KOTOR Remake confirmed, PS5/PC timed Exclusivity

A few months ago. I think it aged really well, BUT I played it on a PC with mouse and keyboard. I don't know how backwards compatibility works on Xbox, though. Is it updated in any way?

The biggest improvement I can think of off the bat in terms of gameplay would be the ability to select individual abilities for hot-keying on a keyboard, just like Mass Effect had. It became a bit cumbersome to have to click through the ability list after every battle just to find Force Heal, for example.

Playing as a Sith is so much fun, you guys are really missing out haha! I am probably about evenly split across all my PTs. My friend played a million times but always dark side. Kind of made me worry lol.

Thank you, I love my Xbox but I do appreciate that the platform cannot help me in the way that PC can when shortcomings may be mitigated.

For that reason, games I logically should enjoy (KOTOR, Jade Empire, Morrowind...) are simply past enjoyment for me.

I honestly doubt they'll go in that direction, not to mention that SWTOR is not, as far as I'm aware, part of the Disney canon. 
I mean, if the start going for canonizing stuff, they shouldn't even allow us to pick between the Light and Dark Side and just stick with the Jedi path. Regardless if the remake will be part of the Disney canon or Legends,  they shouldn't restrict the ability to RP because of that.

On another topic, what is everybody's thoughts about having the main character be voiced? I know the original had a mute protagonist, which had the benefit of being able to choose exactly what you wanted to reply.

However, after playing through Mass Effect and Dragon Age, I feel there is definitely an argument that a voiced protagonist adds cinematic feel and emotional impact. I would probably be fine with either option, though with a preference for a voiced protagonist. I personally liked the Revan voice actor in SWTOR, he seemed to match the idea I had of how Revan would sound.

Voiced is almost certain, I would say.  And I'm not too bothered either way.  If it isn't, fine - Baldurs Gate 3 doesn't appear to have suffered low EA sales or poor player reviews because of it.  And if it is, well I'm sure it will be tolerable at worst.

In the original, yes, male or female.

My own curiosity is regarding the 'type' of game this will end up being.  With one hand progress gives, and with the other it takes away.  Since KOTOR released, game worlds have become vastly bigger, more detailed and alive.  NPC behaviour has become more life like and believable.  Visually, there will be no comparison.  I imagine the animation (all of it, but specifically combat) will be far superior.

But as those parts of games have unquestionably improved - as a whole, there have been a few missteps - things that were important in the original KOTOR (and good) have fallen - in some cases dramatically - away.  Specifically, I'm talking about companion AI.  This was good in DAO (and better in DA2 - in my opinion).  In DAI it was...poor.  Moving away from Bioware, companion AI was very good in PoE (but that was a throwback of a game in more ways than one).  When you had companions in TW3, they alternated between utterly useless to the point of being in the way, and completely drawing all the aggro away so Geralt could slash and Igni to his hearts content.

So what I'm curious about is; assuming many or all of the companions from the original game return in this remake, will you take them with you on missions?  If so, will you choose who to take, or will the game decide for you (RDR2 does this).  And most importantly, if you do take companions, will they help or harm the experience in terms of combat?

Agreed on the banter. 

Just to clarify, because it maybe wasn't clear, I was talking about AI - meaning, how the companions perform if you leave them entirely to their own devices.  Not using a 'tactics' screen and certainly not controlling them directly.

What I'm hoping for in this remake is that Disney doesn't forbid players making dark side choices and using dark side powers.