Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic nabs Avatar, Assassin’s Creed, and Aquaman artist to helm the RPG’s art direction

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March 9 2026

Casey Hudson’s recently-revealed Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic isn’t expected to launch for a number of years, although it promises to be a return to the KOTOR-style of choice-based RPG that players fell in love with over 20 years ago.

After its announcement in December, Hudson’s team at Arcanaut Studios has been steadily increasing in size as the RPG veteran aims to release the title before 2030. Now, the studio has finally nabbed its art director in the form of industry veteran Pascal Blanché.

Announced in a LinkedIn post, Blanché joined Arcanaut Studios earlier this month as the Studio Art Director. The veteran artist’s LinkedIn profile also states that they’ve had their “head in the stars since SW 1977”, showing a clear love of the sci-fi franchise.

“Super excited to announce that I started a new position as Studio Art Director at Arcanaut Studios, where I joined forces with Casey Hudson and his amazing team to work on the next epic Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic!” the artist wrote on LinkedIn.

Blanché has been working in the games industry since 1994, and they’ve worked on a number of amazing-looking games. The developer served as a lead character modeller for Myst IV: Revelation before serving as the art director on the original Assassin’s Creed, Splinter Cell: Conviction, Avatar The Game, and more.

Additionally, the veteran artist worked as a designer for the creatures and characters of James Wan’s Aquaman as well as its sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. There are even more credits that we haven’t listed here but, to wrap it up, they’re a very accomplished artist in all forms of media.

Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic’s style was shown off in the game’s lavish CG reveal trailer, but it’s unknown how much of that look will be present in the final product. Currently in early development, the look of the game’s reveal trailer clearly matched the rusted tone of the original Old Republic games, and hopefully that will continue onto release.

While Fate of the Old Republic continues its development, players are still waiting for Saber Interactive’s remake of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Announced back in 2021, the game is “still in development”, according to Saber CCO Tim Willits, but the RPG currently has no release date.

Nevertheless, it seems like The Old Republic is live and well, even after Lucasfilm’s recent push for the bedazzled, shinier “High Republic” era. While the upcoming KOTOR remake likely won’t be changed to fit into the endlessly confusing canon of current Star Wars, it will just be great to re-experience that era in whichever one of these games ends up releasing first.

About The Author

Lewis White

Lewis White is a veteran games journalist with over a decade in the field. Starting with beloved Xbox website ICXM/XboxMAD, Lewis became the Gaming Editor at MSPoweruser before becoming the Editor in Chief of StealthOptional and Gfinityesports. Lewis later jumped to By Gamers For Gamers where he jumped to become EIC of VideoGamer and the host of the New VideoGamer Podcast prior to the website’s acquisition.

Over the years, Lewis has also seen long-form investigative pieces published in outlets such as Eurogamer, PCGamesN, Wireframe, Retro Gamer, Nintendo Life, and EDGE. Now, as the Editor in Chief of FRVR Blog, Lewis strives to bring the same level of quality journalism with interview-led content to the site in both written and audio form with the FRVR Podcast.

With a First Degree BA Hons in Games Journalism and Public Relations, Lewis has been a stable part of the British games press for over a decade, and has frequently displayed his love of Halo, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, and other games pretty much everywhere he’s worked. And FRVR is no different.

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