old Republic. The studio is intentionally lean — Hudson confirmed to Bloomberg that they want to avoid having “hundreds and hundreds of people” as production scales up, a deliberate choice to stay focused rather than balloon into an unwieldy AAA structure.
That philosophy extends to the game itself. The goal is a focused, story-driven RPG that players can actually finish — and then come back to. Branching storylines and meaningful choices that alter the experience are the primary replay hook, not an endless content checklist. If that sounds familiar, it’s because that’s exactly how the original KOTOR operated. You could finish it, feel satisfied, and then immediately start a Dark Side playthrough because the choices actually mattered.
Veteran KOTOR developers Dan Fessenden, Caroline Livingstone, and Ryan Hoyle are all working alongside Hudson on this project, which means the DNA here runs deep. This isn’t a team that happened to get a Star Wars license — these are people who built the thing that the license is based on.
Hudson also made headlines in the same Bloomberg piece for his stance on generative AI, calling it “creatively soulless” and stating he was “just really unimpressed with it.” That’s not a hedge — that’s a hard no. For a narrative RPG where dialogue, companion writing, and story branching are the entire product, that’s a meaningful commitment.
The Game Length Debate Is Very Real in 2026
Hudson’s comments landed right in the middle of a genuine ongoing argument about what players actually want from their games. GTA 6’s campaign is rumored to clock in around 75 hours, and that alone has generated a split reaction — some players hyped, others already exhausted by the idea. Crimson Desert launched as a sprawling 100+ hour open-world game and got praised for its ambition but criticized for its padding. On the other end, shorter, tighter games like Pragmata and Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem — which many players finished in under 10 hours — became hits in large part because they respected the player’s time.
The reality is that neither extreme is universally right. Nobody wants Fate of the Old Republic to be a 10-hour action game. But nobody wants to invest 20 hours and still be in what feels like a tutorial either. The sweet spot — something in the 30 to 40-hour range with meaningful replayability built in — is what most KOTOR fans would probably consider ideal. Enough game to feel like a proper RPG, tight enough that you actually finish it.
Gaming has also gotten expensive enough that this conversation has become more charged than it used to be. When a game costs $70 or more at launch, players feel the pressure of needing to justify that spend. The irony is that a shorter, excellent game often feels more worth it than a padded 150-hour one. Hudson seems to understand that tension well. The same way Amazon Prime Gaming’s free monthly drops succeed because they give players variety and genuine value without demanding massive time commitments, a focused RPG that earns every hour it asks for is a harder and more valuable achievement than one that just throws content at the screen.
How This Compares to the Original KOTOR
Here’s the thing — the original Knights of the Old Republic wasn’t some sprawling 100-hour epic either. A focused playthrough clocked in around 30 to 40 hours depending on how much side content you engaged with. What made it legendary wasn’t its length. It was the writing, the companions, the moral weight of the choices, and the revelation that still stands as one of the best plot twists in gaming history. The sequel, The Sith Lords, operated at a similar scale.
If Hudson is designing Fate of the Old Republic with that same philosophy — quality per hour over sheer volume of hours — that’s not a downgrade from KOTOR. That’s a return to exactly what made KOTOR work.
The concern some players have is whether a shorter game can match the sense of scale that a big Star Wars RPG is supposed to feel like. But scale and length aren’t the same thing. Mass Effect 2 — which Hudson also directed — is considered by many to be the best game in that trilogy, and it’s tighter and more focused than either ME1 or ME3. Replayability through branching content can also extend the effective life of the game significantly beyond a single playthrough without padding out the main campaign with filler.
The Release Window and What’s Still Unknown
Hudson has been consistent that Fate of the Old Republic will ship before 2030, and he’s addressed the skepticism around that claim directly on social media — “Don’t worry about the ‘not till 2030’ rumours. Game will be out before then. I’m not getting any younger.” That’s the kind of comment that’s either very reassuring or will age very badly. The gaming world is full of promises that slipped, and the industry’s recent history of high-profile delays is long.
No platforms have been confirmed. No release window tighter than “before 2030” has been given. What we do know is that Arcanaut Studios has funding through Simon Zhu’s GreaterThan Group — a company backed by around $100 million in private investment that’s specifically focused on rescuing creator-led projects that larger companies walked away from. Hudson’s previous studio Humanoid Origin was one of those projects. The funding structure is unusual, but the intent to actually ship is clearly there.
The broader gaming calendar right now is stacked with hardware news and announcements competing for attention — from the Xbox Elite Series 3 controller leak ahead of June’s showcase to Amazon officially confirming the cancellation of their Lord of the Rings MMO after months of speculation. Fate of the Old Republic is still a few years out, but Hudson’s willingness to publicly shape expectations and talk design philosophy this early in development is a good sign. It suggests a team that knows what they’re building and why.
The Bottom Line
A focused Star Wars RPG built by veteran KOTOR developers, designed to be finishable without surrendering 200 hours of your life, with branching storylines that reward multiple playthroughs and zero generative AI — that is genuinely a promising pitch in 2026.
The galaxy’s been waiting for a proper return to this era of Star Wars gaming for a long time. If Arcanaut Studios delivers something in the 30 to 40-hour range that hits with the same narrative density as the original KOTOR, that’s not a compromise. That’s exactly what this game needs to be.
