The Acolyte Inspired By This Iconic Star Wars Game

There’s still a lot we don’t know about The Acolyte, the upcoming Star Wars live-action series on Disney+ that takes place roughly 100 years before the prequel trilogy. While most of the main characters of the show have been revealed, the trailers have only offered a few fleeting glimpses of an assassin whose face is hidden by a mask. Now, series creator Leslye Headland is shedding some light on the inspiration behind that character, and it came from a classic Star Wars video game.

Via Den of Geek, Headland confirmed that the character that caught her eye was Darth Traya, the primary villain of 2004’s Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.

“Darth Traya really stuck out to me as an inspiration,” noted Headland, who also revealed that she was tempted to introduce another figure from the lore of the Sith.

“I really toyed with utilizing Darth Bane or mentioning Bane,” said Headland. “We do not do it in the first season, but it is obviously the legacy of these practitioners of the dark side… While we don’t get into that particular lore, there were some things in Legends that I wanted to drag out because I felt they were really interesting, not only to the storyline but to myself as a fan. I thought, ‘Well, I’d love to do that.'”

Headland also explained why she decided to pick a time period where the Sith were at a significant disadvantage against the Jedi.

“In live-action, you haven’t seen the Sith as the underdogs, as wildly outnumbered by the number of Jedi that are in the universe. It seemed interesting to me to explore that,” said Headland.

The Acolyte will premiere on Disney+ with two episodes on June 4.