“Happy to share that I’ve joined Arcanaut Studios as Narrative Director! I’ll be working with Casey Hudson and a wonderful team of new and familiar faces on Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic — the spiritual successor to KOTOR,” Tony Elias announced, confirming his move to the studio leading the newly revealed Star Wars RPG.
The hire is the clearest signal yet that Arcanaut is assembling a veteran narrative core: Elias joins as Narrative Director after more than a year working as a senior writer on the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, and he is credited as a writer on the second game in CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk series. Arcanaut also added Jenny J.S. Dewes as a writer; Dewes said, “I’m honored to be rejoining Casey Hudson and this incredible team (of both new friends and old!) to bring Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic to life!”
Elias’s CV underscores why his arrival matters to fans who care about story-driven games. Before his recent Cyberpunk work he was lead writer at Humanoid Origin and has writing credits on Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War. He also worked on the Wonder Woman game that was announced in 2021 and later cancelled in 2025, a reminder of how volatile big-studio projects can be even for established writers.
Arcanaut Studios is Casey Hudson’s new company and Fate of the Old Republic is the studio’s inaugural project. The game, revealed in December, is being framed as a narrative RPG built for PC and current generation consoles and described as a spiritual successor to Knights of the Old Republic. Public details so far emphasize player choice, including a path that lets players follow light or darkness, and the studio appears to be stacking experienced storytellers to realize that ambition.
Still, the project remains early enough that major unknowns persist. No release date has been set for Star Wars: Fate of the Old Republic, and the studio has released only limited public information about systems, scope, or schedule. That gap is the practical friction point: hiring a Narrative Director and additional writers clarifies who will shape the story, but it does not narrow the calendar for when players will actually get the game.
The move frames Elias’s role without turning it into a promise of timing. As Narrative Director, Elias brings recent production experience on a high-profile cyberpunk franchise and a track record on single-player, narrative-led titles; Dewes brings fiction and studio experience that Hudson has tapped before. Those hires tell a clear story about tone and talent, even if they don’t answer the obvious question about delivery.
What comes next is simple and specific: Arcanaut still must set a timetable. The studio has not announced a public milestone beyond staff additions, so the most consequential unknown remains the release window. For now, Elias’s hire signals that Arcanaut intends Fate of the Old Republic to be a story-first project led by seasoned writers; when the studio turns that narrative work into a release date is the single question left to be answered.
