StarWars Squadrons Review

What if I told you in the year 2020, Electronic Arts would release a game with a full campaign, a co-op mode, and a PvP Mode, and it wouldn’t have any DLC or Microtransaction? I can’t believe it either, but it’s here.

EA has consistently milked the StarWars franchise with its reboot of the StarWars Battlefront games, though the first game was arguably good, other than a few interesting game mechanics and unbalanced weapons. StarWars Battlefront 2 was littered with excessive microtransactions that made trying to play the game a grueling grind designed to incentivize people to spend money. This did come with a promise that all DLC would be free to all players, but for a full-price game that everyone knows is going to make a boatload of money anyway, it’s hard to look past. Though these games were very impressive when it comes to gameplay, graphics, and the technical side of things. They sailed through some rough seas. But that’s enough about EA’s past hiccups. Let’s talk about StarWars Squadrons, a game that has been a marvelous addition to my life.

It’s important to note that on top of StarWars Squadrons including what any full-priced game should include, like a story, co-op, PvP, and online and offline play. Squadrons also has full cross-platform support and VR support, including cross-play from VR to the rest of the other platforms. All this for $40 USD or $55 CDN. I haven’t even got to talk about the gameplay yet, but damn this sounds great so far.

Let’s start with the graphics and sound design. Much like previous Star Wars games from EA, this is an easy A for Awesome. The game looks amazing and I have zero complaints about the visuals. The same goes for sound design. Everything from audio cues to let you know your cooldowns are finished, using an ability, or powering up shields. It’s all just spot on when it comes to delivering the most authentic space combat experience. Also yes, when a Tie fighter flies by you, it makes that terrifying yet sexy sound that will instill fear into the hearts of its prey.

The gameplay is also spot on but I have one complaint. For whatever reason while playing on PC with my Xbox One controller. There is no middle ground between turning as fast as I can and not turning at all. It’s not that big a deal but it’s still strange, I assume it’s a bug, but I’m not sure. Playing this game really gives you a perspective of how momentum works, even in space. Depending on your role on the team, strategy, or your play style, you may want to be more or less agile. I can tell you from 20 hours of experience, hunting down a fast and agile enemy is a pain in the butt. But when you finally outmaneuver them and dodge and weave astroids with more speed, finally opening them up for the chance to blast them. It's the most rewarding and satisfying feeling.

Customization and balancing so far feel really well done. You can tell this game has been playtested a lot. No weapon or ability has stood out to me yet as overpowered or underpowered. Everything has its place and purpose. Each ship feels unique giving you pros and cons, even the X-Wing and the Empire equivalent Tie-Fighter feel very different. Next, you can customize your character and all your ships. You can change pants, tops, pilots outfits, helmets, and your character’s head and voice. You can change your Ships’ paint job along with adding symbols and fun little doodads to the inside of your ship’s cockpit. For example, a bobblehead of an Ewok to your dashboard. Lastly, you can customize your ship’s loadout. Meaning primary weapons, engines, shields, counter-measures for avoiding being shot down, and rockets.

There are a couple of major differences between the two faction’s ships. The ships for the New Republic have shields that you can manually shift from front to back or to balance both front and back. Meanwhile, the Imperial’s ships don’t have shields of any kind, instead, they have more health, or the proper name “Hull.” Also, Imperial ships are able to shift all their charged-up power from guns or engines, over to the other instantly. So if you are charging up your engines and catch up to someone, you can shift all power to your guns to make sure you don’t run out of ammo. It’s hard to know which team I prefer, but either way, it feels incredibly balanced with this asymmetrical combat. I generally find the Imperial ships to have more potential to be more agile when in the hands of a skilled pilot, while the New Republic ships can survive more beatings when their shields are overcharged. This forces players to play differently and mix up their strategy from one match to another.

This game isn’t perfect though. The campaign feels like a glorified tutorial which is of course useful to those who are still learning the ropes, especially in a game that takes player vs player space combat to a new level. Many players will be new to this type of game and will need time to get comfortable with the controls and strategies. I can’t say the story of the campaign was much good, I didn’t care for it much at all. However, that could be because I was too eager to rush into multiplayer. The game also currently has a few bugs, but nothing too major as far as I can tell. But it does make the experience a bit rough at times. Something I’m sure will be ironed out soon. I’d say my biggest complaint is that the menu system is heavier than it needs to be. Everything taking place in a 3D environment with great detail looks great and probably feels great for those with high-end PCs. But even for my PC with a GTX 1070, in VR it doesn’t make those menu transitions smoothly and it seems overly fancy and not necessary.

I just want to briefly talk about how this game differs when played in VR. It’s a whole different experience. It’s better, it’s actually easier to control and navigate. Also, you are seeing the world around you in 3D giving you much faster and more accurate estimations as to how far away enemies and asteroids are. Being able to look around in your cockpit and look side to side and up and down to track enemies as they fly by, makes your job easier and more immersive. I play with no HUD other than the setting that marks which enemies are real players or just AI bots. I went 5 hours the other day without removing my VR headset, I was lost in this game and loved every second of it. If you have the option to play this in VR, do it. It also adds one more difference between the Ships, as Imperial ships have a very small field of view with just one window at the front, while the New Republic ships have an almost infinite field of view other than below them.

At the end of the day, it’s an amazing game for a good price. No DLC, no Microtransaction, and it has all the features that any game should have. The lack of future content coming to this game is both good and bad in my opinion. As much as I’d like to see new ships added, new levels, or even the Prequal Era added to this game. It might be best to let the game be played by those players who truly just enjoy space combat. It’s a solid niche that will enjoy the game despite the lack of future content. The community playing this game will develop loads of in-depth strategies and I can see it becoming very competitive. I think it will be great to see players push this game to its limits. I’m glad to be a part of it. Now time to go boot up the game, what can I say? This is where the fun begins.