Red Fly Wants to Pitch Discarded Darth Maul Video Game to EA
By Elaine Tveit
Back in 2014, footage from a Star Wars video game about Darth Maul, developed by Red Fly Studio for Lucasarts, was unearthed on YouTube. The video game, titled Battle of the Sith Lords, was scrapped along with Star Wars 1313 with Disney’s purchase of the franchise. Now, Red Fly is looking to impress Electronic Arts with a demo of the Maul video game, in the hopes of kicking it back into production (via Wired).
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The quote below is from an Ask Me Anything Reddit thread for Dan Borth of Red Fly.
"We have been burning a candle for this game since it was killed in hopes we can get it turned back on again. IF that is to happen we need to approach EA with a demo that will impress them. I think we have that or are close to it. Still it is completely not up to us."
The game in its original state was to have followed Darth Maul from age 9 or 11, up to right before the events of The Phantom Menace. Borth said, “We wanted to show what he went through to become a Sith. Showcase the torture the Emperor put him through. Show how you as the player would have made the same mistakes and ended up a Sith.”
Red Fly, however, is open to making changes. After someone on Reddit wonderingly pointed out how unrealistic Red Fly’s chances of succeeding with EA might be due to Disney and LFL’s focus on the original trilogy of late, Borth replied,
"“That’s a fair point. I don’t know what [our] chances are realistically. I would say this helps them if there were any. Hopefully EA will see the value in us reskinning our combat mechanic to be more in line with what they are thinking for Star Wars if they are not interested in maul.”"
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So even if EA isn’t interested in a video game concentrating on Maul, the game could still come to fruition, just with a different character focus. Perhaps Red Fly could explore Kylo Ren’s transformation into a Knight of Ren, or Boba Fett’s exploits (if he has any) following Return of the Jedi.
Borth also said exactly what the first step in getting this game off the ground.
"We would need to complete our vertical slice of the game – a fully functioning complete portion of the game or as close to it as possible and put it in front of EA and also talk with Disney. EA has the rights to Star Wars on console and PC so it would be up to them to Green Light it. For them they would need to be convinced we could do the game and that it fit into their new vision."
Among other things, the game was to feature a scene where Palpatine, AKA Darth Sidious and Maul’s master, killed his own master, Darth Plagueis. The story of the game would also explain what happened to Maul that made him into the “wild animal” he becomes.
If you want to support this game, Borth encourages you to use #WeWantMaul on EA’s and Disney’s social media.