EA confirm October 2 release for Star Wars: Squadrons on Xbox, PS4, PC

Fans of the franchise were disappointed by a change in a previous release and now it looks set to be dumped.

Jack Gramenz

2 min read

June 16, 2020 - 3:35PM

Video game publisher Electronic Arts (EA) has given Star Wars fans something to look forward to with the announcement of a new game centred around dogfighting aerial combat.

Star Wars: Squadrons is an upcoming first-person aerial combat game reminiscent of 1994’s iconic Star Wars: TIE Fighter game.

While TIE Fighter remains a widely lauded game, there hasn’t been a solely aerial combat focused Star Wars game since 2002, and that game was released only on the Nintendo Game Cube, not the two most popular consoles at the time, or even on PC.

Squadrons puts players in the cockpit of a number of the iconic series’ spaceships including the X-Wing, A-Wing, Y-Wing, U-Wing, TIE Fighter, TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber, and TIE Reaper fighters in either head-to-head or multiplayer battles.

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Star Wars: Squadrons releases in October.

In addition to a traditional dogfight mode, gamers can also play “Fleet Battles”, working with teammates to destroy a central ship.

EA is looking to avoid a repeat of the loot box debacle that surrounded 2017’s Star Wars: Battlefront II game’s initial launch by doing away with them altogether.

Loot boxes are a controversial form of in-game upgrade that give players the opportunity to purchase upgrades using real world money, but doesn’t tell them what is in the boxes first.

It will focus on aerial combat in single player and multiplater.

EA will show off gameplay later this week.

Critics say the practice is particularly dangerous because of its similarity to gambling, and has been available in games primarily played by children and teenagers.

In the last game, fans were furious to discover it was practically impossible to unlock iconic characters by grinding away hours in the game.

There were also gameplay-influencing upgrades inside loot boxes that fans feared would create a pay-to-win culture in the multiplayer mode that is found in some “free to play” games.

Squadrons focuses on aerial combat with ships from the franchise.

Loot boxes may be going but you will still get to customise weapons, space craft and shields, with both functional and cosmetic upgrades.

All the upgrades are “earned solely through gameplay”.

In what is becoming excitingly regular for many gamers, Squadrons will also support cross-platform play between Xbox, PlayStation and PC gamers, so they can all game together regardless of their chosen platform.