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In the early 2010s, Lucasfilm contracted Red Fly Studio to develop a Star Wars game centered around the Dathomirian Sith Lord, Darth Maul. The game was to be titled “Battle of the Sith Lords”, but even with working gameplay mechanics and interesting concepts, the project was soon canceled, and the prototype was stashed away.
The canceled Darth Maul game has been the topic of intrigue amongst gamers and fans of Star Wars for many years, with new information coming to light every few years or so from former and unnamed employees.
12 It Was Violent, As Lightsabers Should Be
The available footage of the game shows Darth Maul battling Mandalorians with his lightsaber, involving him slashing off limbs and cutting off heads. The combat is reflective of what a real lightsaber would do, and not like EA’s Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, in which the protagonist’s lightsaber is treated more like a baseball bat than a sword.
It makes sense for games like Fallen Order to censor the degree of violence involved in a lightsaber. Although cutting off limbs and heads is part of Star Wars’ DNA, a rated R game would affect sales and the brand's image, as, at the end of the day, dismemberment and beheading of living beings is still violence, blood or not.
11 It Was Canceled So Disney Could Buy Star Wars
Despite having a bunch of concept art and prototypes, the Darth Maul videogame was in development around the time that George Lucas still held the rights to Lucasfilm, which contained LucasArts and the entire Star Wars franchise. When George Lucas decided to sell Lucasfilm to Disney, all projects in the works were shelved and canceled to make the process easier for Disney’s vision of Star Wars.
Amongst the Disney acquisition of Lucasfilm, sadly, the Darth Maul game was one of many creative casualties lost. Another notable game was Star Wars: 1313, the canceled Boba Fett game. Star Wars has a ripe history of having canceled projects.
10 There Was No Set Script
Red Fly was hired to build a prototype for a Darth Maul game, creating many features and physics for the prototype, but never developing a story. They had concepts, and ideas shared with them by LucasArts, but nothing was concrete or set in stone.
They had not hired writers or had writers sent from LucasArts attached to the project. This left some of their development team to believe that they would have full creative control of where the project goes, but sadly, we will never know, unless Disney has new plans after their exclusive EA contract expires.
9 The Game Was In Unofficial Development After Cancellation
In an AMA on Reddit, Red Fly founder Dan Borth confirmed that some members of the team loved the Maul concept so much that they still occasionally work on it in their spare time. They even managed to port their work over to Unreal Engine 4, the same engine that Fallen Order runs on, and create a working vehicle.
Borth said that it’s a passion project, and nobody is really working on the game. When the team has some downtime, they might polish some things now and then, but EA and Disney are sadly not interested, and it looks like the project will never see the light of day, especially since Maul's story has since been told.
8 Darth Sidious And Maul Origin Story
The original story created by Red Fly was to make players empathize somewhat with Maul. They would see him kidnaped by Emperor Palpatine as a young boy, who would torture Maul physically, mentally, and emotionally to shape him into the powerful and demonic Sith Lord fans know. In an interview with YouTuber Bombastic and Dan Borth, it was also revealed that their Pre-Phantom Menace story would feature Sidious' betrayal and murder of Darth Plagueis.
The story would be a deconstruction of how to construct a Sith Lord and would end in a climactic battle between Maul and Darth Sidious, in which the latter would easily beat Maul with a training lightsaber, and grant Maul the title of Sith Lord.
7 It Was Once Nintendo Exclusive
The game was originally fashioned as a dead between LucasArts and Nintendo as an exclusive. This was most likely due to Red Fly's history with Nintendo, as they created the Wii's version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed by themselves in nine months, a game loved by many, with some faults.
However, this deal inevitably fell through as Nintendo did not want to meet financial demands to make the project a reality. LucasArts then decided that it would shift the development of the game onto the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii U.
6 They Were Not Told About Maul Being In The Clone Wars
As Red Fly continued to develop their Maul project for LucasArts, they were left relatively in the dark about Maul coming back into canon with Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The fact that Maul was still alive confused and muddled their concepts, and they knew their origin story would be unlikely.
They knew minor things about Maul in Clone Wars since the show was not publicly released yet. They knew Maul had robot legs and a brother called Savage Opress. Other than that, the team was left in the dark, and didn’t know if they would be able to make the game or not.
5 Action-Stealth Based Inspired By Arkham: Asylum
Red Fly built a Wii version of the highly successful Batman: Arkham Asylum, which sadly was never released. The game’s success and innovation with action mechanics and stealth mechanics inspired Red Fly to put a heavy emphasis on the aggressive stealth that made Arkham Asylum work.
The plan was to have Maul utilize the surrounding environment to succeed in stealth kills, and not rely on his lightsaber until necessary. As mentioned by YouTuber Bombastic, players would also be able to access a Probe Droid and use it to hack doors and electronics, as well as gather information.
4 They Met The Maker: George Lucas
When Red Fly was going to meet George Lucas, they were told by representatives a few things. They were told to never mention Starkiller, the protagonist from Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, or to tell Lucas how the Force worked.
In the meeting itself, George Lucas liked the idea of Darth Talon and Darth Maul, stating “They’re friends!”. This confused Red Fly, as Star Wars canon at the time, had the characters be over 170 years apart. Lucas suggested that Maul could be a clone.
3 The Force Generates Fear
Once game concept that the team was interested in developing was Maul’s connection to the Force itself. They were compelled by the idea that Maul’s strength came from fear, and he could harness that.
The team at Red Fly wanted Maul to generate and build up fear, to mess with the AI and strengthen your force abilities, and make for better stealth kills.
2 Maul Was A Clone Trained By The Ghost Of Real Maul
Once their origin story fell through, and Lucas expressed interest in this version of Maul being a descendant or a clone of the original Maul, it was clear that Red Fly had to make the character work.
One path that they took had the real Darth Maul as a force ghost, who trained the new Maul to become him in every way. The new Maul would seek vengeance and fury for his deceased master, and avenge the Sith as Darth Krayt had butchered and forgotten the Rule of Two.
1 The Villain was Darth Krayt And A Sith Army
With the game set in 130 ABY, Darth Krayt, a Sith Lord from the Legends timeline, was going to lead a Sith army against Maul and Talon.
Red Fly designed concept art of some Siths, which were Darth Inexor, a four-armed alien, and Darth Kroan, a darkly attired Sith with prosthetics strapped to his face. There was also an unnamed female Jedi in white and black, described as a mime on city streets.