Unreleased Trailer Footage

It seems I missed some excitement last week (because I was away).

Some fans on the official forums found out that Zoic Studios, a visual effects studio (including game trailers and such), had a game demo reel on their website which included a couple of brief scenes from an as yet unreleased Star Wars video. And comparisons to SWTOR concept art seem to indicate that this is for SWTOR.

This was reported by the German site SWTOR-Station and speculation mounted. Forum members quickly pointed out that this was likely the cinematic trailer shown at the original unveiling press event (held October last year). As GameSpot put it then:

The presentation also included a brief cinematic CG trailer that showed a scene that could've come right out of the original KOTOR. In it, a Sith Lord, in black robes and all, flies in on a shuttle ship and lands on a pastoral planet next to a landed ship that was a dead ringer for KOTOR's Millennium Falcon-esque Ebon Hawk, walking next to an orange, assault-rifle-bearing robot that was a dead ringer for KOTOR's sinister, homicidal droid HK-47. The Sith Lord effortlessly repels an attack from what appears to be a Republic trooper, deflecting the soldier's blaster fire with a single gesture, and telekinetically strangling him, then flinging him away with another. In the meantime, another Jedi dressed in white robes, who is clearly intended to be a Light side Jedi, appears to be meditating peacefully while levitating a glowing crystal and several metal fragments in air. As the Sith Lord makes his entrance through a hallway of slaughtered Republic troopers, the Jedi's floating junk assembles itself into a lightsaber just in time for her to seize hold of it and lock blades with the Sith Lord.

More credibility was added to this being official footage from SWTOR when suddenly Zoic Studios took down the movie and later reposted it minus the three scenes. But not before some community members managed to capture the footage and turn it into a guild advertising.

So the following video is a mix of these official trailer shots and fan-made stuff. There are three short scenes from the trailer (the rest is probably best ignored):


Of course, community members also started to try and draw conclusions form the video (such as the Ebon Hawk being included or the planet Tatooine being included), but personally I think this is more something along the lines of a concept trailer to give a general feel of the game. Considering that the first trailer they showed was actually made by another studio (name the Deceived trailer made by Blur) it's also quite possible that they asked several studios to make a trailer and ended up picking the best one, but that at the time of the unveiling presentation the Deceived trailer wasn't finished yet.

It remains to be seen whether BioWare/LucasArts will ever release this trailer (and considering of how much higher quality the Deceived trailer was it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't), but it's an interesting thing at least.

Oh, and normally I wouldn't report on rumors (though I've considered adding a rumor label), but all things considered it seems very likely that this is indeed from an official trailer.

Here's a couple of screen captures from the three segments:



[EDIT] Here's the thread on the official forums about the footage.