Star Wars: Squadrons

Star Wars: Squadrons is a first-person action-adventure flight simulator Star Wars video game published by Electronic Arts. It was released on October 2, 2020 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and virtual reality on PlayStation 4 and PC, with crossplay between all platforms.^[2]

Developed by Motive Studios, the game features a singleplayer story and two multiplayer modes that put players in the cockpit of various starfighters from the Star Wars universe.

Gameplay[]

Gameplay in Squadrons is centered around team-based starfighter combat.^[2] In multiplayer, players work together in teams of five to defeat an opposing team in various modes.

Various input methods are supported on PC, allowing players to play the game with mouse and keyboard, hands on throttle-and-stick (HOTAS), and controller. The PC and PlayStation 4 versions support virtual reality.^[3]

While controller was initially the only supported input on console,^[3] a day one patch brought HOTAS support to consoles. ^[4]

Modes[]

There are three modes in Squadrons: the story mode and two multiplayer modes. All multiplayer modes are 5v5.

Story[]

Main article: Story

The majority of the game's story takes place after the events of Return of the Jedi and alternates between the perspectives of a pilot in the New Republic and the Galactic Empire, which revolves around the New Republic's quest to build Project Starhawk. The story features several new characters as well as cameos from known Star Wars characters. Additionally, the two pilots followed in the story are customizable.^[2]

Dogfight[]

Main article: Dogfight

Dogfight is a classic team deathmatch mode where both teams try to defeat as many starfighters as they can. Whichever side reaches the elimination goal first, or has the most kills by the time the match timer runs out, wins.^[5]

Fleet Battles[]

Main article: Fleet Battles

In Fleet Battles, both teams try to destroy the other team's flagship in three different stages.

The first stage is a dogfight at the center of the map. The team that defeats more starfighters proceeds to the second stage, where they are tasked with destroying the other team's two capital ships. At the same time, however, the winning team has to continue to defend their starfighters, as the other team will still be trying to reach the elimination goal that will allow their AI starfighters to attack the other team's capital ships. In this way, Fleet Battles requires a delicate balance of attack and defend and is described as a "tug-of-war" by one of the game's community managers.^[6] The ultimate goal is to clear a path to the enemy's flagship. In this third and final stage, a team is tasked with attacking and destroying the critical subsystems of the enemy flagship in order to bring it down. The first team to destroy a flagship wins the match.

Although the common terminology used to refer to the different objectives a squadron can complete in order to expose the enemy flagship is "stages," there are actually no distinct phase changes in Fleet Battles, meaning that it is possible for one team to try to attack the enemy flagship right away.^[7]

Fleet Battles can be played online or offline against AI.

Additionally, Fleet Battles can be played in a ranked mode, meaning that players of similar skill level will be faced against each other.^[8] Playing the game mode against AI (offline) or unranked does not count toward ranking; playing against AI offline does not count towards progression and challenges.^[8]

Progression[]

Players move through ranks that grant them access to components that make their starfighter more powerful.^[2] Components are purchased with Requisition. Players can customize their starfighter, their cockpit, and their pilot with visual cosmetics, which are purchased with Glory.^[2] All content from the game can be earned through gameplay and/or playtime. There are no microtransactions.^[9]

A majority of the progression in multiplayer is done in the Fleet Battles mode, which groups players into a different rank.

Maps[]

Seven maps are available in multiplayer modes.

Characters[]

List of all characters in Star Wars: Squadrons, playable and non-playable.

New Republic[]

Vanguard Squadron[]

Galactic Empire[]

Titan Squadron[]

Units[]

List of all units in Star Wars: Squadrons, playable and non-playable.

Playable fighters are divided into four classes, Fighter, Interceptor, Bomber, and Support. The B-wing and TIE Defender were added in Update 4.0.

