Who amongst us hasn’t tried to recreate that iconic fight scene from The Phantom Menace in our childhood basements? Okay, so maybe it’s just me and Star Wars Kid, however now you can get your chance too with this super cool Darth Maul Beat Saber mod.
Hardware
First, you’ll want to order one of these fantastic ProSaberVR kits from ProTubeVR. They are available for all major VR platforms, including HTC Vive, Oculus, WindowsMR, and PSVR. It’s really just as simple as slotting your controllers into the molds and tying the wrist strap tethers to the ProTube.
This is the most expensive solution, but also ergonomic and secure, considering that there is a good likelihood that improperly secured controllers could go hurling.
Want to go a more DIY approach? There are several 3D models on Thingiverse for 3D printing your own controller molds that can be attached to PVC. Be sure not to forget to securely tie down the wrist tethers.
Setting Up Beat Saber
First, download and run the ModSaber Installer from GitHub. Scroll down until you find the Darth Maul Plugin under Gameplay Changes, select the checkbox, and then select Install/Update. This will add new options to Beat Saber that will allow you to take advantage of your double-bladed controllers.
Once in Beat Saber, you’ll want to select the No Arrows checkbox. Hitting cubes with arrows enabled is certainly an option too, but exceedingly difficult and lacking flow, so I advise against it. You’ll see a dropdown arrow just under the No Arrows option that will reveal the Darth Maul Settings. Select that now. The Darth Maul checkbox is the only option that’s really needed to play, but you can experiment with the other settings too to find a combination that works for you.
If you’re on PSVR, do not despair. It will still work just fine without the Darth Maul plugin.
Technique
There are a ton of resources online for bo staff technique (i.e. spins, strikes, blocks, etc.) that you can discover yourself and they all translate well to VR.
To get started, the easiest way is with a simple overhand/underhand position on the grip and maneuvering the staff to the four corners in a “box” around your shoulders. The four corners are above the right shoulder, under the right armpit, above the left shoulder, and below the left armpit, and then back to above the right shoulder again. Once you’re comfortable with this movement, you can begin experimenting with using just a single hand, still executing the four corners drill.
You can hit most blocks in this fashion, directing either the blue or red saber to strike their target. One exception to this is when there are red and blue cubes directly across from each other in a plane, requiring you to hit both simultaneously. For these, you will need to position the middle of the tube between them and then quickly twist the blades so that the one end slices downward while the other end slices upwards, hitting both.
Once comfortable with the four-box technique, you can move onto spins and more advanced movements and I’d suggest looking up some videos on that specific technique or watching some of RageSaq’s videos.
Now that you’re set up and ready to go, you’ll find that this mod really changes the entire feel of the game, adding many hours of replayability. Turning off the arrows in the songs means that there are countless different approaches to fighting your way through the blocks and you’ll quickly find that you never play one song exactly the same way twice. Learning how to wield a dual-bladed saber in Beat Saber is a challenge unto itself and feels like learning a new martial arts form, so have patience while you get become familiarized and most importantly have fun with it.
Having good results wielding a dual-bladed lightsaber? Let us know in the comments below!
Update: Mod Saber is currently down, so the installation instructions above will no longer be working correctly. Instead, you can follow our tutorial for installing the Darth Maul mod as well as any others.
