 While she was planned to be a partner from the start, she was initially planned to be a lawyer-in-training.For "Spirit of Justice", it was decided early on to bring Maya back, due to frequent requests for her return from "Dual Destinies" players.The developers worried a lot about how she would be received, with the game's producer Motohide Eshiro saying that they were certain that people would criticize the use of the character regardless of what they did.