Back in 2011 Lucasarts was planning on releasing a new Star Wars title that would see players take on the role of Darth Maul from Episode 1. The project was given to developer Red Fly Studio because Lucasarts was impressed with the work they had done on the Wii version of 2010’s Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2. The game was originally intended to be a Nintendo exclusive but was later changed to be for PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360 and PC.
Gameinformer spoke to Red Fly’s CEO Dan Borth and other anonymous developers to get the story. Development first began in October 2010, with Red Fly making most of the decisions themselves as they were offered very little guidance. Red Fly weren’t told how to deal with the fact that Maul ends up being cut in half in the final fight of the film, nor were they told that the character was going to be revived in Lucasfilm’s Clone Wars TV series.
However this changed after a meeting with the Head of Lucasarts, George Lucas. Apparently, Lucas had a very different vision for the Darth Maul game and wanted it to resemble more of a ‘buddy cop-like experience’. He specifically requested that Darth Maul be made to team up with Darth Talon, a character from the Expanded Universe who is born about 170 years after Maul’s death.
The developers tried to make this new direction work and at one point there was even talk of Lucasarts buying them , but in June 2011 the publisher cut all communication with Red Fly and eventually cancelled the project. Yet not all evidence of the game’s existence was destroyed as some concept art for the game has now been leaked. You can also check out the only footage for the game in the leaked video above. For the full story, pick up this month’s issue of Gameinformer.
Via Polygon