‘Star Wars: Squadrons’ is finally the first-person space combat game we’ve been horny for!
EA is finally giving all of us dirty bastards what we’ve been clamoring for. Yup, they’re giving us a first-person dogfighting game!
Kotaku:
Today, EA officially revealed Star Wars: Squadrons, their next big Star Wars game. It will be released for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 2 and will support crossplay. While on PC and PS4 it will also support VR.
Squadrons will focus on space combat, featuring first-person starship action. The game takes place after the events of Return of The Jedi. Based on the trailer EA released today, it appears Squadrons will include various ship designs seen in the original trilogy films, as well as Rogue One. It will feature both multiplayer game modes and as a single-player campaign.
The campaign stars two small groups of fighter pilots. One part of the New Republic and the other part of the remnants of the Empire after the destruction of the second Death Star. Online multiplayer will be 5v5 and support crossplay.
Players can earn and unlock customization items to improve the performance of their ships and change how they look, though EA stressed in a press release that these items can only be earned “solely through gameplay.” So not loot boxes, it seems. That’s probably the right choice considering the last time EA included loot boxes in a Star Wars game multiple governments around the world got involved.
This new Star Wars game is being developed by Motive Studios, the same developer who worked on the single-player campaign portion of Star Wars: Battlefront II. As reported by Kotaku earlier this year, it appears that the previously leaked Star Wars game in development, then called Project Maverick, is Squadrons. Project Maverick was reported to be a more “unusual project” being developed by EA Motive. A first-person space combat-focused game with crossplay and VR seems to fit that description.
For Star Wars video game fans, the last decade has been rough. EA has canceled numerous projects and only released a few big Star Wars games, like Fallen Order and Battlefront II, over the last few years. It’s nice to see a new, big Star Wars game coming from EA. I’m also pleased to see it focuses on something other than Jedi. We got enough of those games already.
Star Wars Squadrons is coming out on October 2, 2020, for PS4, Xbox One, and PC. On PC it will be sold on the Epic Games Store, Origin, and Steam. It will support crossplay between all platforms.