Star Wars: Squadrons Review

Star Wars Squadrons is a small look at how good Star Wars games can be in the modern era. I love it, having played roughly a dozen hours between the campaign and multiplayer it is apparent that EA has taken their hands off the wheel and allowed their Motive studio to design a game for gamers with no microtransactions.

Squadrons feels  much like the space battles in Star Wars Battlefront 2, but with twice as much depth and played entirely in first person.  

The game features 8 ships divided amongst four classes, and each factions ships function differently from each other despite occupying the same role.  In particular, all Imperial fighters, except for the TIE Reaper, lack shields and are thus more susceptible to laser fire but as a trade off, are more maneuverable than their New Republic counterparts and have the ability to activate an emergency transfer of power between weapons and engines allowing them to immediately gain the benefits of diverting power-- a TIE can boost immediately after using this emergency mechanism while an X-Wing must utilize the ordinary universal power diverter and wait for their boost to charge.

Each class of ships has a suite of loadout options that can drastically effect the way that your ship handles and some components are class specific, ranging from specialized ion blasters to enemy seeking mines and hardened hulls. 

I never felt at a direct disadvantage based on my ship builds, it always felt like each build COULD be successful if employed in the right way. This made discovering my own playstyle an enjoyable and educational experience of trial and error. Which reminds me, let’s talk about the skill ceiling of this game.

Star Wars Squadrons has got a satisfying learning curve. When I first started the game it took me about an hour to figure out the intricacies of movement and throttle control but once I had the hang of these basic mechanics a whole world opened up in terms of maneuvering and strategy, bolstered further by power management to increase maneuverability, shielding, or weapons as needed.

The game functions competently with a console controller, but I didn’t even dare try flying with a mouse and keyboard.

Subsequently, dogfighting  is satisfying. Each engagement becomes a battle of wits even more than it is a test of reflexes as you bob and weave between structures and debris trying to shake an opponent or predict the next move and aim of a player or the AI. Especially online where rivalry dynamics can develop between opponents  with nary a word said between them. Outfoxing the ace that keeps shooting you down online even just once can feel like a triumph itself.

The characters here are fucking cool and make a real effort to explore the motivations of these pilots and make them more than  shallow shells of each factions’  philosophy. There is nuance here, including some pilots expressing horror at the violence of war. Given the relatively short length of Squadrons’ campaign, not all of these dynamics are fully explored but it certainly opens the door for interesting character development in a sequel or even an entirely separate canon media piece to explore, which is most likely as Squadrons recognizes other non-film entries into star wars canon without feeling tact on or otherwise meaningless. 

I’ve found myself enjoying the dynamics  between squadron members and have come to like each of them on some level even though the game does not include dialog trees and makes each player character silent besides some mission chatter. 

I’ve attempted to play Squadrons on my Vive Cosmos Elite a few times, and I have to admit, the first time was rough. But only due to my tracking set up. Once I had adequately adjusted my lighthouses and figured out where I needed to sit, playing in VR was amazing. Playing in VR gave me an even greater appreciation of the field of view differences between ships like the TIE and the U wing and actually shifted my habits when trying to visually locate a target. 

The sound design and music in the game are fantastic. Everything sounds like you would expect from the ambient sounds of the mouse droid hanging out in the Imperial hanger to the differing blaster effects between an X-Wing and TIE fighter. The music is evocative of John Williams’ epic and iconic Star Wars work but is sufficiently distinct and appropriate for what is happening on screen.

If you’re into Star Wars or even just flight games, it might be worth checking Squadrons out, it certainly was for me.