New Republic[]

MC75 Star Cruiser (flagship)
EF76 Nebulon-B frigate (capital ship)
CR90 corvette (corvette)
T-65B X-wing (fighter)
A/SF-01 B-wing (new starfighters) (added Update 4.0^[10])
BTL-A4 Y-wing (bomber)
RZ-1 A-wing (interceptor)
UT-60D U-wing (support)

Galactic Empire[]

Imperial-class Star Destroyer (flagship)
Arquitens-class command cruiser (capital ship)
Raider-class corvette (corvette)
TIE/ln fighter (fighter)
TIE/d defender (new starfighters) (added Update 4.0^[10])
TIE/sa bomber (bomber)
TIE/IN interceptor (interceptor)
TIE/rp Reaper (support)

History[]

Pre-release[]

The game was announced on June 15, 2020 in a press release on the official Star Wars website, accompanied by an official trailer. The press release provided a general overview of the game, including that it would be set after Return of the Jedi and focus exclusively on starfighter combat. It also revealed that Motive Studios was working on the game and that the release date on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC would be October 2, 2020.

On June 18, the official gameplay trailer was released on the EA Star Wars YouTube channel as part of EA Play 2020. The gameplay trailer went into more detail about the game's singleplayer campaign and two multiplayer modes. Motive Studios Creative Director Ian Frazier in the EA Play livestream revealed that development for Squadrons began in 2017 when the studio finished the campaign for the video game Star Wars Battlefront II.^[11] Frazier described Squadrons as "trying to pull from the spiritual heritage" of the first Star Wars flight-simulator video games, such as Star Wars: X-Wing and Star Wars: TIE Fighter, while at the same time "doing something fresh and new for the fans today."^[12]

After EA Play 2020, more information about the game was released across various video game news outlets. On June 20, a GameInformer article revealed that the game would not be following a live-service model and would not have any microtransactions, with Ian Frazier saying, "[Star Wars: Squadrons] isn't something we are building around a live-service strategy. It's built around a game that is complete and great in its own right. That's not to say we will never add anything, I guess we could, but it's not presented as a live service."^[9] An IGN article published on July 3 revealed the depth in which players could control how authentic their experience in Squadrons could be, including the ability to hide other players' starfighter customization.^[13]

On July 15, more information on the game's eight different starfighters were detailed in a Pilot Briefing on the game's website.^[14]

On July 23, several YouTubers released early gameplay footage captured at an event hosted by EA.^[15] The videos previewed Fleet Battles and Dogfight, as well as various customization options available in the game.

On August 15, a blog post detailing the game's customization options was released on the game's website.^[16]

On August 27, a trailer for the singleplayer story was posted on the EA Star Wars YouTube channel. A blog post detailing more information on the singleplayer story was also released.^[17]

On September 14, a CG short named "Hunted" premiered on YouTube, focusing on one of the characters in the game's story: the Imperial pilot Varko Gray. The short was made by Motive Studios in collaboration with Lucasfilm and ILM and a blog post on StarWars.com released detailing behind-the-scenes information on the development of the CG short.^[18]

Post-release[]

While the game isn't intended to be a live-service game, unlike DICE's Star Wars Battlefront II,^[9] patches fixing issues in the game have been released, the first being Update 1.1 on October 8, 2020.^[19]

While not releasing directly for them at launch, Squadrons is enhanced for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X or S:^[20]

The PlayStation 5 gains improved lighting, but otherwise runs "at the same resolution and framerate as on the PS4 Pro". Currently, it is unknown if variable refresh rates, graphics mode toggle or 120 FPS is coming to this specific version of the game.
The Xbox Series X and S gains support for variable refresh rates and will have an option to toggle between better visual fidelity or better performance.
- Setting the graphics mode to visual fidelity improves lighting and has the ability to run at 1440p 60fps, on the Series S, and 2160p (4K) 120fps on the Series X, and Performance mode ramps all FPS to 120fps, with support for 4K on the Series X.

An existing copy of Squadrons, be it disc or digital, can be used to upgrade to the next-gen version.

New content has been released in the form of cosmetics, including Twitch Prime-exclusive cosmetics, in addition to a new map, ships and private matches which arrived between November and December 2020.^[10] The ability to set up private matches led to a wide amount of community-run tournaments like the Calrissian Cup, which highlights Squadrons' potential to become an e-sports game.

In 2021, the game was given some bug fixes and general improvements. The game's last content update was the December 2020 update, with the last cosmetic drop - a May the 4th themed drop - being released on May the 4th.^[21] The last server-side balancing update occured on May 7th.^[22] New Operations will continue to run throughout 2021 and future years.