KOTOR 2 Switch Lawsuit: Cancelled DLC, Claims, and Settlement

The KOTOR 2 Switch lawsuit, a false-advertising case filed against Aspyr Media in 2023 over the cancelled “Restored Content DLC” for the Nintendo Switch port of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II — The Sith Lords, settled in November 2025 on undisclosed terms, weeks before it was set for a jury trial. A federal judge in California had already denied class certification earlier that year, shrinking the case to fewer than 20 individual plaintiffs, but most of their claims survived summary judgment and were cleared to go before a jury.

What Buyers Were Promised

When Aspyr revealed the Switch port in May 2022, the trailer told viewers that a “Restored Content DLC” was “coming soon.”¹ On Twitter, the company said it would land in Q3 2022.² The content was to be based on a well-known fan mod that restored material cut from the 2004 PC release, including an alternate ending.³ The game launched on June 8, 2022, without it.

A year later, in June 2023, Aspyr announced the DLC would “not be moving forward” and offered affected buyers a free copy of another Star Wars title — Republic Commando, The Force Unleashed, or a PC copy of KOTOR II.⁴ Many buyers said they already owned the offered games, and no refunds were provided.⁵ References to the DLC were quietly stripped from the eShop page and the reveal trailer.²

Why the DLC Was Cancelled

The lawsuit’s discovery process pulled the real reason into public view. The fan mod Aspyr planned to ship had been built by a decentralized team of roughly 22 people, including four core modders, two voice actors, bug fixers, and more than a dozen translators.¹ A lead modder using the handle Zbyl signed paperwork on the team’s behalf, granting Aspyr rights in exchange for a “Special Thanks” credit and a mutual non-suit agreement.

Disney initially told Aspyr in March 2022 it was “comfortable” with the arrangement so long as Aspyr could represent and warrant it had “all the necessary rights” to the mod’s content.³ About three weeks after the Switch version launched, Disney’s legal team added two new demands: credits had to list every contributor’s real legal name rather than an online alias, and the use of non-union voice actors was flagged as a concern.¹

Zbyl tried to track down all 22 contributors, but couldn’t reach everyone. That summer, Aspyr executive Michael Blair emailed the modders: “In our efforts to credit everyone who contributed to the mod, we have spooked Disney legal and now they have put a new blocker in place.” Lucasfilm said the DLC could not be approved until every contributor was credited under a real name or their work was replaced. Months of effort through late 2022 and early 2023 didn’t resolve it.⁶

The Lawsuit and the Claims

On July 8, 2023, Malachi Mickelonis filed a class-action complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (case 8:23-cv-01220), naming Aspyr Media and Saber Interactive as defendants. The complaint sought more than $5 million and alleged the defendants “intentionally deceived consumers” by advertising the Restored Content DLC to “artificially raise sales revenues” and sell the game at “above-market prices based on qualities and features that the game simply did not possess.”⁷ The plaintiffs asked for restitution, attorneys’ fees, and a permanent injunction against continued deceptive advertising.⁵

Saber Interactive was voluntarily dismissed in October 2023, and later that month 17 additional plaintiffs were added.⁸⁹ Aspyr had initially obscured Disney’s role, but discovery exposed it, and a separate case against Disney proceeded alongside the Aspyr matter.¹⁰

The case drew Judge Fred W. Slaughter, with Magistrate Judge Autumn D. Spaeth also involved. Aspyr moved early to dismiss the complaint and also sought Rule 11 sanctions against plaintiffs’ counsel Ray Kim. On February 27, 2024, the court granted the motion to dismiss in part, denied it in part with leave to amend one claim, and denied the sanctions motion entirely.⁸

How the Case Narrowed

Class Certification Denied

On May 16, 2025, the court denied class certification without leave to amend.¹¹ The judge held the case couldn’t meet Rule 23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement because there was no way to confirm on a class-wide basis that every proposed class member had actually seen the “coming soon” advertisements before buying the game. Managing such a class was called a “pipe dream” given the “subjective memory problems” involved.¹² A motion for reconsideration was denied in July 2025. The suit then continued on behalf of fewer than 20 individual plaintiffs.¹³

Summary Judgment

Both sides moved for summary judgment. Aspyr’s central argument was that the fan-made mod had “no economic value” because it was based on free community content, backed by expert Frank Gilson.¹³ Aspyr also retained litigation survey expert Hal Poret, whose study of more than 300 Switch buyers reported 96.3% satisfaction with the purchase and only 0.7% mentioning the restored DLC as a factor.¹⁴

Plaintiffs’ experts attacked the survey as suffering from a “severe validity issue,” an “invalid measurement of materiality,” and a “major leading question” that relied on post-purchase rationalization.¹⁴ In its October 2, 2025 order, the court found a reasonable jury could reject Poret’s study, noting that “materiality depends on the perspective of the consumer, not the perspective of the defendant.” The judge granted Aspyr’s motion only on a South Carolina state-law claim and a Texas damages claim, denied it on everything else, and denied the plaintiffs’ partial summary judgment motion.¹¹ The remaining claims were cleared for trial.

Settlement

A jury trial had originally been set for July 29, 2025.⁸ After the summary judgment order left most claims alive, the parties negotiated. Aspyr filed a notice of settlement on October 9, 2025, and on November 10, 2025 the parties filed a stipulation to dismiss, which the court then terminated.¹¹ The plaintiffs reached a separate settlement with Disney.¹⁵ Financial terms of both settlements are confidential.

What Switch Buyers Got

Because class certification was denied, no general class of Switch buyers was ever certified, and no court-approved claims fund was set up for the broader group of purchasers. If you bought KOTOR II on Switch expecting the Restored Content DLC, the only publicly announced remedy remains the June 2023 consolation offer of a free alternate Star Wars title.⁴ The DLC itself was never released on Switch, and no replacement has been announced.¹⁵

1
Video Games Chronicle. Disney’s Lawyers Blocked Star Wars KOTOR 2’s Restored Content DLC From Appearing on Switch
2
GameSpot. Canceled Star Wars KOTOR 2 DLC for Switch Has Spawned a Class-Action Lawsuit
3
Nintendo Wire. Star Wars KOTOR II’s Restored Content DLC Was Cancelled on Switch Because of Disney’s Lawyers
4
Tweaktown. Aspyr Cancels KOTOR II DLC Plans, Offers Free Games as Apology
5
Nintendo Life. Disgruntled Switch Fans File Class Action Lawsuit Over KOTOR II DLC Cancellation
6
GameFile. KOTOR II Restored Content Mod DLC Switch Killed Disney
7
Eurogamer. Fans File Class Action Lawsuit Over Cancelled KOTOR 2 DLC
8
CourtListener. Malachi Mickelonis v. Aspyr Media, Inc.
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Axios. Star Wars Aspyr KOTOR 2 Lawsuit
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GameFile. Star Wars KOTOR II Lawsuit Saga
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Docket Alarm. Malachi Mickelonis v. Aspyr Media, Inc. et al
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Newman Docket. Mickelonis v. Aspyr Media Order
13
Yahoo Tech. Now Settled KOTOR 2 Lawsuit
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Rebecca Tushnet’s 43(B)log. Star Wars Mod Wars Claims Over Touted
15
The Gamer. KOTOR 2 Aspyr Disney Nintendo Switch Lawsuit