For years, long before Disney purchased Lucasfilm and guaranteed we would be getting more Star Wars movies, video games were a great place for fans of a galaxy far, far away to get their fix. For all of the great Star Wars video games we do have and ultimately will be (hopefully) getting in the future, there are plenty that never quite got there, but exist only in idea and leave us to wonder what might have been. One of those games was supposed to center on beloved bad guy Darth Maul, and now some new concept art from the game has surfaced.
This concept art surfaced on the Art Station blog, courtesy of Thomas Szakolczay, who worked on the game back in 2011. Some pieces of art and even an early video that showed a prototype of the game, which had the working title of Star Wars: Maul, have surfaced before. But there are several new pieces of art here that show new characters that would have been introduced in the game, as well as some various looks at Darth Maul and what he would have looked like. Here is what Thomas Szakolczay had to say about the game in his post.
"Back in 2011, I was fortunate enough to work with Lucas Arts and Redfly Studios to help develop the look direction for a new Star Wars IP that centered around Darth Maul. It took place in a future time line sometime after Return of the Jedi and was meant to have a darker, grittier tone. Unfortunately the project was conceived around the same time as the Disney acquisition. it was cancelled after 1 year of development. Definitely dream of getting the opportunity to work on another Star Wars related project, so much fun!"
One of the more interesting pieces of concept art that has been revealed is for a character named Nexus Wan. She is the only Jedi that Thomas Szakolczay designed and has something of a "punk rock" edge to her. She also has not one, but two double-bladed lightsabers, so take that Darth Maul! Her name was also said to be an homage to Blade Runner, which is cool. Additionally, there were designs for a new Sith Emperor and a really threatening looking female Sith named Darth VaGhal. That particular character has a purple lightsaber, reminiscent of Mace Windu's lightsaber from the prequels.
Before Disney came in and reset the Star Wars canon, things were a bit messy between the comics, novels and video games, but even now, it has been made clear that Darth Maul did not die during his encounter with Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. The character has appeared in both the Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels animated series and has a new comic book miniseries coming out from Marvel Comics next month. The point is, even though Star Wars: Maul was canceled, there is no reason a video game like this couldn't exist at some point in the future. Or even a standalone Darth Maul movie that could bring some of these characters back.
The game seems like it would have most resembled Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which dealt with Darth Vader's secret apprentice Starkiller. Star Wars: Maul would have had a darker tone, similar to The Force Unleashed, but the gameplay would have been different in that, the player would also have companions in the form of a droid and Darth Talon, who would execute player commands. One of the storyboards below shows how this would have worked within the game and it would have definitely been interesting. If nothing else, it looks really cool.
Sadly, Star Wars: Maul sits on the large pile of other promising but never realized Star Wars video games like 1313 and Battlefront 3. Who knows? Disney and Lucasfilm are making more video games in the future, so maybe they will resurrect a similar project at some point. For now, you can check out all of the concept art for Star Wars: Maul, as well as some videos that show some neon signage that would have been placed in the game on Coruscant.
