Perennial Star Wars fan favorite Darth Maul is back in his own Disney Plus series. In the first Shadow Lord trailer, it looks like Sith is about to hit the fan for those in the orbit of the iconic villain.

The teaser, which you can see above, sees Maul making his mark once more in a galaxy far, far away, even getting on the radar of an Empire that wants him dead. It appears Inquisitor Marrok is one of the first on Maul's tail.

From there, there's action aplenty as Maul draws in his new apprentice, a Twi'lek. It all amounts to one of the more intriguing Star Wars projects in some time: Maul, positioned as neither hero nor villain, trying to shape the galaxy in his own imperfect image.

Taking place around a year after the events of The Clone Wars, Sam Witwer once again returns to voice Maul. As revealed at a Star Wars Celebration 2025 panel, Witwer is also involved creatively with the project.

"I'm very excited about him being able to review the scripts and provide input in all of that as well," Lucasfilm animation vice president Athena Portillo said at the Tokyo panel (via Variety). "Dave Filoni and Sam created the character for animation, and so it’s very important to hear his thoughts as well for the character depth."

The event also featured a separate, behind-closed-doors trailer that gave fans at Star Wars Celebration a first glimpse of Maul and his newfound protege.

Speaking to IGN, Maul also hinted that the Shadow Lord series will wrestle with the Sith's hated Jedi no longer being a force (pun not intended) in a galaxy far, far away.

"He was trained his entire life to hate and kill Jedi, and he killed more Jedi than people were aware of in the Clone Wars," Witwer said. "And now they’re gone. How does he feel about the Jedi, his sworn enemy – how does he feel about them now that they are gone?"

The first two episodes of Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord are released on Disney Plus on April 6.

For more, check out the upcoming Star Wars movies coming your way very soon.

Reacting to claims made by New Blood's CEO that Epic Games Store's free giveaways supposedly cause a boost in Steam sales, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney is once again unhappy with his store's lot in life.

"On some transactions, Epic wins. On more, Steam wins. But one thing is constant on every transaction: gamers and developers win by having more options and better deals", says Sweeney.

This time, Sweeney's comments were challenged in a long thread by Michael Douse, the publishing director at Larian Studios, makers of Baldur's Gate 3 and the upcoming Divinity. Douse chimes in with added context about Remedy's critically-acclaimed Alan Wake 2, which took over a year and two million sales before it became profitable, arguably partly due to its Epic Games Store exclusivity.

"I understand Epic entirely funded Alan Wake 2 but this altruistic pro-developer talk doesn't sit well when Remedy seemingly went into financial crisis because they couldn't tap Steam for AW2 sales suffering potentially hundreds of millions in lost revenue," says Douse.

He goes on to add, "Competition is good, and important, but it is difficult to buy the message when there are demonstrable cases of games underperforming as a result of the tactic."

Bringing things back to Epic's strategy of tempting players to its platform with free games, Douse says, "the viability of the store sits on their ability to convert hundreds of millions of Fortnite players into mid-hardcore premium gamers, and I don't see the Fortnite brand attempting to do that."

"Giving everyone everything for free might bump numbers but doesn't create a viable storefront from which to sell premium experiences."

I'll add that, if the Epic Games Store aspires to be a true competitor to Steam, then it should start by offering a comparable, robust platform before splashing the cash, handing out free games like a bribe, and nabbing seemingly permanent exclusives on PC (though in Alan Wake 2's case, Epic did fund it). Maybe then I'd be more tempted to even play the free games I own over there before considering buying them on Steam instead, like I've done on a few occasions now.