Being more of a space sim pilot in the past, it’s been a while since I picked up something new but Star Wars Squadrons might just be the thing that gets use as close to something as good as X-Wing or TIE Fighter were back in the 90’s. New gameplay footage and several articles posted in the gaming press recently have me excited – even the ones that are complaining that this is a little too much of a sim for them. That sounds good to me! Let’s have a look!
New gameplay videos
EA has reached out to various members of their “EA Gamechangers” group which are typically YouTube content creators that have a special relationship and usually get early access to pre-released content from EA Games. These gamechangers and other members of the gaming press have been playing the new game, recording footage, and talking about what it’s like.
First up we have Jackfrags who seemed to get the hang of it and was enjoying it quite a bit.
Then, Gameinformer has a group discussion on the space combat game talking through the game and what they like and don’t about it.
Finally, some really good content from EckhartsLadder who really seemed to enjoy it.
From the press
We’ve also got several articles having been published by the gaming press. This is more mainstream than anything I typically talk about so it’s a bit weird for me to link to PC Gamer or The Verge but here we are. There’s some interesting discussions here and for me, at least, I like the fact that they are talking up the learning curve and how this is intended to be a more sim-like experience.
- Star Wars: Squadrons is chaotic, exhilarating, and very difficult (The Verge)
- Hands-on with Star Wars: Squadrons’ Fleet Battles (Polygon)
- Star Wars: Squadrons Price A “Risk” But May Get People Curious, Says Director
Looking forward to release that is coming October 22nd for a pretty reasonable price of $40 USD.
Stormbirds 
This one looks pretty exciting indeed and should be a blast in VR. And I agree with you that it’ll be a good thing if this game turns out to be more of a sim than an arcade shooter.
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Yes, this is looking like it’s going to be a whole lot of fun 🙂
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There are already other games out there with the same skill based gameplay and mechanics. They failed because people just stopped playing once the “pros” dominated. Nobody likes to die all the time.
Games like Elite Dangerous CQC, Eve Valkirie, or even the grindy Star Conflict. All of them are skill based where being good usually means you can ROFLSTOMP the enemy team with easy, specially if you don’t have another “ace” in front of you.
Sure I expect Squadrons to just fare better because of the IP they offer but still the best part of the old X wing games was the campaign and story mode. Multiplayer was a sidegrade. I’m afraid it will get old quite soon.
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Couple of things to keep in mind, this is the first sim heavy game done in the genre for a very long time, so I don’t think they went full AAA with this one. I’d expect if this is successful we may see a AAA single player treatment.
Also, this will have a ranked matchmaker, so, in theory, we should see the top aces facing off more against each other instead of the guy who just picked up a controller for the first time. Given the cost, cross play, and hype building up, I’d expect we’ll see a deep enough player base at launch to support a solid matching system. Now, whether their servers can take it at launch without melting down the east coast is an entirely different question…
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Look like a total fail based on “pew-pew-pew” with zero soul (do the Rebels and Imps just let pilots move between them? News to me). What was the video about? Is there a proper campaign? Does it reference any of the films? Would any player care beyond the Fortnite crowd? The energy management is ‘difficult’ – wait, whut…was simple enough to me aged 12. You can play with mouse and keyboard? Oh, puhlease….
I have a good idea:
1) Make new engine with VR
2) Update X-Wing and Tie Fighter
3) Sell for lots of money.
Oh, they only got as far as 1)…that’s my money off the table
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You should look into the X-Wing Alliance Upgrade project. They’ve already got XWA modded to support VR, and there are ways to get the original X-Wing and TIE Fighter campaigns more or less running in the engine. It’s a bit fiddly to get going but it does work.
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I’m not a competitive multiplayer gamer, so I have high hopes for the SP campaign. Experiencing Star Wars fighters in VR is almost a dream come true.
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It’s going to be a multiplayer focused game and the campaign is expected to be fairly short, so definitely want to manage expectations there.
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Tried to get Tie Fighter running but never works / constant crashes.
I am eternally puzzled by the inability of game designers to look at what was outstandingly successful and take some hints. It’s not exactly hard.
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I suspect it’s less the game designers and more the corporate executives that get to make far too many decisions these days. We’re fortunate for all of the problems that most of our sims have these days that they are mostly off the corporate execs radar.
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The single player sounds more like a limited run training campaign to help you get used to the ships before tossing you into multiplayer.
That said, it looks like there are cutscenes and good voice actors so I might be a fun experience. Doubly so for VR!
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