Little Hope for Darth Maul-Focused Star Wars Game to Return, Dev Says

Back in October, the developer behind a canceled Star Wars video game themed around bad guy Darth Maul said it was hoping to resurrect the game. The developer, Red Fly Studios, working on the game in its off-hours, said it was building a "next-gen" demo to pitch to Electronic Arts. Unfortunately for fans, it doesn't look like anything has come of those efforts--and it sounds unlikely that anything ever will.

In an interview with Game Informer, Red Fly founder Dan Borth said he was never able to connect with EA in a meaningful way to discuss the prospect of making the game.

"I never personally talked to them, but they sounded pretty non-interested," he said. "I think the whole thing could be summed up with 'No comment.' We didn't even have a conversation, really, and I think the thing that is most depressing is that we didn't even really talk about it. I don't know if that's because they're just taking the 'no comment' approach, or what. I don't know if they're angry."

Publishing giant Electronic Arts is the exclusive developer of Star Wars console games, meaning the new Darth Maul project would presumably need to be greenlit through them. Borth said he thinks EA's 10-year deal with Disney might be part of the reason why his game isn't getting any attention at EA, which is putting its own teams to work on new Star Wars games.

"It really feels like [EA] has an exclusive party going on, and they're just not interested in talking about anyone else joining the party," Borth said. "There's no special case scenario to where they would say, 'Well, they worked on this with George Lucas for however long, and a lot of money has been put into this, let's take a look.' There's none of that, which is all I kind of wanted. It's more like, 'Nobody outside of EA is going to do stuff, end of story.'"

"They're moving forward, not backwards. More power to them" -- Borth says of EA and Lucasfilm

Borth was able to speak with Lucasfilm about resurrecting the Darth Maul game, but conversations didn't progress well. "It was basically the same response. 'Not interested,'" he said. "And it seems the added attention from Reddit was annoying them."

"They're moving forward, not backwards. More power to them," Borth said of EA and Lucasfilm.

Borth went on to say that neither EA nor Lucasfilm asked him to stop working on the Darth Maul game, but they were clear that "it's not going anywhere."

Asked if the door was pretty much shut on the Darth Maul game, Borth said, "Yes, it would seem so. There is no interest in even talking about it, or looking at what the community thinks."

And as for whether or not Borth and Red Fly will continue to work on Darth Maul in their spare time, it doesn't sound likely. "It would just be stupid to keep barking up this tree," he said.

Though the Darth Maul game sounds like it's dead, Red Fly's next game, Dawn of Fire, contains some of the elements of the Star Wars project. Specifically, Borth said the game's combat system, which has been refined "over and over," is in part based on what was in the Darth Maul game.

According to a 2014 report, the Darth Maul game was in development for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U. In this game, you would have played as a young Maul, aged 9 or 11; the story would lead up to directly before the events of Episode 1.

"We wanted to show what he went through to become a Sith. Showcase the torture the Emperor put him through," Borth said during the Reddit AMA in October. "Show how you as the player would have made the same mistakes and ended up a Sith."

Head to Game Informer to learn more and see some concept art for the Darth Maul game.