Grain of salt, but this is a longer wait than pretty much anyone expected, considering it was announced in 2020 and was in development even before then. Undead Labs better knock it out of the park with a full on AAA release with good storyline and such after a wait that long. 

Yeah, I think it's death is probably for the best. The rumors about the game weren't great to say the least. There was talk of it being more of a reboot than a remake, with plot elements and characters from both KOTOR 1 and 2 being combined into a single game alongside new characters and plot elements, designed to bring KOTOR into Disney canon. There was talk it would be an action RPG instead of D20 based like the original. 

Honestly, I think they should only remake KOTOR if it's a proper remake of the original, not a reboot. Keep the story and characters intact, maybe only adding some new side quests to each planet if they want to lengthen the game and fleshing out the companions with more dialogue and deeper romances (particularly the canon Revan-Bastilla romance). Improve the graphics and redo all of the combat animations including mocapped lightsaber fighting animations. Make each planet a larger, more open map without all of the zones and loading screens. Keep the D20 based combat, which Baldur's Gate 3 has just proved to the doubters can still be a successful gameplay system in 2023. Rescore the original soundtrack with a proper live orchestra (on the original Jeremy Soule used a virtual orchestra simulated on OG Xbox's 8 mb/s MIDI soundchip). Re-record the voice lines where possible, remastering the original voice work via AI for the lines which can't be re-recorded, such as Ed Asner's Vrook Lamar lines.

True, for me, Ryan has done a respectable job all around, some might have felt disconnected from him since he doesn't really carry the gamer persona but I think he did what he had to do when he had to do it.

The only actual caveat was all the faux concerns and blatant hypocritical position he displayed with the MS ABK acquisition, even though I understand why he did so it was still a petty show all around.

Other than that there's no denying he achieved the goals he sought for PS5.

IMO he even successfully positioned the PS5 to be able to entrench the classical approach to selling games one more gen rather than having to embrace an early switch to a less profitable (short-term) day-and-date release on subscription service strategy. And that's no easy feat when your main competitor is trying to change the very definition of success in this industry to just that. The only way he had to pull it off was to sell as many ps5 as possible early on and so he did even if it meant discounting the PS5 all the while it was still selling at a record pace by all industry standards.

However, despite the fact he succeeded in doing so, I think a flip to day-and-date release in the subscription is unavoidable and will happen sooner or later and there's no denying that by entrenching a classical approach Playstation has left MS with a huge lead on this front. This may have the unfortunate consequence that Ryan's works may also be viewed as a hit on short-term profitability with limited ROI potential over the longer game and, as a consequence, having to heavily invest to catch up with the competition in this metric when they do finally flip. Now add the effect of ABK for MS and this future is pretty much guaranteed and should be quite obvious even to Sony BoD. If that's the case I think It might be a reason for his departure, don't think he was forced out in any way, he probably felt like his direction up to now might not be seen in the same light as before so he'll leave while at the top of his game.

Yeah, I think it's death is probably for the best. The rumors about the game weren't great to say the least. There was talk of it being more of a reboot than a remake, with plot elements and characters from both KOTOR 1 and 2 being combined into a single game alongside new characters and plot elements, designed to bring KOTOR into Disney canon. There was talk it would be an action RPG instead of D20 based like the original. 

Honestly, I think they should only remake KOTOR if it's a proper remake of the original, not a reboot. Keep the story and characters intact, maybe only adding some new side quests to each planet if they want to lengthen the game and fleshing out the companions with more dialogue and deeper romances (particularly the canon Revan-Bastilla romance). Improve the graphics and redo all of the combat animations including mocapped lightsaber fighting animations. Make each planet a larger, more open map without all of the zones and loading screens. Keep the D20 based combat, which Baldur's Gate 3 has just proved to the doubters can still be a successful gameplay system in 2023. Rescore the original soundtrack with a proper live orchestra (on the original Jeremy Soule used a virtual orchestra simulated on OG Xbox's 8 mb/s MIDI soundchip). Re-record the voice lines where possible, remastering the original voice work via AI for the lines which can't be re-recorded, such as Ed Asner's Vrook Lamar lines.